The Face of a Naked Lady: An Omaha Family Mystery

An entertaining tall tale from the heartland. I didn't believe one thing in the book, which isn't good when you're supposedly writing non-fiction. A lot of the book takes place in the city where Rips Senior lived, Omaha, and at a second rate hotel, the Congress, populated by a gang of absurd down-and-outers a la Wim Wenders' Million Dollar Hotel. When Nick Rips dies, his son Michael finds some art photos of a black woman among his dad's papers. This book is his account of how he tried to find out the identity of this mystery woman. Ii involves a lot of white guilt. It's hard to work up any interest in finding out what lies in the past of such a dud. "My father had no interest his children and none in himself. The respect that other men sought among their peers, the standing that other men gained through philanthropic or religious involvement, was of no concern to him . . . He laughed, sang, and danced; for him life was an enjoyable, small place." His sentences are first rate, it's the content that disappoints. In a typical Rips anecdote, Michael recalls a neighbor girl, Claire, who walked into her brother's room when she heard him laughing and singing, "Ducks and geese and Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry, When I take you out in the surrey" and found her brother lying on the bed having sex with a live chicken, breaking its neck at the moment of orgasm to increase his pleasure. Does this ring true, that people in the modern era have chickens strutting around their house and that every time someone wants chicken, they kill one? Even in Omaha? It's sort of funny when the narrator whispers to a stuffy woman at dinner that "there's semen in the chicken," but not really so funny, it was funnier in PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT. Practically nothing in the book has even a touch of reality, or if so, it was better done by Philip Roth, Richard Brautigan, or Garcia Marquez. And yet, if you're looking for a good piece of magical realism, one that makes Omaha gleam like the towers of Trebizond, this is probably the book for you. It says that the author lives in the Chelsea Hotel, where Bob Dylan wrote "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands." He has a bright future as a fabulist, but I don't actually trust him as far as I can choke my chicken. The poet Weldon Kees is one of the secret inspirations for this book. The characters debate whether or not Weldon Kees committed suicide, as the police concluded, by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in 1955. Or is it possible that he sneaked back to Nebraska and was living there at the Congress Hotel perhaps?

Though I generally dislike mystery's, I really enjoyed this book. This is and was a man's life, a real story was being told. What a great book. From the first page I was sucked in. Rips is a wonderful storyteller, knowing just the right amount of humor to throw in. Who knew that Omaha's history was so interesting. I felt that I was sitting i history class ( I love history) drinking up facts about Al Capone's ties to Omaha, brothels and slaughter houses. There were parts of the books that lagged a bit, but its still worth the read, Rips finally finds the naked woman and he finally knows the man that was his father.

This little book is one that you can just plow right through and be a bit sad when it ends. The premise of the story is that Michael Rips finds paintings of a naked African American woman, all done by his late father many years before. The son sets off on a journey to find out who this young woman is and what her relationship was to his father. In the end, the story is less about Rips' search for this woman and more about a remembrance and reevaluation of who his father, and his entire family, was and how their lives reflected that of their home city in Nebraska. Rips' discussion of his father's upbringing, at the notorious Miller Hotel in South Omaha, as well as his own wanderings and growing pains, paints an amazing picture of a town that most people, especially those of us on the East Coast, probably never would have imagined (or certainly not this reader). Rips' writing also shows that tension that erupts when children grow up and realize that there are many layers to their parents and that they did exist before their children were born (how shocking!). In the end, Rips gives the reader a snapshot of the life of a city, as well as the life a hard working, caring, if not demonstrative, man and the city that he lived in. It shows the passing of time and touches up the oblivion of childhood. My only regrets for this book are that Rips does not really choose to examine his mother's life, or what her possible reaction is to these paintings. The other problem I had was that it was too short! I wanted more about Nick Rips life and the history of Omaha. A very readable, very enjoyable book.

Rips' father was there for his upbringing, and yet somehow he wasn't. So when Rips discovers a dark secret behind a bureau, he begins to ask if he ever knew his father at all. I don't know if anyone else has thought to blend magical realism with memoir before, (even Garcia Marquez's bio was pretty down to earth), but that seems to be Rips' objective. Part philosophical meditation, he transform Omaha into a place where people fly, millionaires haunt abandoned buildings, and even the everyday seems strange. Definitely worth your time.

I LOVED this book!!! There is lightness and humour on the surface of a complex and deeply philosophical book. I read it twice. Highly recommended. NYC