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God of Speed (Luke Davies, A&U, $32.95 pb, ISBN 9781741143508, April) ****

Howard Hughes was a man of huge ambitions: a perfectionist who directed the most expensive movie ever made; a mogul who bedded dozens of starlets; a pioneering aviator who insisted on test-piloting his own planes; a military contractor who built the ‘Spruce Goose’; and a tycoon who ushered in the jet age and left behind a six billion dollar empire. But he is perhaps best remembered as a paranoid recluse, living in self-exile in blacked-out hotel rooms. He spent his final years in hiding, crippled by germ phobia, wracked by painkiller addiction and attended by his loyal Mormons. Davies’ novel invites us into the mind of a decrepit Hughes in 1973, as he prepares for his first flight in 13 years and recalls a life driven by sex and speed. In a looping and fragmentary first-person monologue, he remembers the women, the films and the epic flights (and crashes) that made him famous. It’s a sensual, poetic, rushing novel from a highly awarded poet, author of Candy and Isabelle the Navigator. Even if you already know the story, it’s an insight into the unravelling mind of a truly tragic figure. If you don’t, it’s a revelation of one of the most enigmatic figures of the 20th century.

Lachlan Jobbins is a freelance reviewer, editorial consultant, writer and ex-bookseller

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker