Random Autumn Thoughts 2020

 

Every now and again I like to clear out my bookshelves, my reviewing backlog, and my brain. This column is one of the latter. Call it, if you will, a list of musings and low-level rants.

 

☛ Literature seems to be the first place we notice that women are outstripping men in the brains department. The academic achievement level of girls has surpassed that of boys, too many of whom are shuttled into the brawn side of things. Visit a bookstore and you’ll see what I mean. The vast majority of new fiction titles come from female authors.

 

☛ In a related vein, although I applaud women’s intellectual accomplishments, there are too many books from young female writers written about the same subjects. Two in particular are those dealing with motherhood and/or trying to settle into a career. The first is, for obvious reasons, not a subject to which I can relate; the second is way too often expressed from a whiny privileged Millennial POV. It’s not like Millennials invented 20s-something career anxiety. I miss having more male fiction writers on my to-read shelf. It would be nice to read some male scribblers who aren’t sportswriters or political pundits.

 

☛ The guy who mows and plows for me has kids of various ages that he and his wife having been trying to help with their online schooling. He told me recently that they had no idea how hard it would be and would never again badmouth teachers. I hope others remember this the next time they’re tempted to vote down a school budget or use ludicrous statements such as, “Teachers only work six hours a day and they get their summers off.”

 

☛ Thanks to all the folks who’ve been making home concerts available during the lockdown. One thing, though; for heaven’s sake, take Jim Henry’s advice and don’t start playing until you get the sound right. You won’t keep listeners if the vocals are as muddy a frog’s living room and the mix as lumpy as cookie dough.

 

☛ I know people are getting antsy and feeling housebound. Here’s some easy advice: It’s October! If you can’t appreciate the beauty of fall foliage, you deserve to be cooped up. Go for a walk. Take a drive. Hike. Getting “out” means more than driving to the mall.

 

☛ Is anyone beside me sick and tired of fools who think it’s their “right” not to wear masks? Who the #%!&$#! do you think you are to risk my health? Your “right” does not extend to endangering others.

 

☛ I’m also exasperated with government officials and college administrators whose idea of protecting public health is to “educate” the public, perhaps even hire someone to “remind” people they need to wear masks. Educate? Jaysus, Mary and the goat! There are just three things to know: (a) wear a mask, (b) maintain at least six feet of distance from others, and (c) wash your damn hands. Anyone too dumb to do these things shouldn’t be allowed outside without a keeper. I suggest they sit inside with weak-kneed politicians.

 

 ☛ I typed the comment above before Donald Trump came down with COVID. I do not wish this virus on anyone, but there is an old adage that if you play with fire, you will get burned. Trump has consistently ridiculed the ideas of masks and social distancing by holding meetings and rallies in which he practiced none of the above precautions and made no demands of those around him. Another adage: Science is true whether you believe it or not. Enough said. 

☛ Since when did a “church” become a building? Shame on ministers who fan faux discrimination flames, defy public meeting guidelines, and spread both hatred and the virus. Being a good Christian should mean respect for humankind. Insisting on opening the building doors just means you’re a jerk and a technophobe. Take a spoonful of WWJD and get a teenage parishioner to show you how to do online services.

 

☛ Nine members of Tennessee’s NFL team tested positive for COVID. Gee, who could have seen that coming? I’d call the NFL season the dumbest idea in sports, were it not for the fact that UMass still has a football team.

 

 ☛ One of the few joys of aging is that you can stop trying to accumulate cultural capital and admit you don’t like things that supposedly make you a more “sophisticated” person. Here are a few things I just don’t like:

 

·      Opera: I appreciate its complexity, but if you give me a choice between operatic soprano and a herd of screeching cats raking their nails over a chalkboard, I’ll go with the felines.

 

·      Hip hop and rap: If music doesn’t have a melody, it’s not my thing. Once upon a time, rap and hip hop were the voice of the urban black experience. That time was the 1980s. Today it’s just processed pop that legitimizes antisocial behavior. If I want more bad verse, I’ll add to the rotten poetry I’ve written myself.

