Ron Cooper, Hume's Fork

Hume's Fork

Ron Cooper

Bancroft, Mar 2007, $25.00

ISBN: 1890862509

At Florida AmWorld University, philosophy Professor Legare Hume knows he is a fraud, but he has a job so what does it matter. Plenty, he must give a presentation at a professional convention to obtain tenure and has an opportunity at the American Philosophical Association's annual meeting in Charleston, South Carolina. The night before the convention begins, he informs his wife Tally that he is attending without her. She is irate and hits him with their best china; albeit a chipped dish. Still, Legare calls his associate, brilliant Saul Grossman to pick him up as they will go together.

After a circuitous drive to avoid bad bridges, Saul and Legare reach the hotel only to find they have no reservation nor are there any rooms available. Legare reluctantly takes Saul to the home of his parents, realizing the genius manipulated him to meet his sister Willie whose picture Saul has seen. As wrestlers give talks at the convention and his family wonder why Tally, whom they cherish more than the prodigal son, is not with him, Hume suddenly turns ill while deadly family secrets surface that leave him pondering to be or not to be that is not the question Descartes asked.

Using philosophical debate including in the professional wrestling ring as a backdrop to a combo buddy trek and family drama, Ron Cooper provides a deep, poignant tale that focuses on HUME'S FORK in life. The storyline is character driven as Hume provides a series of simple treatises on philosophy interwoven with his extended family's antics, other philosophers' arguments, apocalyptic wrestling and NASCAR and the final Tally. Fans who enjoy something different and unique will appreciate Mr. Cooper's satirical take on the American way of I am therefore I don't think, living philosophically that is.

Harriet Klausner