<P><B>Cult favorite Tony Vigorito invokes a kind of chaos theory in <I>Nine Kinds of Naked</I> that gleefully turns any expectation of time, space, or plot on its head.</B></P> <p> </P> <p>A prisoner spins a playing card into a somersault, stirring a wind that becomes a tornado that takes off the roof of a church in nearby Normal, Illinois. Elizabeth Wildhack is born in that church and someday she will meet that prisoner, a man named Diablo, on the streets of New Orleans—where a hurricane-like Great White Spot hovers off the coast. But how is it all interconnected?</p> <p> </P> <p>“Comparisons of this novel to the works of Tom Robbins are both obvious and appropriate: the story meanders around in an entertaining manner, never getting too serious about itself; the characters are splendidly loopy, close to caricature but never quite reaching it; and the situations in which they find themselves are comic, dramatic, and everything in between."—<I>Booklist</I>