Of all the rich array of error in a book reviewer's repertoire of philistinism, the worst may be that of falling in love with an author's first novel, and then despising his second because it is not an exact copy of the first. Well, let error rain down. I thought, and so reported, that Barry Hannah's first novel Geronimo Rex was rousing work; mainly because of the author's joyous gift for throwing language around. And I think that Hannah's second novel, Nightwatchmen, is a perverse and disappointing mistake….

Hannah's attention seems to have become fixated on jokey murder. It is the entire substance of Nightwatchmen, and it does not make good sense or senselessness. At Southwestern Mississippi University, Hannah postulates, a midnight skulker circulates through the faculty offices of Old Main, bopping profs on the head and leaving them unconscious. Punishing bores, the as yet unbopped faculty members...