The Mark Twain Forum needs a reviewer for the following novel:

   Cady, Jack.  _The Off Season: A Victorian Sequel_.  New York: St.
   Martin's Press, 1995.  Pp. 304.  Cloth.  $23.95.  ISBN 0-312-13574-2.

The publisher's blurb states in part:

   Author Jack Cady's literary efforts have not gone unnoticed: he won
   the 1994 Nebula and Bram Stoker Awards for _The Night We Buried Road
   Dog_; the 1993 World Fantasy Award for _The Sons of Noah and Other
   Stories_; and was first runner-up for the 1994 Philip K. Dick Award
   for _Inagehi_.  Mr. Cady returns with his new novel, and finest work
   to date, _The Off Season_, a charming, engaging novel of manners,
   morals, and the afterlife.

   In everyday life, time occasionally seems distorted.  So it is--on a
   regular basis--in the Pacific Northwest town of Point Vestal, a town
   the Native Americans of the region believe is cursed.  As ghosts
   mingle with the living, and time moves differently for everyone,
   Joel-Andrew, a preacher familiar with sin, arrives in town--an arrival
   which will signal a change in Point Vestal, and a change in "time"
   iteself.

   Irreverent humor, wit, and an illuminating imagination well describe
   Jack Cady, who has garnered his writing skills to a great extent
   through a diverse assortment of careers: a warehouseman, tree
   high-climber, and truck driver, all of whom have helped lend a
   somewhat unique perspective to his works.  This is evidenced in the
   magic of _The Off Season_.  Point Vestal is perched overlooking the
   Pacific Ocean, where time sways from the 1990s to the 1890s.  With a
   marvellous storyteller's panache, and a bizarre collection of
   appealing characters--especially a cat named Obed who can dance on his
   hind legs and purr in seven languages--Jack Cady has given readers a
   thought-provoking and whimsical classic. . . .

The novel does not seem to directly concern Mark Twain, but the
epigraph quotes "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," and
the author's note (p. ix) states in part:

   . . . Ever since I was a pup, I've been enamored with the works of Mark
   Twain.  The book that follows is not an attempt to emulate the master,
   because that would be a surefire failure, a real dumb thing to do; and
   I am not a masochist.  I had one thing foremost in mind when I wrote
   _The Off Season_.  I wanted to write a book that would gladden the
   hearts of readers, but also a book that, if possible from the land of
   wit and poetry where all great writers surely go, my hero Mark Twain
   would enjoy reading.

As always, the review should be of publishable quality, and the deadline
would be two months from your receipt of the book.  If I don't know you,
it would be helpful for you to explain in what respect you're qualified
to write this review.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Taylor Roberts
Coordinator, MT Forum