A Life Spent Reading

Ah, Trevanian. It’s such an unalloyed pleasure to read him.

I think that Trevanian may be my favorite author of all time. The words flow smoothly across the page, the story unfolds with an elegance that reminds one of the great fin-de-siecle writers, he evokes humor and pathos with equal élan, he can write in seemingly any genre, and the things he has to say matter. What more can one ask for?

The Crazyladies of Pearl Street marks a return to his top form. (While I’ve liked all of his books, I have to say that Incident at Twenty-Mile was probably my least favorite, followed by Hot Night in the City.) Trevanian’s most notable successes came in the 70s and 80s, long enough ago that younger readers may not have heard the name. And this is a shame, because he is perhaps our best stylistic bridge between the classics of the 1800s and today’s bestselling authors.

Crazyladies is highly autobiographical, and tells the story of a young boy growing up in an Irish slum in New York City in the 1930s and 40s. As another reviewer has noted, it is not an easy read. Words like “gethsemane” and “epigenous” pepper the text; I can’t think of another contemporary author – well, Paul Theroux, perhaps – who so consistently comes up with words that you’ve never heard of but which work perfectly within the sentence and yet often defy contextual definition.

Long-time fans will have the bonus pleasure of seeing how several of Trevanian’s signature touches came into being. There are also cyber-notes to be downloaded from Trevanian’s website. These are expansions and musings that the publisher felt would detract from the book, but that Trevanian wanted to have in there. I think that his solution is exactly right; people who just want the book can buy it alone, and those of us who will read most anything this author writes can get a substantial addition virtually for free. I found the cyber-notes informative and entertaining, and I recommend them.

Unfortunately, this may well be the last of Trevanian’s books. The author was dying as he wrote it (a fact that he himself was aware of), and he makes no mention of any further works, although there is a partial manuscript on his website. So we must – perhaps – make do with the canon: the two Sanction books, Shibumi, The Main, The Summer of Katya, and the two books mentioned above. I recommend them all to anyone who enjoys a well-told tale or has a love of the English language. There are also two books written under the name of Nicholas Seare, but these are comedic parodies set in the Middle Ages and, while as well done as the other books, definitely not for everyone.