We All Hear Voices

Book review written by John Lovett, Arts and Entertainment Editor for the Hot Springs Sentinel-Record. It was printed in the May 08 issue of Hot Springs on the GO!

 

 

 

In our

heads

            Mental institutions inherently hold a compelling sense of mystery and drama that warrants curiosity.  Even more so when the patient hears colors and tastes experiences.

The sayings “loud shirt” or “bitter wind” may just be common expressions, but they are based on a real psychological condition called synesthesia. In Dr. Sam Taggart’s “We All Hear Voices,” a cook named Jack wanders the South, following the dirt car racing circuit, and amazes ordinary people with his supernatural cooking skills. One big catch: If he gets back on his medication to lull the mean voices in his head, he loses his incredible sense of taste.

                Following the death of a friend, Jack descends into a catatonic state where evil voices beat him down with paranoia. At the hospital, over time, he slowly comes out of his personal hell through the need to critique.

                “The stew needs more salt.” Jack says after a week of silence. … “The bread is fine but the stew needs more salt,”…with the exception of those regarding food, all questions were met with a blank stare.

                After his release Jack finds work at a Little Rock root beer and burger joint owned by a good ol’ boy named Bud. Jack comes in early and stays late. Food is his life, and for Bud, it makes no difference whether Jack has audible hallucinations or not. He’s his little Emeril Lagasse.

                Sipping his coffee at the diner while talking to Jack’s friend Charlotte about why he is

 

comfortable with the situation, Bud says “Honey, we all hear voices. Some are just louder than others. We all have fears that haunt us and push us to distraction.”

                Like the street urchin in “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” who has an insatiable sense of smell, and the talented rodent in “Ratatoille,” Taggart’s unique culinary character grows on the reader with each chapter. The author’s vivid, poetic prose offers a clear window into a colorful world in which a man’s heightened sense propel an interesting plot and better understanding of others.

                Raised in the Mississippi Delta, Taggart practiced medicine in rural Arkansas for the last 30 years. He and his wife currently live in Hot Springs.

                “We All Hear Voices” is available locally at USA Drug in Malvern, as well as Barnes and Noble in Little Rock. Taggart will hold a book signing 7-9 p.m. Friday, May 2, at the Golden Leaves Bookstore, 201 Malvern Ave., and offer a lecture at the Garland County Library, 1427 Malvern Ave., at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, May 17.

                The author also has set up a Web site for the book at httwp://weallhearvoices.com. Jack shares his recipes for stew, succotash of fresh corn and beans, chocolate-lavender cake and roasted peppers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mixed messages An unusual medical condition drives the plot of a new novel.

Bob Lancaster, Arkansas Times

Every small town has its stories, from Grovers Corners, N.H., to Monterrey, Calif., and many of those stories have similar familiar characters and settings, the Mysterious Stranger and Harry Hope's Saloon. Dr. Sam Taggart's town is Gum Ridge, Ark., not vastly different from his hometown of Augusta. His setting is Moon's Bar and Grill, and his mysterious stranger is that shabby establishment's newly arrived cook-and-bottle-washer named Jack, or Jack Cook, or Just Jack, or, as it turns out, either of a couple of other unusual monikers. His ongoing identity crisis is the result of an unusual medical condition that the shrinks surely call a disorder. It's a condition called synesthesia, in which the senses switch roles willy-nilly, so that a person might hear shapes and smell colors. In Jack's case, sundry foodstuffs and kitchen appliances do a lot of angry, accusatory shouting at him. His attempts to escape the voices and the infernal disorientation caused by the sensory confusion might be a distraction, a mere gimmick, in another work, but in “We All Hear Voices” (Iuniverse, $15.95 in the trade paperback edition) it becomes as essential to the plot and the narrative trajectory as, say, Ignatius J. Reilly's pyloric valve dysfunction was to “A Confederacy of Dunces.” The author is a longtime family doctor who lives in Hot Springs and has a practice at Benton, so the book's medical details are deftly handled – and in fact as a promotional adjunct to the novel's publication Dr. Taggert has scheduled free lectures on synesthesia at a number of Central Arkansas libraries. “We All Hear Voices” is an old-fashioned novel in many ways, including neatly tying up at the end a lot of apparent loose ends. Not to give anything away, but it also has a happy ending, which you seldom see anymore. In Dr. Taggart's hands it could hardly have ended otherwise because he obviously likes his characters – rooting for them as a good doctor should to cope successfully – and finds comfort in the orderliness of small-town American life as it existed during his youth and continues to exist in his memory.