Madame Curie's Piano Tuner

<p>When newly licensed piano tuner RAYMOND DOVER visits the burg of Bucksnort his intent is to provide services for a veteran's retirement home. Shortly after arrival he's stricken with a mysterious amnesia and subsequently obliged to spend time at a county bughouse (Dixxmont) for observation and treatment. Therapeutic success leads to discharge and Ray subsequently decides to stay on awhile in the area.</p><p><br></p><p>Bucksnort is archetypical small-town America; a dream town of wearisome proportions; a sometimes metropolis with all the attendant vexations of other city centers but still with the blinkered tar black menace. It is impossible to <em>know</em> anyone in Bucksnort and after frequenting it's also impossible to care.</p><p><br></p><p>Whether found or invented history varied characters present some historical while scores of others are conceived on the run. Recognizable eras are also referenced; timelines are breached and boarded and together with the myriad personalities are riffled and sailed across the page like casino playing cards.</p><p><br></p><p><em>Madame Curie's Piano Tuner</em> is a loose less than linear assemblage of scenes scenarios staged bits gags etc. recounted by Ray. Soon enough the moderately-adjusted reader may adjudge him an unreliable narrator. Still for<em> these times</em> he's reliable enough and though a vocal faction may seek to blow the confines Ray makes clear long before final words are laid to page that exiting Bucksnort is easier said than done.</p>