"It is a sprawling, often allegorical tale that ranges from Mr. Ferguson's native Scotland to Los Angeles, where he lives now, and includes a rambunctious, sometimes violent road trip through the American South. Its main characters include two old friends from Scotland, one of them a television evangelist whose program is derailed by a sex scandal; a femme fatale who has killed off six husbands; and a pair of half brothers sired by Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford in their Rat Pack days. ("Ring-a-ding-ding," Mr. Ferguson writes, appropriating one of Sinatra's signature lines.)
Among the other figures who make cameos, as Mr. Ferguson sends up Las Vegas and Hollywood, to say nothing of Christianity, Scientology, television news and the escort industry, are Carl Jung (wearing a Cossack's uniform in one dream sequence), Larry King and Socrates.
The book, which tops off at 329 pages, is filled with many surprises. Chief among them is probably this: unlike other television stars who have moonlighted as authors, including Jay Leno (the children's book "If Roast Beef Could Fly" in 2004) and Drew Carey ("Dirty Jokes and Beer: Stories of the Unrefined," in 1997) Mr. Ferguson has written a work of literary fiction, one that periodically tips its cap to Mikhail Bulgakov, Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Campbell, Jung, Mark Twain and Herman Melville, among many others."
Well done, Mr Ferguson.
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