 

·      Shakespeare: This one drives some of my good friends crazy, but I don’t speak Elizabethan, okay. I don’t get why so many intellectuals who scoff at Biblical literalism treat every word from the Bard of Stratford as if it was pulled from the Gospel of St. Billy Shakes. Plus, do you have any idea how hard Shakespeare is for someone with hearing loss?

 

·      Comedy for idiots: One blessing of Covid-19 is that fewer “mainstream” comedies are being made. Can we legislate this as a permanent condition? Other than films with camouflaged Hollywood stars pretending to be warriors, nothing makes me slump in my seat with my fingers in my ears as often as a trailer for a “comedy” written for people with IQs of 60.

 

Rob Weir

 

    

Gamblers, Fruit Bats. Son Little, Fiona Silver, Greensky Bluegrass

 

Too often, tags like “indie” or “alternative” are masks for artists trying to obscure what they really are. “Adult alternative,” for example, almost always means “folk,” and “indie” too often means midtempo rock that would like to be pop. Gamblers, a Brooklyn-based band, uses the handle “alternative” and for once it’s an apt term. The group is headed by singer Michael McManus, who has been a hip-hop producer, though you’ll not hear any of that on the band’s debut LP Small World (Symphonic). You will, however, hear enough genre-crossing for “alternative” to make sense. The title track is jangly rock with a hint of funk. It’s a love-is-hard song, but it’s more atmosphere than poetry; Gamblers like to close musical spaces and dip listeners into a sonic bath. “Small World” is like the early Beatles crossed with The Beachboys, and “Pet Sematary” an excellent punk cover of a Ramones song. “Give Yourself Into Love” splashes dribbles of electronica into the mix, and “Corinthian Order” is hypnotic, with McManus singing in tones vaguely reminiscent of Neil Young. “The Selfish Bell” is harder-edged with a speedball grunge vibe. Apparently three members form the core of Gamblers, but videos show five on stage. Others display everyone dressed in jumpsuits Devo-style. Jam band, rock, punk, grunge, surf, and more makes Gamblers a throw-out-the-labels act. It’s one you should catch when you can.

 

Paste Magazine has studios in New York and Atlanta that are go-to sources for hearing short concerts of artists known, moderately famous, and unknown. Since 2011, it has been owned by Wolfgang’s Music, whose renowned Vault is a trove of classic performances from the past 70 years of rock, jazz, bluegrass, folk, blues, country and more. Here is music from several recent postings: 

 

If you’ve never heard of the Fruit Bats, the name might sound like a band from the 1990s. You’d be half right. It is the brainchild of singer and former guitarist for The Shins, Eric D. Johnson. The Fruit Bands were formed in 1997, made some records, and broke up in 2103. Luckily, their brand of soft rock lent itself well to impromptu lineups and/or a solo act. Johnson has a new recording, Gold Past Life (Merge Records). “Ocean” is nostalgia-tinged love song with a vaguely country feel. Johnson’s nasal voice wends its way to the brink of falsetto before easing back to a strong but controlled tone. My favorite song is “Mandy from Mohawk (Wherever You Are),” an imagining of someone from his past and the lives she may have led. This one is acoustic folk with muscular acoustic backing and doublings that accent the tempo. Also try “Cazadera,” a soulful take on a man who often feels lost and the woman who helps make sense of things.

 

Speaking of soulful, Son Little at Paste is the stage name of Philadelphia’s Aaron Livingstone, an R & B guitarist, singer/songwriter, and son of a preacher. The last factoid made me wonder if gospel legend Mahalia Jackson influenced the content of his song “Mahalia.” Little employs a big Sam Cooke-like voice and plays guitar like he’ll lay some hurt on it if it doesn’t behave. Jackson divorced twice, but lyrics like Yeah this life’s full of promises/We’d keep but we always break may be coincidental. Things seldom go well in the blues, and one certainly gets the sense that the relationship about which Little sings in “About Her Again” won’t fare much better than Mahalia. “Suffer” would be smooth soul for someone with more of a Nat King Cole voice, but Little’s robust vocals infuse this one with urgency: But we don't have to suffer, you and I/We don't have to wait in the trenches every night. All three songs come from his newest recording, Aloha (Anti-Records).

 

Fiona Silver at Paste is a mighty mite weaned on Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Joan Jett, Radio Head, and Amy Winehouse. You can still hear a touch of girliness in her voice, but her new Hostage of Love EP is both here-and-now and a harbinger of things to come. “Hot Tears” is a mix of pop, blue-eyed soul, and rock. Her band is robust, but she doesn’t allow it to overwhelm her. On “Dark Bluey,” she simply takes charge. She is hungry to impress and over-sings this one, but you can tell there’s not a shy bone in her body. She busts out the horn section for the title track, which drenches the song with a bit of Sin City ambience enhanced by assuming a bit of a Jim Morrison-like dread and danger pose. “Violence” has a jumpier tempo and the scratch in her voice makes the song more impactful. Her band knows when to get out of the way. It also knows how to fill in behind guitarist Guy Fiumarelli when he electrifies a song and amps Silver to another level.  

 

Despite its name, the Michigan-based quintet Greensky Bluegrass is a blend of what Parade Magazine compared to “bluegrass meets the Grateful Dead.” That’s not a bad analogy; they have definite jam band chops and in a song like “What You Need,” Paul Hoffman’s vocal is the most bluegrassy thing about it, despite instrumentation from standup bass, dobro, banjo, acoustic guitar, and mandolin. “Like Reflections” even sounds like a Grateful Dead title and it too has a meandering mix. Only “Money For Nothing” has a breakdown feel. For my dosh, Greensky lacks passion, but they’ve been around for nearly 20 years and have a devoted fan base. If you’re in it, check out their recent CD All For Money.  

Secret Honor: Altman's Brilliant Take on a Paranoid Presidency

Secret Honor (1984)

Directed and produced by Robert Altman

Cinecom/Criterion Collection, 90 minutes, NR (strong language)

★★★★

 

With the election bearing down upon us, a new revelation has surfaced that when Donald Trump was a young man, he corresponded with his political hero: Richard Nixon. Quite coincidentally, a few days earlier Secret Honor surfaced in my Netflix queue.

 

Secret Honor was a one-man show before Robert Altman filmed it in 1984. Altman and playwrights Donald Freed and Arnold Stone were careful to call the show a political myth, but anyone familiar with the White House tapes from the Watergate scandal will recognize there is considerable truth amidst the imagined. Although actor Philip Baker Hall didn’t always resemble Nixon, he had his mannerisms down so well that after a while we forget we are watching a play and begin to feel like voyeurs to a total mental collapse.

 

In 1964, historian Richard Hofstader published The Paranoid Style in American Politics. His target wasn’t Nixon, rather Hofstader sought to explain why Republican voters chose Barry Goldwater over the statesman-like Nelson Rockefeller. Goldwater was trounced in the general election, but Hofstader worried about an emergent type of political personality driven by rightwing conspiracy theorists and fearmongers, and was at heart anti-intellectual and demagogic.

 

Secret Honor is set in Nixon’s New Jersey study sometime after 1976, as he mentions Gerald Ford’s loss to Jimmy Carter in that year. Even before Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974, there was discussion as to whether he was clinically paranoid. Altman takes this as a given. We see the disgraced ex-president hunched over a tape recorder, pacing around the room, obsessively checking video monitors, sweating, swearing, and drunkenly ranting. A loaded revolver appears from a drawer and lies on the desk. Nixon eyes it repeatedly but, as we know, he did not use it.

 

Those drawing upon the paranoid style of politics run the risk of becoming their own creation, which is what happened to Nixon. He infamously compiled an enemies list that began with 20 names and swelled to 576. It’s one thing for a conservative to believe that labor leaders, political opponents, and liberal journalists are enemies, but when a list includes Barbara Streisand, Joe Namath, Hugh Hefner, trumpeter Herb Albert, Paul Newman, and a host of retired military officers, it invites speculation that the president has lost his marbles.

 

Secret Honor will make you believe that Nixon was indeed mentally ill. He is ostensibly making a tape for an imaginary court hearing in which he justifies everything he has ever done. Instead, he rages against President Eisenhower, Henry Kissinger, the Kennedys, Jews, African Americans, Latinos, and especially the Committee of 100, an elite that emerged from yearly Bohemian Grove encampments in California. Nixon believed the Committee of 100 created him against his will and conspired to shape America for its own benefit. Bohemian Grove is a real thing where the power elite does indeed hobnob, though in theory it’s a retreat from power and politics. Make up your own mind whether Nixon was paranoid about that one, but its very clear (in the film at least) that Nixon was unhinged. He couldn’t even make his tape, as he interrupted himself with profane tirades, talked with his long-deceased mother, poured more whiskey, and launched rambling attacks that blamed everyone he could think of for his failings. He even claimed that he engineered his own resignation to save the nation from the conspirators. (This is the “secret honor” of the film’s title.)

 

Hall’s performance was astounding. The energy he put forth was such that one can scarcely imagine how he could have summoned it on a nightly basis for the stage. Altman makes the performance more palpable by mixing mid-range shots with closeups that make us see Nixon’s raw anger, stumbling speech, wildness, slumped body language, and furrowed brow. We both hate and pity the figure we see on the screen.

 

I wish to reiterate that Altman never claimed what we view was 100 percent historical; it is an imagining of a monologue that we have no record actually took place. Nonetheless, to circle back to Hofstader, Secret Honor is a portrait of the paranoid style of politics. What else can we call a person who can’t get along with anyone, dislikes his own military leaders, is an Anti-Semite, a racist, takes no responsibility for his actions, and blames failure on others? Right now, we call him the 45^th president of the United States. It’s interesting that George Soros was on Nixon’s list. How sad that today’s purveyors of paranoia continue to beat a tired horse. (Soros is 90!)

 

Robert Altman blew red hot and icy cold as director. Secret Honor is one of his well-made films. How utterly sad that Secret Honor remains relevant. Nixon begat Trump. One can only hope there is no third act.

 

Rob Weir

Pete Kronowitt: September 2020 Artist of the Month

Pete Kronowitt

Do Something Now

Mean Bean Records

 

 

[Please note: This album has just been released, so check YouTube to see if new songs have been added.]
 

 

If you’ve been wondering where all the great protest singers are now that Pete Seeger and Utah Phillips have joined Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs in the Great Beyond, the answer is that they’re out there; you’re just no looking in the right places. Take New Jersey-born, Florida-raised, and San Francisco based Pete Kronowitt, for example. His 5^th album Do Something Now tells you where he’s coming from. It is a dozen tracks that pull few punches.

 

I used to chat with Utah Phillips (1935-2008) on a regular basis, and he’d occasionally rail against “pretty” protest songs. He was fond of saying, “There’s a world of difference between ‘How many seas must a white dove sail’ and ‘Dump the bosses off your back.’” That was his way of saying that the best call-to-action songs are short on poetry and long on getting to the heart of things. Kronowitt is in that wheelhouse. The title track appears twice–as a stripped-down acoustic version and as one with a band–and I recommend the sparer of the two. It’s a relatable singalong tune that doesn’t beg, rather tells us in no uncertain language, “Don’t just bitch and moan/Time to get on the phone.” If that’s too subtle, the last line is, “Time to get your ass in gear.”

 

This might suggest that Kronowitt is an angry man. He is to some extent. “Are We Great Yet” is a folk-rock takedown of the current Commander in Thief, and Kronowitt isn’t afraid to ask, “Lock a kid up in a cage, is this what we’ve become?” Nor does he put on kid gloves when he inhabits Trump’s dark soul and sings, “Build a wall/When they yell/Kill them all.” For the most part, though, Kronowitt wants us first to think and then to act, rather than hitting the streets in a lather without a plan. There are two environmentally themed songs, “Ladybugs,” with its wistful Western feel; and “Roly Poly,” another folk-rocker that asks us to imagine  a world without animals small and large: from bees and caterpillars to polar bears.

 

When he does implore, it’s usually to center us toward things that should matter more than they often do. “Stay Safe,” for example is Kronowitt’s take on COVID. Like a good folk song, it opts for simple lyrics to remind us we can find solace and renewal in loved ones. A sample lyric for dealing with a heartless world runs, “When the world is a little bit colder/You can be a blanket for me.” Music can also be a balm, a theme he explores in “Big Ole Stick of Wood.” As the title infers, this one is offered up country style, complete with some standup bass from John David Coppola and pedal steel from Tim Marcus. Just to mix things a bit more, there’s a Tejano feel to “You Never Ever Never Know.”

