Hi
folks,
Today,
I want to share with you what I consider the finest review of my work ever
written, Guillermo O’Joyce’s view of my existential novel, The Rapist.
What
makes it what I feel is a brilliant take on my work are two things. First, and
foremost, O’Joyce has captured exactly what I intended with this book. I’ve
been graced with some wonderful reviews from others and I appreciate them all,
but this writer has dug deeper into what I was trying to do more than any
other.
Second,
what makes this a landmark moment in my writing life, is the reputation of the
reviewer. Guillermo O’Joyce is one of the finest writers ever produced in the
past century. Although sorely neglected by the literary establishment, O’Joyce
is truly a living literary legend.
Space
does not allow me to list all of his accomplishments. Just a few include the
fact that he has taught with James Dickey, Kurt Vonnegut, John Irving, Saul
Bellow, and a list of dozens of the best writers of our lifetimes. He has
written a book, that, in my opinion, is the best book I’ve ever read, the
profanely genius novel, First Born of an
Ass, which was championed and blurbed by Norman Mailer. O’Joyce stands at
the very top of the pantheon of great Western writers of all times.
He’s
also brutally blunt in his assessment of the state of American letters and it is that forthrightness that has cost him favor with the literary establishment.
This is their shame, not his. Read his work and then the work of his critics
and it becomes clear that his is a classic case of a host of inferior talent
acting out of jealousy toward a writer so far ahead of their second-rate
abilities, that it should be embarrassing to them, but, like all those who are
possessed of mediocrity, they fail to recognize themselves.
My
hope is that someone with cojones among the literary establishment will read
his words below and exhibit the kind of bravery that is lacking in many who are
in charge of publishing these days and publish this review in a worthy vehicle.
He deserves much more recognition than has been afforded him.
I’ve
recommended him to my agent, Svetlana Pironko, and one of my publishers, Frank
Nowatzki of the German press, Pulpmaster, and both are currently reading his
newest work, a Cuban memoir.
Currently,
O’Joyce is living in St. Augustine, Florida in near-penury, and is surviving by
playing his harmonica in front of restaurants for coins. This is
shameful—shameful to the literary establishment who allow one of our greatest
writers to subsist this way, when he should be lauded at every turn. True
genius always brings out the vitriol of the lesser. All I can say to those who
control publishing is that I can only hope some among that bunch recognize the
bona fide brilliant talent who lives among us and who possess a vision greater
than most. The word “genius” is bandied about far too often and given to many
who are undeserving of the title. Guillermo O’Joyce is more deserving than any
writer I know of. And, those whose vision is more acute than others are all too
often denigrated by those of lesser abilties because of their own sense of
failure. Especially toward those who point out their deficiencies. As Einstein
once noted, “Adventurous spirits always encounter the violent opposition of
mediocre minds.”
I
only hope there is someone out there who reads this and recognizes what it is
they are reading. And does something to help this literary giant before it’s
too late.
Me and Joe Lansdale
I was recently interviewed by Pam Stack on her podcast, "Authors on the Air," and Pam asked me something to the effect of what was my biggest award as an author. My answer is this: More than sales, more than awards, more than anything, my biggest awards have always been the respect of the writers I respect. In the past several months, I've received what I consider my two biggest honors--first, the words from Joe Lansdale when he said: "Les Edgerton has swiftly become my favorite crime writer. Original voice, uncompromising attitude and a pure hardboiled syle leap him to the front ranks of my reading list. He will become legendary." The second and equal to Joe's words, is O'Joyce's review of my best work, which follow.
I
give you, Guillermo O’Joyce…
Review of The
Rapist
Author: Les Edgerton
Reviewer: Guillermo O’Joyce
July 1st, 2016
Henry Miller once wrote, “If any man
dared translate all that is in his heart, to put down what is really his
experience, what is truly his truth, I think then the world would to go smash,
no accident, no will could ever again assemble the pieces, the atoms, the
indestructible elements that have gone to make up the world.”
Such a man has emerged. His name is
Les Edgerton. The vehicle for his assault is a fictional character named Truman
Pinter, the book has the title The
Rapist. The reverberations of his words are so violent and encompassing,
the reader becomes as taut and nerve-wracked as the teller of the story after
10 pages.
That is because the reader is
directly incriminated as the villain. The reader is left no room to stand. He
is cornered with the falsification of his own life. Like Truman, a condemned
man awaiting execution for the supposed crimes of rape and murder, the reader
is condemned and pinned against the cell bars of unflinching prose. The charges
are reversed: by the end of 140 pages the reader is pronounced Guilty of
Capitulation.
Let Truman speak: “He (Defiler of
Truth) lacks a center—each of you is his center—and he has sucked the marrow
dry of each of those he has visited.”
These are the words Truman has held
back for 44 years. Now that he is condemned, he is free to fire away.
Edgerton’s hope is that a few humans who are not legally condemned but feel
trapped by his words will begin to speak from their conscience. Right now the
world is devoid of conscience and consciousness. The timing for such a book is
perfect.
