Frankland by James Whorton. Free Press, 2005. $23 — 288 pp.

A story in which a young amateur historian leaves New York City for East Tennessee to track down missing documents regarding Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States, sounds on the surface as dull as an algebra class at eight o’clock in the morning. Put such a plot in the capable hands of James Whorton Jr., however, and you have the makings of a lively and captivating novel.

In Frankland, Whorton’s second novel, he tells us of John H. Tolley, a semi-ambitious young man who wants in some fashion to make a living as a professional historian. After editing a Civil War magazine in Ohio and then living for another six months in New York City, Tolley learns that some lost papers belonging to Andrew Johnson may be hidden somewhere in East Tennessee, the area of that state from which Johnson first achieved political distinction. By finding such papers and so possibly rewriting history, Tolley hopes to win both fame and position for himself.

After several misadventures, Tolley reaches East Tennessee, the town of Pantherville to be precise. Here he quickly meets the characters who not only distract Tolley from his mission, but who will also provide many of the amusements and droll humor of this book. There is Van Brun, a Johnson scholar who is about to lose his position at Vanderbilt and who is as witty as he is physically disgusting. There is Dweena, the wise, shy mail carrier who catches Tolley’s attention early in the book. Dweena’s opposite is Danielle McBain, a loud, brash reporter who, while trying to win favor at the New York television show that formerly employed her as a temp, uncovers cockfighting, graft, theft, and other scandals in the Volunteer State. Other finely drawn characters and scenes abound in Frankland. Boo Price, the convict who is afraid to drive more than 20 miles from his home, a pyromaniac who is also an expert in hunting raccoons with dogs, is my own personal favorite in this list of marvelous eccentrics.

What adds to the fun of Wharton’s novel is his own eye for detail and fact. He has Danielle McBain attack cockfighting, but he also shows us the other side of this blood sport by having one of the bird owners explain cockfighting to Tolley. One of the sub-plots to the story involves the corrupt attempts by a computer company to help bring a state lottery to Tennessee. By discussing the efforts of this company, Wharton shows us how the demand for the gambling that so many governments now sponsor for their citizens was actually created by the companies selling and managing the programs that run the lotteries.

Wharton also gives us some history of Tennessee, including some insight into Andew Johnson. Born in North Carolina, Johnson traveled to Tennessee and found work as a tailor. He was our only president who never attended school; he only learned the rudiments of reading and writing from his teenage bride. Unaccustomed to strong drink, and taking some alcoholic beverages to help battle a cold on his Inauguration Day as Lincoln’s vice president, he appeared drunk on the inaugural platform. Later, of course, he was the first American president ever impeached, hauled up by the Radical Republicans for not supporting their stiff penalties against the South.

But where Wharton excels as a writer, at least in this particular novel, is in his ability to write humorous scenes and amusing characters. Wharton does not write with the savagery of certain satirists or with the easy vulgarity of certain contemporary comedians, but with style and a sense of gentle wit. Here, for example, he describes Dweena Price:

I had been studying her somewhat. Her manner was quiet and reserved, but when she did speak it was with a striking frankness. Sometimes shy people, because of their shyness, never develop the highly complex verbal skill known as Talking Without Saying Anything. It is a skill that can be mastered only through practice, and you cannot practice it alone in your room. It has to be practiced in a group, with jaw in motion. There are professionals who can stand talking at the front of a room for thirty minutes, and then answer questions for another fifteen, without saying a single meaningful word.

James Whorton, who lives in Gray, Tennessee, with his wife and daughter, has written an earlier novel titled Approximately Heaven. It’s always a pleasure to know when you finish a fine book like this one that there’s another by the same author waiting for you out there on a library or bookstore shelf.

(Jeff Minick lives in Waynesville. He can be reached at saintsbookco@aol.com)