 

Kronowitt and Coppolla often perform together, with percussionist Darian Gray riding shotgun. Justin Kohlberg adds electric guitar and additional acoustic work on the album. Most listeners, though, will be instantly drawn to the gorgeous harmony vocals of Veronica Maund. I emphasize once again, though, that social change music is most effective when the message, not production, is at the fore. Were I in a mood to be critical, I’d note that Kronowitt’s voice is occasionally obscured when there’s too much instrumentation. I’m inclined, though, to give him a free ride. He is a founder of the Face the Music Collective, a coalition of likeminded activist artists that includes folks who have been reviewed on this blog: Olivia Frances, the incomparable Eliza Gilkyson, and The Nields, the pride of Northampton, Massachusetts. Plus, Pete Kronowitt gives us just what we need as November 4 approaches: a swift kick in the pants.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

Trump Shouldn't Win, but Biden Can Lose

 

 

Five weeks to go and I have the sinking feeling that Trump will be reelected. If that happens, Armageddon is upon us. Black Lives won’t matter, nor will corruption, democracy, human rights, feminism, working people, Social Security, the Post Office, health care, the environment, or basic decency. It would take so long to undo two terms of Trump that people my age will spend the rest of their lives under robber barons.

 

I want to be wrong. If not, the Democratic Party can kiss my keister. It has broken my spirit too many times. In 1988, Democrats proclaimed if they couldn’t beat George H. W. Bush they were in the wrong country! In 2000, Al Gore lost to H.W.’s son, a guy with the IQ of broccoli, though Kerry managed to make him look bright in 2004. Hillary Clinton tanked four years ago and lost to a man who is arguably the worst person on Planet Earth.

 

Biden is sinking in swing states and has about as much mojo as he has youth. He still has a path to victory, but he needs to rev into a higher gear. He cannot simply hope that undecideds will yawn and vote for him. He also needs to pay attention to the following:

 

1. Don’t let Trump define you. “Sleepy Joe” has given way to “Masked Man Joe” and “Appeaser Joe.” If Trump is allowed to wrap himself in law and order, God, and the flag, Biden is toast. Did Biden not get the memo that the best defense is a good offense? He could start by denouncing rioters and blaming their presence on Trump. When Trump calls Biden a socialist, call Trump a Putin “communist.” Not many people know what socialism actually is, but they think communism is bad! Mostly, though, he needs to act, not react.

 

2. Ignore handlers who says Americans don’t like mudslinging. Actually, they do. Remind everyone that Trump attacked your son, so you want to know about his family’s alleged misdoings, including Melania’s emails. Quiz Trump on the Bible; let everyone see his Bible is just a prop. Biden should compile a list of people and groups Trump has wronged and repeat it like a broken record. Emphasize the Republicans on said list. Ponder why Trump can’t get along with anyone and muse that maybe people don’t like to bullied or lied to.

 

3. Perceived strength wins more votes than being likable. The American presidency has seldom bred warm, fuzzy candidates. (Maybe Harding and Reagan, but their presidencies were ruinous.) Toughen up. Some of the best presidents have been mean SOBs: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ…. Some real bastards have won over “nicer” opponents: McKinley over Bryan, Nixon over Humphrey, Nixon over McGovern, Trump over Hillary….

 

4. Use this mantra: Release your taxes! Hammer Trump like a rusty nail with “Release your taxes!” When Trump says they’re too complicated, counter that he must think the American people are stupid. Insist that only candidates with something to hide won’t release their taxes. Suggest that Trump’s either done something crooked, or that he’s broke. Repeat, “Release your taxes!” Look the other way at anti-Trump rallies where the chant “Lock him up!” resounds.

 

5. Scare the hell out of the electorate. Tell voters Trump will steal their retirement funds, drill for oil in their parks, make their daughters unsafe, disrespect the military, and kill their grandparents. Mention COVID early and often. In every swing state, choose a city of 200,000 and say that Trump’s inaction means that the equivalent of the population of Des Moines, Grand Rapids, Madison, Scottsdale, or half of Minneapolis has died from COVID. When Trump brags of his efforts, point out that he ignored COVID until 30,000 had died, and his absence yielded 170,000 more lives. Mention  that without a change in tactics, the death toll will surpass 400,000 by year’s end.

