Howie kapostash is an alert man with a nuanced awareness of things. He enjoys the increments of summer sunlight or the nice construction of a simple lunch box. He also spots the looks that pass between people when they notice his forehead. A Vietnam War injury has left him with a deep indentation in his skull and a messy plug of scar tissue. The wound has all but deprived him of the power of speech. Anytime he tries to talk, the best he can do is bark out one or two syllables, "I gave up explaining years ago," he says, in the gently lyrical interior monologue that makes up Dave King's The Ha-Ha (Little, Brown; 340 pages). By the time we come upon him in thickening middle age, Howie has pretty much given up venturing beyond the placid, meaty enclosure of himself. "Not," he tells us, "is the one word I can dependably force out."
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