Hume’s Fork: A Novel

By: Ron Cooper

Narrated by: Brad Holbrook

Barely adequate philosophy professor Legare Hume has a mind-body problem. No matter how far he goes, no matter how hard he thinks, he can’t escape the world he lives in. On the run from his wife Tally, Legare joins brilliant but exceptionally awkward colleague Saul Grossman to attend the American Philosophical Association’s Charleston, SC conference, where worlds and walks of life collide in a strange and satirical amalgamation that can only be described as reality.

Legare’s mission is simple enough: Put up with the conference, deliver a paper he never thought anyone would want to hear, receive the tenure he isn’t sure he wants, and return, or not, to the wife who nearly killed him before he left. But his plans are hijacked by a botched hotel reservation and the all-too-convenient presence of the Southern family Legare has worked very hard all his adult life to avoid.

Circumstances - namely the inconvenient death of a mentally challenged uncle - bring the whole family together: Mama and the Old Man, his backwards but well-meaning parents; too-religious Aunt Arlene and irritating Uncle Spessard; and Uncle Rembert, whose shady goings-on may force Legare to actually take action for once in his passive life. The only two family members he can tolerate are his sensible sister Willie, and her endearing son Unitas, but even relations there go south, so to speak, when the introverted Saul falls head over heels for Willie.

Meanwhile, wrestlers in the guise of religious figures enact the Apocalypse; wrestlers philosophize and philosophers wrestle; Southern family and western philosophy join forces as religion and determined atheism prove not to be all that far apart. The mind-body argument is solved, then unsolved, then solved again. Dismantled theories are defended at gunpoint. Philosophical celebrities are created through competitive tic-tac-toe matches.

And through it all, there’s Lucian, Legare’s late brother, who killed himself years ago. What does his death mean? What’s the family secret Legare has been hiding from? What’s there to learn from this rapid-fire collision of worlds, where all kinds of people and all kinds of views are inherently and bizarrely connected? And what will it take for Legare to be both in and of the world?

Hume’s Fork is a brilliantly satirical and philosophical novel, every bit as funny as it is intelligent - a true original. Legare’s conflict - Hume’s fork, if you will - becomes the rlistener’s, for all worlds are one, and nothing can truly be separate from everything else.

©2009 Ron Cooper (P)2020 Bancroft Press

Great story, well told

I highly recommend this new audio-book. The narrator gives robust life to the improbable, but believable, the clash between sophisticated college professors and the people of rural South Carolina during a philosophy conference set in Charleston, SC. It's a funny tale, made more entertaining in audio-book form, that builds to a harrowing climax. Well done!

All thumbs up!!

This book has been out for a while, but with the audio version just released the story has a vivid new life. Well worth hearing.

Wonderfully engaging performance!

Listening to this compelling first-person account of a college professor's trials and tribulations in the character-rich collision of academe, pro wrestling and the good old' boys and gals of South Carolina's Low County is like listening to a radio play. Narrator Holbrook gives life to a wide variety of colorful people and events that are, at times, hilarious and terrifying. Highly recommend a listen.

Brilliantly Funny

A brilliant novel that should not work. Two philosophy professors going to a convention in the deep south. What should be boring, or at least pretentious, is instead a hilarious, delightfully well written novel that makes you want to read every work the author has ever written. It should be on everybody’s top ten lists of great novels. I cannot gush enough about what the writer has achieved.