A Novel That Could Be Set to Soft Music : SHOW ME THE WAY TO GO HOME, <i> by Simmons Jones,</i> Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $19.95, 323 pages

The epigraph to this book reads: “This novel should be played on an upright piano, slightly out of tune, and very late on a summer night with all the windows thrown open.” It’s a perfect epigraph. “Show Me the Way to Go Home” is melancholy, lovely, nostalgic, and if the author does hit a wrong note every once in a while, he’s forgiven everything, because the tune he plays is so incredibly pretty.

The time is 1962, the place, Milford, S. C. Events, such as they are, have come to a halt. Daily life creeps forward at a pleasing pace. It’s summer; the Atlantic Ocean is amazingly beautiful as it crashes in on smooth sand. Summer people congregate at resort intersections, clad in practically nothing, waiting for sex, love, adventure or all three.

The all-year townsfolk live lives of perfectly manicured gentility. Their houses are old and very well cared for; everyone in town knows everybody else. When Ned Trivett, a middle-aged bachelor who happens to be homosexual, throws an afternoon garden party, the whole town of Milford--anyone who means anything--comes on over, in summer suits and fetching summer dresses.

We are, in leisurely fashion, introduced to Julian Warren, a marvelous man, committed to doing the “right thing,” who has just been bamboozled by the powers of passions he can’t understand. He’s just returned from Rome, Italy, where he has tried in vain to rescue his younger brother from the perverse joys of homosexual life. (This is 1962, remember, when being gay was looked upon as a real “Sin” and presented as a delicious, forbidden, utterly subversive lifestyle.)

If that weren’t enough, Julian’s own young wife, Laura, often called Mislark, has deserted him and their retarded son, Jubie, to go off and pursue life in theater. (She doesn’t go very far, only over to a nearby resort called Bladens Beach, but little Jubie is in despair, and Julian hits the bottle in total bewilderment.)

Out on the beach, in a beautiful home with picture windows that front on the ocean, Julian’s cousin, Susan, often called Misook, suffers a parallel bewilderment. Her husband, Skinner, has accompanied Julian on his excursion to Rome to rescue that ne’er-do-well brother and returned a ne’er-do-well himself. Skinner runs off with an elderly fake princess after a few days back at home to return to Rome and go for it! Find some fleshpots !

All this coming and going brings up an all-too-familiar question, or dilemma. All of us want to have some sins and some adventures, but all of us crave a stable, happy home. How can we resolve these two utterly contrary impulses? More than that, who’s going to take care of the kids, when daddy’s dead drunk, Uncle John and Uncle Skinner are over in a Rome fleshpot and mom is pursuing a career on the stage?

The author solves this by postulating “angels,” or “visitors,” or “hustlers.” When Blanche du Bois said that she “always depended on the kindness of strangers,” I suppose these are the kinds of strangers she meant. Two characters here, Brother Reeves and especially Jake Cullen (beautiful boys who have come under the protection of that kind and corrupt old bachelor, Ned Trivett), see the situation and supply what is needed, giving love to Misook and Mislark, companionship and solace to the tormented Julian and so on. These visitors are God’s soldiers; angels. And the town of Milford lies blessed under their benign gaze.

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