The Review of Contemporary Fiction
Meteor in the Madhouse by Leon ForrestNancy D. Tolson
Leon Forrest. Meteor in the Madhouse. Ed. and intro. John G. Cawelti and Merle Drown. Foreword Marianne Forrest. Triquarterly Books, 2001. 273 pp. $26.95.
The late Leon Forrest created this jazzy blues collection that focuses once more on the surrounding life of Joubert Antoine Jones, famous playwright, and revisits the familiar yet unfamiliar setting of Forest County that began in his novel Divine Days (1992). Meteor in the Madhouse is a literary musical arrangement made up of five novellas that reveal family connections, mystical tales, and stories of how the Jones family made their way up from Forrest County, Mississippi to Forest County, Illinois. Leon Forrest died before he was able to complete the editing of Meteor in the Madhouse, but after a request from his wife, Marianne, close and longtime friends John G. Cawelti and Merle Drown completed the task. Cawelti admits to adding “nothing of significance and in some cases left minor breaks and inconsistencies rather than trying to invent something to fill them.” Romare Bearden’s The Block was the image selected for the jacket cover; this image represents perfectly the world in which Leon Forrest created. Bearden’s artistry celebrates a blues aesthetic in the abstract, identical to the spirit of the people in Forest County. Joubert Antoine Jones’s life is reflected in Bearden’s image through the southern humor of his grandparents; the intellect and guidance of his stepmother/aunt, Eloise; the Billie Holiday-themed life of his Aunt Lucasta; and the strange commitment to his cousin, Leonard Foster, a mentally unstable poet. Each novella stands alone, yet pieced together they reveal to the reader a clearer understanding of the protagonist’s world. Leon Forrest’s literary melodies demonstrate his writing versatility through urban fantasies, historical flashbacks, satire, tragedy, humor, and passion inside a county named after himself. Forrest created a cultural diary that recorded the methods of endurance that will allow readers to remember his literary gift forever. [Nancy D. Tolson]