This hilariously picaresque and never-ending novel charts the fortunes and adventures of the self-appointed “Poet Laureate” of Maryland as, Tom Jones- or Candide-like, he innocently gets into one scrape after another during the early years of settlement of the first American colonies, his first adventure coming in the year 1694 as he sets sail from England. A convincing parody of writing of the period, the prose should prove not only a diverting interlude from heavier fare but also an intriguing glance at early American postmodernism as it grapples with past forms, modes and attitudes. Rather than write a post on this most entertaining and fiendishly clever of novels, however, I will save both myself and any potential reader much time by referring them t…