 

6. Stay on message. Screw nuance and blue papers. Simplify and save the wonky stuff for roundtables, Cabinet meetings, and academic debates. You can hate or admire him, but the genius of Bernie Sanders is distillation and repetition. FDR did that as well, as did LBJ and Bill Clinton.

 

7. Wise up: Wall Street doesn’t give a rat’s ass about average Americans. Sucking up to big donors is a losing game. The tech industry is dominated by libertarians and Wall Street is in GOP pockets. Recent successful Democratic candidates have had the guts to say that there is little correlation between how the Stock Market is doing and how things are for wage earners.

 

8. What about Latinos and evangelicals? If Biden loses, pundits will ask why Democrats spent so much time courting 13% of the electorate, much it located in states Democrats had no chance of winning, but so little with the Latino 17% heavily concentrated in swing states. Nor can Biden ignore or diss the white evangelical vote. He can’t/won’t win it, but he must make a decent dent. It unsettles freethinkers, but 41% of Americans identify as evangelical.

 

My fear is that all Biden will do is vogue being “presidential” and “moderate.” That might not be enough, may God rest our souls.

 

Rob Weir

 

Magic Lessons: Maria Owens Unveiled

Magic Lessons (October 2020

By Alice Hoffman

Simon and Schuster, 416 pages

★★★★

When it comes to the fine art of storytelling, few American authors can hold a black candle to Alice Hoffman. That’s the paraffin color we need to consider in Magic Lessons. In 1995, Hoffman published Practical Magic, which introduced us Gillian and Sally Owens, and their aunts Frances and Bridget. Each was gifted with conjuring power that traced back to Maria Owens, a 17^th century ancestor tried for witchcraft.  In 2019, Hoffman penned The Rules of Magic, a prequel set in the 1950s that gave us the backstory of aunts “Franny” and “Jet.” 

This time Hoffman dishes out the über sequel, that of Maria Owens herself. We learn that she was abandoned by her mother, Rebecca, who took up with actor/conman Thomas Lockland. Maria isn’t a bloodline Owens; that’s the surname of Hannah, the woman who raises her and teaches her about herbs and spells–mostly from the white arts with admonitions of the dangers of dabbling in the black. Maria grows up with a crow named Cadin as a familiar, discovers that she floats, watches local women come to Hannah for cures, and eventually comes to grips with the knowledge that her powers exceed Hannah’s.

Tragedy will send her to Curacao, where she works through an indentured servant contract and becomes an herbalist. Alas, she has the same curse that will later befall other Owens women: her teen years involve falling in love with the wrong man. In her case, the 15-year-old Maria is impregnated by 37-year-old John Hathorne, a youthful-looking Massachusetts merchant visiting the island. (You might recognize the name!). She gives birth to Faith, whose red hair and grey eyes mark her an oddity, as does a half moon-shaped birthmark on her left hand.

Love draws Owens women to impulsive behavior and it doesn’t get much more impulsive than deciding to go to Massachusetts to search for Hathorne, over whom Maria is a besotted mooncalf. She locates him in Salem in 1680. Uh-oh! I won’t say too much more about this, other than to note that intrigue and tragedy are deflected by a Portuguese Jewish sailor/ex-pirate Samuel Dias—several times.

There are subplots in which Faith is separated from her mother, dabbles in black arts Maria counseled against, and seeks revenge against her Puritan bigot of a father. Hoffman excels at organization and manages to weave into the novel tales of Samuel’s father, a mysterious woman named Catharine Durant, a progressive doctor, new familiars, a second daughter, and several near-death experiences. You will also gain insight into grimoires (spell books), how Wall Street got its name, how the rules of magic acquired its third commandment, and—for fans of early 1960s pop songs—the actual ingredients of Love Potion # 9. Along the way, you’ll get a personalized take on Puritan intolerance, and perhaps come away thinking it might have been better had New York remained a Dutch colony. For purposes of the Hoffman witchyverse (my term), we see the power of Owens women increase with each new generation, , though not necessarily knowledge or wisdom. Hoffman ends her book as the 17^th century is about to give way to a new one. Two sisters endure, Faith and Hannah, so there’s plenty of room for future Owens’ adventures. (Will there be an interquel, a sequel to a prequel?) 

