Cheeky tale

Novel pokes fun at the male ego and academia

Loudermilk:

Or, The Real Poet; Or, The Origin of the World Lucy Ives Soft Skull

The hilarious Lucy Ives novel Loudermilk: Or, The Real Poet; Or, The Origin of the World borrows its premise from Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac — and, Ives says, Steve Martin’s 1987 rom-com Roxanne (itself also an adaptation of Cyrano). But it’s much more than a retelling of the familiar tale in which a homely poet writes verse to be recited by a clueless hunk. It’s a farce about the struggle to make honest, unadulterated art in a market-driven world.

Our Cyrano is Harry Rego, a shy poet a fellow writer describes as “a kind of humanoid lemur or gentle bat-boy hybrid.” Harry is maladapted to nearly every social situation he finds himself in, and often has to rely on his best friend, the charismatic Troy Loudermilk, to translate his grunts and stutters. Loudermilk is a student in the Seminars, an MFA program in the fictional no man’s land of Crete, Iowa. Harry is along for the ride.

For Loudermilk getting into an MFA program becomes an ambition. The idea that Harry will write the poetry and Loudermilk will be the face of the poetry is born shortly thereafter.

What exactly Loudermilk is after is never fully addressed. But the story isn’t any less captivating as a result.

Never are high-minded questions of art and authenticity more expertly lampooned than in the person of Anton Beans, a hacky second-year poet in the Seminars. Beans, who develops an immediate, territorial dislike of both Loudermilk and Harry, is either the novel’s villain or its obnoxious anti-hero in his quest to foil Loudermilk’s scheme and expose Harry as the real poet. And while Beans’ intentions may seem noble, they are purely self-interested: He cannot bear the idea of another talentless poet getting more attention than he does. Unlike Loudermilk, Beans doesn’t know he’s talentless. Ives uses Beans to skewer the kind of self-serious, academy-bound male poet who bothers to think of his female peers only when he’s wondering who will review his next book.

The novel falters somewhat when it tries to be about issues other than Loudermilk’s deception, but it is overall a riotous success. Equal parts campus novel, buddy comedy and meditation on artmaking under late capitalism, this is a hugely funny portrait of an egomaniac and his nebbish best friend.