Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend by Robert James Waller Heinemann $170 ROBERT Kincaid is a maverick, middle-aged photographer who drives a battered pick-up truck, drinks beer from the bottle, has an impressive body for a man of his years and is content - if not ecstatically happy - with his life. Then he meets Francesca, beautiful, married and with a secret.
Michael Tillman is a maverick, middle-aged economics professor who rides a motorcycle called The Shadow, drinks beer from the bottle, has an impressive body for a man of his years and is content - if not ecstatically happy - with his life. Then he meets Jellie Braden, beautiful, married and, well, and so on . . .
Excuse me for being so bold, but these plots seem to bear more than a passing resemblance to one another. The first is from The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller. The second is from a new book called Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend. Its author? Robert James Waller.
The Bridges of Madison County, Waller's first book, has sold 3.5 million copies in hardback alone and has been at the top of The New York Times' best-seller list for more than a year. Slow Waltz is Waller's second novel and is likely to do the same.
Most critics mauled Bridges without mercy. But the issue is not so much why Waller's books are poor; there are many reasons. Instead, it is why they are burrowing their way into the collective psyche of females worldwide. This is not sexism: the books are being bought mostly be women, according to the publisher.
The answer is something to do with what marketing men call ''product positioning'', and nothing to do with literature. Here are two books that make no demands; they are Mills and Boon for the fortysomethings.
And this is where Waller and his publishers have been so clever: these simple novels, with their ''understated plots'', are trashy love stories dressed up as essential reading.