Alice Hoffman continues to delight with books that are to be gobbled, not nibbled. Among the spells she casts is that she reverses the photocopy curse. That is, each of her Owens family books thus far has been stronger than its templates. Each novel focuses on magic and the healing arts, but is immersive in the sense that external details unveil the customs and social milieu in which they are set. Rosemary, lavender, and Indian ginseng are said to increase creativity. Alice Hoffman must have a garden filled with them.

Rob Weir

Roddy Doyle Love in Need of Counseling

Love (2020)

By Roddy Doyle

Penguin Random House, 328 pages

★★

 

 

 

Have you ever been in a pub in which people are getting so blasted that stories start, stop, start, stop, meander, start and stop? If the dynamics of such a conversation fascinate you, you will enjoy Roddy Doyle’s Love. If not, you will find it tedious.

 

Love covers a long day in Dublin in which two men in their late fifties who’ve not seen each other in decades reconnect. Joe and Davy were best friends in their school days, but Davy has lived in Oxfordshire, England for nearly 40 years, and Joe remained in Ireland. This sets the table for an awkward conversation in which what they think they know about each other has been dipped in now-hardened amber that only partially dissolves in the heat of a string of Irish pubs.

 

Over the course of the day, the two get drunk and sober numerous times. Joe does most of the talking, with Davy acting as a combination inquisitor/voyeur whose reason for wanting to hear Joe’s tale is ambiguous. The only deep connection between the two lies in the 1980s, when they perceived themselves becoming “men” the first time they entered George’s Pub, were addressed as “gentlemen,” argued about music, and quaffed legal pints. After that, their bond is hazy and it’s not just the drink that’s talking. Joe false starts many times over in a story about a girl they both allegedly mooned over back in the days, though Davy claims to recall only that he thought her attractive in the few times he saw her and never knew her name. In their adult lives, Joe married Trish, whom Davy knew back then, and Davy wed the tart-tongued, whip smart Faye.

 

Both men profess deep love for their wives but, in Joe’s case, there is a twist: Jessica, the girl from the pub. He tries to tell Davy about how he met Jessica 37 years later at a parent conference at his daughter’s school. He has moved in with her and, Joe claims, they’ve not even had sex but he loves her for reasons he can’t articulate. Neither man, it seems, can articulate much of anything, though they do tell each other to “fuck off” numerous times. (In a good way?) Joe still loves Trish and thinks she’s “grand,” but says he needs to be with Jessica. At times Joe’s rambling justifications reminded me of an old David Crosby song, “Triad,” in which he sang “I don’t really see/Why can’t we go on as three?” Mostly, though, the day’s drinking yields verbalizations more akin to a doll whose string one pulls to hear it speak the limited set of phrases in its repeating loop.

 

Doyle intersperses flashback chapters, which was a good strategy or we’d know almost nothing about Davy. He too carries a burden, though from something of a different nature from Joe’s. I shall say no more about it, as it provides the book’s only real revelation. I have enjoyed many of Doyle’s past efforts–especially The Barrytown Pentalogy and Smile–but he misfires in Love. The most intriguing thing about the novel is its title. Does it refer to someone being there when most you need them? Ideal (or idealized) love? Immersion in a culture one understands without filters? Deep friendship lurking beneath shallow surfaces? All of the above? If Doyle wants us to ponder such things, he failed. It seems all the world as if the greatest love is that pint of beer on the book jacket.

 

I wish I had kept a stroke count of the number of pints Joe and Davy consumed over a roughly 10-hour period. They were certainly plentiful enough to make me disbelieve that either man could still be on his feet. Are we supposed to see Joe and Davy as the Ghost of Irish Alcoholism Past? There’s not enough to suggest that, aside from a few oblique remarks about people in business suits quaffing white wine and Joe and Davy’s obviously false remarks that they’ve pretty much given up drinking. Indeed, one could come away from Love with the accusation that Doyle is trading in stereotypes. (For the record, 7.4% of Americans are alcoholics; in the Republic of Ireland it’s 6%.) However we want to spin this, Love is a beer-fueled version of the movie Diner (1982) without the wit and humor.

 

Rob Weir