I Tried. Really.

Right off I have to apologize to my writers’ group for this review of Wally Lamb’s I Know This Much is True. I gave it a shot. I did. I wanted to take one of you guys’ recommendations to heart and really try to give the author a good reading. I made it to page 81. It’s not like I didn’t give it a sincere attempt.

Like David Gutterson’s 1994 novel Snow Falling on Cedars, Lamb’s book is about twice as long as it needs to be at nearly 900 pages. Lamb spends WAY too much time in the characters’ heads, the almost inevitable result of the way modern authors abuse first person point of view. J.D. Salinger managed to tell Holden Caulfield’s story in 288 pages with no less depth. Then Lamb’s first fourteen page digression into childhood memory—in an age appropriate voice, no less—stopped me mid-sentence. The author set a pattern I knew I would not be able to slog my way through: lengthy detours into the protagonist’s memories that ever so slowly explain his present circumstances and those of his brother, first in a child’s voice, then, I assume, a teen’s, etc.

Can’t do it. I can’t. Maybe it’s too many years of reading the great authors of the 20’s through the 50’s. Maybe it’s too many movies—which I love—and their necessary third person point of view and commercially imposed time constraints. But I simply cannot hang with a modern first person novel for so long. I cannot tolerate fifty pages of psychological set-up for two pages of action. Faulkner is downright concise when compared to authors like Lamb and Gutterson.

I have stayed with long novels that were not action or adventure stories. I loved Richard Russo’s Nobody’s Fool, whose protagonist is an aging carpenter. He’s divorced, a bad business man and feuding with his boss. I could relate. The character had a rough charm and humor that took hold of me and made me want to see what happened to him. This was, of course, before Russo took to writing fifty page prologues. In his most recent books, he too has fallen into modern “writerly” technique. It’s as if contemporary novelists are conducting an experiment to see how long and boring they can make each successive novel, attempting to nail down precisely at what number of pages they lose readers. For this one subject, that would be 81.

I am truly sorry to report that I would rather have a testicle chewed off by a wolverine than finish I Know This Much is True. I’m sure it will be a welcome addition to the resale bin at my local library. Some woman with much more spare time and patience than me will love to get it for a buck. And I’m happy to have contributed to the support of a living author by purchasing it. I only wish some contemporary author out there would write a book I can love. I want to love a book again. It’s been a while.

Yesterday I picked up Philipp Meyer’s first novel, American Rust. That he spells his first name with one L and a pretentious second P made me a little leery, but it is written in third person, has a blue collar protagonist, and is a “slim” 367 pages. I’m gonna give you a chance, Phil. Don’t let me down, buddy.