Looking Good: Difficulty at the Beginning

by Keith Maillard

Wanted by the FBI for draft evasion, John Dupre is deep in the Boston revolutionary underground at the paranoid tail of the '60s. When John and feminist Pam Zalman are put on the Weatherman hit list, there's no place to hide.

440 pages, Paperback

First published September 10, 2006

About the author

Keith Maillard is the author of fifteen novels, one book of poetry, and two memoirs. He has won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Literary Prize and the Governor General's Literary Awards. The Clarinet Polka was awarded the Creative Arts Prize by the Polish American Historical Association. Dementia Americana won the Gerald Lampert Award in 1995 for the Best First Book of Poetry Published in Canada.

Keith was born and raised in Wheeling, West Virginia, the inspiration for the fictional town of Raysburg which serves as the setting for many of his novels. He has been a musician, a contributor for CBC Radio, a freelance photographer, and a journalist. He teaches in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia.

Reviews

[Rico · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Looking Good" is the longest and most surreal of the four books in Maillard's "Difficulty At The Beginning" series. Our hero, John Dupre -- [SPOILER ALERT] now a draft-dodging fugitive with an assumed name -- weaves his way into and out of warring revolutionary student organizations, figures out his own sexuality with the help of a militant feminist with an eating disorder, and endures an extended mental burnout triggered by a nightmarish acid trip. If any of that sounds stereotypical or overdramatic, it isn't handled that way. As always, reading these novels is like watching life unfold: Some of it weird and mysterious, some of it pointless, but always true. This one's tough to get through, with the main story frequently put on hold for multiple subplots, but persistence is rewarded. The series wraps up profoundly as you realize Maillard has done nothing less than illustrate how a whole country came apart at the seams.