Skinny Legs and All

Skinny Legs and All, novelist Tom Robbins' fifth book, was published in 1990 by Bantam Books. As are all of Robbins' creations, it is a lyrical and complex work weaving disparate and seemingly unrelated themes into one narrative. The opening scene of Skinny Legs finds newlyweds Ellen Cherry Charles and Randolph 'Boomer' Petway III driving cross country in a large roast turkey. From there, Robbins touches on topics as diverse as art and artists, b... more

Skinny Legs and All, novelist Tom Robbins' fifth book, was published in 1990 by Bantam Books. As are all of Robbins' creations, it is a lyrical and complex work weaving disparate and seemingly unrelated themes into one narrative. The opening scene of Skinny Legs finds newlyweds Ellen Cherry Charles and Randolph 'Boomer' Petway III driving cross country in a large roast turkey. From there, Robbins touches on topics as diverse as art and artists, biblical history, the longstanding Arab-Jewish feud, eschatology, and other Robbins' staples such as sex, religion, and politics. The reader is introduced to typical array of off-beat and whimsical characters, including the estranged couple of artist/waitress Ellen Cherry and welder/accidental artist Randolph "Boomer" Petway, Spike Cohen and Roland Abu Hadee (a Jew and an Arab who co-own a Middle-Eastern restaurant across from the UN building in New York), fundamentalist preacher Buddy Winkler, a doe-eyed belly dancer named Salome, Detective... less