PARTISAN REVIEW
611
original beauty, but neither of them is at home in the society and the
language that surrounds them. More to the point, the aging parts of
America need something the black and the Indian have, to keep them–
seh-es going. The love is there, but it goes wrong, and no vita lizing,
mutually enriching connections are established. The different frag–
ments of America no more compose a unity in the book than they do
in real life. And the fact that it is the black narrator who keeps the
"almost extinct" golden eagle alive suggests something about the tenu–
ous continuities of the authentic n<\.tural life of America. Millicent kills
the eagle, stuffs it and serves up the mea t at the "edding feast. Is this
what the whites have done to America?
From the start, Purdy's work has revealed an intense awareness
of all that can go grievously and damagingl y wrong in the family
unit. He has portrayed unparented children, unchilded parents, the
unreal father, the mother who possesses or relinquishes at the wrong
times. And in the absence of an actual family he has sho"'n all manner
of would-be surrogate parents and guardians, and has explored the
adoptive inclination to uncanny depth .
In
many of his short stories (and
Purdy is one of the most accomplished "Titers in this genre to have
appeared in America ), we find some disruption or failure of the family .
In
I
Am Elijah Thrush
there is no actual legitimized family , but this
allows Purdy to explore the notion of the family in broader terms. Can
there, indeed, be an American family? From the start Albert, who seems
to retain no notion of his real parents, senses some compelling im'olve–
ment, even identity, with the strange ,,·hite couple ,,·ho effectively take
him O\·er. \Iillicent uses Albert ruthlessly and heartlessly, but as he
says, "only a mother could have been so cruel," an idea more emphati–
cally echoed at the wedding banquet when she announces to Albert,
" I am your mother"; while soon after Elijah addresses Albert
flS
"my
child." and Albert himself has "the .giddy feeling I \\'as being present
at the marriage of my own parents." ,,ye may feel that Alhert is at last
" parented." This prepares us for the climax. Elijah owns a theater
at \\hich he dances a variety of roles. As the \\'edding ship draws him
a,,'ay from America, helpless in Y1illicent's clutches, he sends out one
last message to Albert (this time through a megaphone, as communica–
tion is rapidly fading ), His instruction is to keep his thea tel' open and
"play all mv roles," Thus at the end, Albert comes fo[\\'ard on stage
and announces \\'ith a sob, "I am Elijah Thrush," H e isn't, manifestly,
but as "son" and "inheritor" he has adopted the imposed identity, What
Elijah has had to relinquish, Albert \\'ill take on; the young black takes
over from the a!!;ing " 'hite, He could, thereby, be maintaining a threat–
ened continuity, and what is more natural than for the son to take the
place of the dethroned, if not the defunct, father? At the same time, it is
