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PARTISAN REVIEW
A central question, as I have indicated, is why the climactic
scene can arouse such pain, disgust and bitter disillusionment in the
boy who tells the story. His discovery of the underside of Jerry
Tillford evidently frustrates some yearning he can scarcely bear to
renounce. Once we have gone this far, it is not too difficult to identify
this yearning: it is for an ideal relationship with a man who is like
his father but better than his father- less fallible, more sympathetic
with the boy's interests and, what is .at first glance a curious require–
ment, devoid of sexuality. His disappointment is the keener because,
on the very afternoon of the experience at the farmhouse, the con–
summation of his desire seemed within reach- for an ecstatic mo–
ment had actually been achieved.
That the unnamed narrator of "I Want to Know Why" wanted
to adopt Jerry Tillford as a kind of second father could not be more
clear. Indeed, it could be maintained that the boy's feelings are
sometimes too baldly revealed. They could be inferred from the few
things he says about his father and various incidental remarks about
the trainer. His father is "all right," and evidently extremely per–
missive but he doesn't make much money and so can't buy his son
things. The boy says he doesn't care- he's too old for that-but since
he has just listed the kind of presents Henry Rieback is always getting
from his father we doubt
his
statement. At a deeper level, we sense,
the boy is disappointed because his father does not satisfy an imma–
terial need: he evidently does not share his son's interest in thor–
oughbreds and racing. Jerry Tillford, of course, is not only interested
in these subjects but an authority upon them, and his job puts him
in a position to befriend the boy in terms of
his
interests. He has let
the boy walk right into the stalls to examine horses, and so on. These
favors may have made the boy think of Jerry Tillford as a kind of
father. In any case, the language the boy uses to describe the trainer's
treatment of Sunstreak shows that he attributes parental kindliness to
him. ("I knew he had been watching and working with Sunstreak
since the horse was a baby colt . . . I knew that for him it was like
a mother seeing her child do something brave or wonderful.")
The various hints given us about the narrator's feelings for
Jerry Tillford are confirmed by two explicit statements. The boy de–
clares, it will be remembered, that on the afternoon of the race he
liked the trainer even more than he ever liked
his
own father. He is
equally frank about the feelings which prompted him to "ditch" his
