{moszoomthumb imgid=655 itemid=74 style_m=2}by Tom Robbins
Bantam Books, 1980, 277 pages

Of the 6 billion people on the planet, 1 percent of them have red hair. Until recently (or possibly still), redheads had been regarded in many cultures as evil or other-worldly, quick to temper, afraid of the sun. So, it makes perfect sense that Tom Robbins, himself a 1-percenter, would fuse redheaded lore with the angst of love and teenagedom.

Lusty, busty, redheaded Leigh-Cheri could almost pass for a normal teenager, were it not for the fact that she is a princess from deposed European royalty under CIA-protection in suburban Seattle. She lives with her mother, Queen Tilli, who is fond of opera and her Chihuahua, and her father, King Max, who loves to gamble and has a prosthetic heart. (“The noise that his heart valve produced sounded like two mechanical mice making love in a spoon drawer.”)

Recently, Leigh-Cheri has been expelled from school for having inappropriate relations with the school jock. So, she devotes her time to her passion—enviromental issues—and gets permission from her parents to attend Care Fest, a liberal convention in Hawaii, where her idol Ralph Nader is one of the guest speakers. In Hawaii, Leigh-Cheri meets a couple claiming to be from the planet Argon, where redheads are considered to be evil moon-worshippers made of “sugar and lust.” (“It was a rude thing to say, particularly in Hawaii, where sugar and lust surpassed even pineapples and marijuana as cash crops.”)

Also attending Care Fest is mysterious, dark haired Bernard, a mad bomber known to the police as the Woodpecker. He shows up at Care Fest with every intention of blowing it up. But, after a bit too much tequila, he instead accidentally blows up a UFO conference, which the Argonian couple were attending. When Leigh-Cheri finds out who Bernard is, she attempts to make a citizen’s arrest, and the two promptly fall in love. Naturally. What teenage girl wouldn’t want a sexy outlaw for a boyfriend? And, as it turns out, Bernard is a redhead, too. (“This is the color I busted out of the womb with.”)

The fiery new pair frame the prejudiced Argonians for the bombing and returns to Leigh-Cheri’s home in Seattle, where their courtship continues in the dramatic way teenage love does. (“May we be eaten by starving baby ostriches if we can’t concoct a secret way to meet.”) But all is not so simple.

Bernard finds it increasingly difficult to integrate himself into the royal family while trying to remain hidden from the police, despite his growing love for the princess. To make matters worse, he ends up getting himself arrested for his bombings. Leigh-Cheri does what any pouting teenage girl would do: She goes into self-imposed exile in the attic, attempting to experience the isolated conditions Bernard must be experiencing in jail. It is here that “Woodpecker” goes from weird and fun to weird and brilliant, as Leigh-Cheri spends her days imagining a world filled with pyramids, redheads and Camel cigarette packs, and wonders if her love with Bernard will last.

Robbins’ book is a steady barrage of quips, one-liners and zingers, flying as fast as oncoming traffic on a highway. But never does he become too clever for his own good. The absurdity of it all is what makes the book so fresh, even after 27 years, due in part to the clever narration—a mix of first and third person and brilliant, funny observations:

“Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.
Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.
Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of the bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.
There is only one serious question. And that is:
Who knows how to make love stay?
Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself.”

Take note, like all Robbins’ work, “Woodpecker” is a bit of a raunchy read and not for the easily offended.