Unflinchingly raw read
David Vann is usually a rewarding read but seldom a cosy one. This is searingly so in his seventh novel. You may need to know that it’s rawly autobiographical. The names of his family, especially his wretched father, are strewn through it. You may also need to know that, as the euphemism puts it, Some Content May Offend.
Jim the protagonist, “receding hair and weak jaw”, faithless husband, failed dentist, bungling fraudster, is an emotional, marital, financial wreck. His life is so bleak that he plans to end it. He flies from Alaska to California to see successful, buoyant brother Gary and others. He lands at San Francisco in thrashing rain, wondering why he bothered to put on his seat belt. Since this is the United States, he’s carrying his .44 magnum (temporarily unloaded) in his hand luggage.
“Two weeks before the meds start working,” his therapist has warned. You wouldn’t put money on his making it through the fortnight
– or on his family surviving intact.
Good people, strong and skilful people, try to help but Jim is empty of hope. “There is no one home.” His parents are afraid to see him; he reduces his young kids to tears and terror. Manic rants, frightening torrents of words, and episodes where he scuttles on all fours after a terrified neighbour or rehearses the feeling of
a gun barrel against the side of his head, alternate with sexual fantasies, crippling pain, times of uncontrollable weeping, unbearable nights.
It’s not a spoiler when I say that there’s no salvation or happy ending. It would be dishonest if there were, though it’s one of the author’s achievements that he makes you feel and hope so much for his racked protagonist.
So why read such a black and relentless story? Because Vann lifts it into something authentic and universal. He shows us the appalling beauty of a human stripped to the basics, the creature King Lear called a “poor, bare, forked animal”.
He does so with writing that glints like burnished jet. The agonies of participants are set against moments of natural beauty: trees tossing in a storm; oak trees and shade; perfect small children.
It’s a book that takes enormous risks. It’s an unflinchingly truthful book as well, one that insists on our frail, gallant, shared humanity.