Still Life with Woodpecker
Cover of Still Life With Woodpecker, echoing the design of the Camel cigarette packet
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| Author | Tom Robbins |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English language |
| Publisher | Bantam Books |
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Publication date
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October 1980 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 277 pp |
| ISBN | (first edition, paperback) |
| OCLC | 6683767 |
Still Life With Woodpecker (1980) is the third novel by Tom Robbins, concerning the love affair between an environmentalist princess and an outlaw. The novel encompasses a broad range of topics, from aliens and redheads to consumerism, the building of bombs, romance, royalty, the moon, and a pack of Camel cigarettes. The novel continuously addresses the question of "how to make love stay" and is sometimes referred to as "a post-modern fairy tale".
Princess Leigh-Cheri, a redheaded vegetarian liberal princess and former cheerleader, lives with her exiled royal parents Max and Tilli and their last loyal servant Gulietta in a converted farmhouse in Seattle. While attending a liberal CareFest in Hawaii with scientific and political speakers (including Leigh-Cheri's idol, Ralph Nader) Leigh-Cheri meets Bernard Mickey Wrangle, an outlaw bomber known as the Woodpecker. Like Leigh-Cheri, he is a redhead, and unlike her, he plans to blow up the CareFest.
At the Care Fest, Leigh-Cheri is approached by a beautiful blonde who claims she is from the planet Argon. She informs Leigh-Cheri that redheads are considered evil on her planet and that red hair is caused by "sugar and lust." As it turns out, the Woodpecker has a passion for tequila that inadvertently causes him to bomb a UFO conference instead of his intended target. After the UFO conference is destroyed, a number of people see lights in the sky which seems to prove that the ambassadors from Argon were real.
Meanwhile, Gulietta witnesses the Woodpecker's bombing and rats him out to Leigh-Cheri, who places him under citizen's arrest. Leigh-Cheri demands to know why Bernard wanted to destroy the CareFest, a cause dear to her heart. Bernard explains his outlaw philosophy, which is that freedom is more important than happiness. Leigh-Cheri is still skeptical, but begins to fall in love with Bernard. She takes him home to meet her parents, but after Bernard accidentally murders Queen Tilli's pet lapdog, he slips out in disgrace. Soon after, his outlaw past catches up with him, and he is taken back to prison.
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