American Goliath: A Novel of the Cardiff Giant, Henry Jacobs [Hardcover]

The royal monster mavens, Mary Shelley, who created Frankenstein's monster, and Rabbi Judah Low ben Bezulel, who popularized the Golem (a monster out of Jewish mythology) now have a crown prince to share their throne room - Harvey Jacobs, author of the wholly absorbing, outrageously funny novel, "American Goliath."

What a farce this is to get lost in! It is based on a true event: the faked discovery in 1869 of a 10-foot stone statue of a man buried on a farm near Cardiff, NY. The entire hoax - from sculpting the statue through burying and uncovering it - was cleverly staged. The statue was claimed by its fake discoverers to be the petrified remains of a giant who lived when giants walked the earth, particularly on the land that became the United States.

The Cardiff Giant, often called Goliath, became renowned all over an America desperate for diversion from the agonized memories of the recent Civil War. The giant was viewed by thousands of paying Ameicans for reasons that varied from simple curiosity to anticipation of a religious experience. Goliath is still with us, big as ever in his permanent home in the Farmer's Museum, Cooperstown, NY.

The flimflam artists who conceived Goliath and established him in American history found their modern mythologizer in Harvey Jacobs. In "American Goliath," as in his dazzling previous novel, "Beautiful Soup," Jacobs reveals superb writing qualifications for telling the story of the Cardiff Giant and for contributing inspiring flimflam of his own.

Each of the monsters of literature has his own personality. Frankenstein's monster, for instance, is both violent and pathetic. The Golem exhibits terrifying power. Like these predecessors, the Cardiff Giant has strength but is distinguished from them by sexual power and sexual inquisitiveness. A sexy fossil? Isn't that too far out? Not at all because Jacobs' comic inventiveness depends greatly on his his demonstrated talent for making the far out seem plausible.

Here is an example. Terms like mass medium, mass hysteria, mass production, mass market, mass murder, and even Mass card are widespread with nothing inherently funny in any of them. In fact, the word "mass" has a lethargic quality. Against this common linguistic experience, Jacobs suddenly confronts us with his own mass phenomenon, which occurs, without warning, in a crowd gathered around Goliath. "Mass tumescence!" Don't ask. You will find it described on page 168, where you will also discover that you can relieve this condition by "communal prayer and the singing of familiar hymns."

Philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, politician Boss Tweed, actor Edwin Booth, financier Cornelius Vanderbilt, and justice Oliver Wendell Holmes are a few of the potpourri of fascinating peronalities from real life that help move the story from one imaginative and funny episode to the next. Great showman P.T. Barnum unsuccessfully tries to buy Goliath. Frustrated but persistent, Barnum hires a sculptor to make a copy of Goliath. Then, assisted by his celebrated protege, Tom Thumb, Barnum exhibits his stone clone with the brash claim that it is the only authentic ancient man.

Make no mistake: the two colossi are not just lifeless shapes of stone. They can think! Surely their thoughts will find their way into future studies of literary stream of consciousness techniques.

Sometimes the giants' thoughts indicate that they have rocks in their heads. Fair enough. But when Goliath asks "Is there more to me than I know?" it is clear that a stone mind is capable of profundity. Here and throughout the novel, Jacobs ignores the orthodox boundary betweeen reality and fantasy. The result is a delightful and engrossing madness that makes "American Goliath" a brilliant tour de comic force. And, best of all, Jacobs is a talented storyteller, making his novel a pleasure to discover.