Thin Blue Smoke

I can’t remember ever wanting to taste a book as much as Doug Worgul’s Thin Blue Smoke. There are so many mouth-watering references to briskets and ribs and pulled chuck and even vinegar pie that I was tempted to bite into a corner of the book and see what it tasted like. Someone should at least market a scratch and sniff edition of this novel or send complimentary bottles of “LaVerne Williams Genuine TexiKan BBQ Sauce” along with each order.

This is a book about barbecue, but that’s not all – it is also rife with references to baseball, the blues, redemption, Frederick Buechner, Lake Charlevoix, turtles, Watership Down, race and religion. There, I just listed ten things, and I suppose one way to tell if this book will fascinate you as much as it did me is to rate the book on a ten point scale using your interest in each of these things. I scored ten of ten. And I didn’t even mention whiskey, which would take the scale to eleven. (Ours go to eleven!) Yet even that’s not entirely a good way to go, because the book is so universally human that a barbecue-and-baseball-hating non-drinking atheist would enjoy it. (Which sounds like a horribly depressing way to go through life, but who am I to judge?)

I’m tempted to write “this book had me at page one,” but actually I knew this was a book for me when the “author's note” before page one contained references to Satchel Paige and Frederick Buechner. Those are my guys – I thought I was the only person is the world who was an aficionado of each. Apparently, I’ve got company. Wish I could sit down over a pulled pork sandwich with the author and discuss our mutual interests.

The main characters are LaVerne Williams, barbecue expert, grieving father and one-time centerfielder of the Kansas City A’s; Ferguson Glen, alcoholic Episcopalian priest and faded literary star; and A.B. Clayton, trailer park kid who settles in as LaVerne’s right-hand man. I could go the conventional route now and describe the plot a little bit, but this was one of those books where I liked the people so much I was sort of frustrated that there had to be a plot. I didn’t want anything to happen to them and didn’t want my time with them to end. I feel sad that I don’t get to hang out anymore at “Smoke Meat,” as LaVerne Williams’ Genuine BBQ and City Grocery is known throughout Kansas City. Yes, I’ve eaten at Oklahoma Joe’s in KC, which is widely regarded as the best barbecue in the world’s best barbecue town (and that ought to count for something), but this is one of those times that the real thing is no substitute for a literary equivalent.

And theology? Did I mention the theology? It’s all over the place. How about this line for starters: “It’s only when we’re free to commit monstrous acts of murder, that we’re also free to love God and each other.” That ought to give you something to think about.

So if you like books that are funny, literate, heartwarming, intelligent and just plain good, get a copy of Thin Blue Smoke by Doug Worgul. Before long you’ll be hankering for a plate of burnt ends, beans and sweet potato pie. Just remember they don’t serve fries and the beans are real beans, not those sugared-up pieces of candy that people call baked beans. Contemplate instead how patience and faith and a willingness to learn can take bitter things like smoke, vinegar and salt and transform them into something good and sweet. And remember -- too much or too little of the bitter and it's ruined.