Last month's column about the strange prose of David Baldacci brought this letter from reader Jonathan Winslow, who suggested that I look at "Absolute Power," Baldacci's first book (and the basis of the Clint Eastwood movie of the same name) for further examples of bewildering prose. He provided some examples:

Here is my favorite:

"Luther Whitney was no punk. That was easy enough to see. He was not one of the blubberers. But the wall of concrete that made up Luther Whitney's nerves had already started to crumble. It swiftly finished dissolving and the remnants trickled toward the sobbing woman in the corner."

Followed closely by:

"When he noticed Burton right at his elbow, Luther finally flashed fire at the man until Burton led the old man's eyes back over to Kate. The men's eyes locked again. Burton raised his eyebrows a notch and then settled them back down with the finality of a round being fired into Kate's head."

These eye aerobics reminded me, for some reason, of Riverdance.

And somewhere someone's past comes back to them "in great, lumpy waves."

What is this stuff like before his editor gets ahold of it? Better? Worse? Does he have an editor?
May 9, 1997