A naturalist turns novelist

Mitch Luckett puts wings to a murder investigation

By Stephen Blair

The Portland Tribune, Dec 4, 2001, Updated Oct 30, 2009

There’s no doubt about it: “To Kill a Common Loon” (Media Weavers LLC, $19.95) is one strange bird.

This debut novel by Portland author Mitch Luckett concerns one Harp P. Garvey, a banjo-plucking drunkard who gets stuck in a bog en route to Seattle from Portland in his blue Volks-wagen bus. His sidekicks include a dog named Medusa and Elpenor, a dragon who visits Garvey in visions induced by schizophrenia and a troublesome head injury.

Equal parts mystery story and tall tale, “To Kill a Common Loon” follows the hapless hero as he tries to solve a murder. His investigation literally takes flight when a mystical Native American headdress transforms him into a loon.

When an eagle swoops down to attack him, the protagonist observes: “There I was, Harp P. Garvey, sharing the sky with those noble predators, my black and white wing feathers bending Ñ . Wait! Wait! Wait just a damn minute! Wing? Feathers? Who É what was I?”

Filled with quirky moments like this, the novel will surely frustrate readers with a low threshold for eccentricity. Anyone with a taste for bizarre fiction, however, will find plenty to feast on in these pages.

The author recently discussed the novel during a break in his workday at the Portland Audubon Society, where he has served as a groundskeeper for 11 years.

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