1>28
JANE RICHMOND
life 's Waring Blender, and lives constantly under its "awful shadow."
Payne is a young man with awful problems and when Ann , his girl–
friend , tells him, "It's a ll in your head," it's the kind of information
that he knows can' t help anyone. Payne someimes goes around "for
no reason" on crutches. He sometimes hears nonexi stent dogs, he never
knows their number. He would like to become a legend. He carries a
pistol for warmth and believes in "horses that will not a llow themselves
to be ridden ," terror, fraud and God who's Slllart as a whip. He
reviews his options every day and when he longs for the life inside the
Waring Blender, and he does sometimes, he docs not carry a pistol,
and tries not to limp. What he wants out of life is something as im–
pressive as fun. He has a lot in common with some of the characters
o( Wright Morri s, some of the characters COl llmon in America. Nathaniel
Hawthorne in
Fa17 (/zOice
cou ld als:J have been describing Payne when
he wrote:
"If
his inmost hea rt could have been laid open, there would
ha\'e been discO\'ered that dream of undying fame ; which, dream as
it is, i, more powerful th an a thousand realities." Among his realities
are Ann, who, like that wonderful English rock group "The Kinks" is
obsessed with photog ra phing eve ryone and everything as proof of hav–
ing been there, Ann's mother who owns a re frigerated , fireproof wig
bank, and the "unimaginable" C.
J.
Clovis who erects bat towers to
repel mosquitoes so that all over Ameri ca people can sit outside, on
warm summer evenings, and shell their peas in peace.
The Bushwhacked
Piano
is gorgeously written, sad and terribly funny , and says a lot about
love and violence in Ameri ca in this, the so-called Twentieth Century.
E.
L.
Doctorow's
The Book of Daniel
is a brilliant achievement
and the best contemporary novel I've read since reading Frederick
Exley's
A Fan's Notes.
(Which is remaindered all over New York.)
Mr. Doctorow's book is about the son and daughter of Paul and Ro–
chelle Isaacson, a couple who died in the electric chair not for commit–
ting espionage, but for conspiring to commit espionage.
If
Julius and
Ethel Rosenberg had ne\'er existed, the book would be just as good as
it is, but we would, of course, not then have been in such awe of the way
Mr. Doctorow has managed to handle historical figures fictively and a
controversial trial that is still fresh in many people's minds even today,
or perhaps, especially today.
The Book of Daniel
is a bO:Jk about chil–
dren of trials, trials that mostly do not take place in palaces of justice.
It is a book about c risis and because of that, it is a book of infinite
detail and tender attention to the edges of life as well as to its dead
center.
Daniel Isaacson, the son of the dead couple, tries to construct his
future from the grim and confusing pieces of heritage that his parents