Truman’s real crime is that he has
remained separate. He has inherited money and doesn’t have to work. Until he
meets the town trollop, he is a virgin. It is this separateness that gets him
labeled and condemned to die. Humans have a great fear of The Loner, The
Outsider. They fear he may know something they don’t. Therefore, they must kill
him. Richard Wright’s Native Son was
originally entitled The Outsider. Native Son
is one of the few books that can match The
Rapist for sustained tension. But just as Wright’s voice is labeled “Black
Protest”, The Rapist is under lock
and key as a “crime novel”. You can’t sell anything on this Earth unless it is grouped under a fashionable label. And
we wonder why there is murder all around us????
There is no self-righteousness to
Truman Pinter. Just before his execution he realizes that this detachment which
he thinks gives him freedom, has paradoxically made him a slave. He says,
“Those who cared did something about the situation they disliked. I had simply
let things happen and taken the consequences, good or bad. Therefore, I
relinquished control and in doing so gave up any claim to freedom.” He is as
unsparing with his own life as he is with the props of western civilization.
Yet, Truman is not to be dismissed
as a misguided rebel. A prison guard says about him, “I think that you’re some
kind of genius that doesn’t belong anywhere.” About this pronouncement, Truman
remarks, “In his straightforward way, he had cut through the subterfuge and
claptrap and identified the truth.”
Now the word “genius” is as overused
as the phrase “cutting edge.” The dictionary says, “one who is exceptionally
intelligent or creative,” a sure sign the experts of language are just as lost
as prison wardens. When it comes to people who combine great talent, faith in
their intuition, discipline, and courage to chart their own direction, the
arbiters of culture have no idea what to do with them. They don’t fit any
previous pattern; their works resist labeling; their lives seem a mess; they
are difficult to deal with. They are simply on another wave length.
This is true of Edgerton and his
creation, Truman. Yet, Truman spirals off and becomes much more than a
mouthpiece; he becomes an independent voice, one that will haunt the sleep of
readers with the guts to hear him out.
In designing Truman, Edgerton had
the wisdom to make him completely unattractive. He fits none of the formulas
for an engaging human being. His personality has no color. He doesn’t play the
fiddle nor show any interest in being an artist. He espouses no causes,
political nor religious. He is pompous, conceited, and a bit of a boor in the
first 12 pages. Until he is sentenced, he is without conviction.
However, Truman is not a complete
blank. He was nursed in a rocking chair until he was 6. His father left when he
was 5. He does have a degree from Princeton, a fact which only gets him in
trouble with the warden, also a Princeton graduate. The warden cannot fathom a
condemned man who hasn’t been underprivileged. Until the run-in with the town
trollop, he’s done little but fish, observe, and read. Yet, books have meant
little to him. Oh, he’s done one other thing, he’s masturbated. Often. He’s
dribbled away the constant tension he feels between himself and the rest of the
race.
What Truman can do is see and hear
clearly and then express himself from his conscience. In a marvelous bit of
discipline on Edgerton’s part, he doesn’t allow Truman to indulge in any
rhetoric of castigation. Truman simply addresses his situation, as it arises,
in brief one and two paragraph responses and it is all like a hidden song from
the core of the earth. It is a reminder of Edgerton’s one relative, Arthur
Rimbaud, who wrote in 1872, “I turned silences and nights into words. What was
unutterable I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.”
As an example of the reverberations
of Truman I will cite one: beans. Beans are fed to prisoners because they are
the cheapest of all foodstuffs. Says Truman, “The warden has an allowance for
our food and if he can save money from his allotted budget, he’s allowed to
keep the savings for himself.” To add to the fun, merchants put gravel in the
beans to up the weight and collect more money. Truman bites down on a bean and
busts a molar. His entire story is told with a toothache.
Parochial enough, you say. Yet is
there a single product we can buy that hasn’t been tampered with? That hasn’t
been shot full of hormones, laced with pesticides, left to the vagaries of some
cantankerous machine, the negligence of some bitter foreman? Defects on new
cars kill almost as many people as the Diaper Heads do yet not a single CEO has
ever been put on trial. Still, no student is allowed in a college classroom
without his assurance that he will be a good consumer.
This then is a book of revolt.
The need to revolt is implicit in
every line.
That’s what gives The Rapist its superhuman tension.
If books could be measured by what
they provoke, this book of Edgerton’s
would top the list. It’s going to enrage people because they’re going to
realize the hypocrisy by which they gained their food and shelter was nothing
more than honoring a host of killing machines which absolutely denied the
existence of the spirit of creation.
Now we are back to the Son of Moloch
which begins The Rapist—“He lies down
with all members of the congregation equally.” Most adults will try to block
out its message; they’re not going to relinquish 30 or 40 years of gaining a
precarious foothold within a teetering civilization. Better to be a zombie with
something to eat than a gaping worm behind a bush, pleading for a bowl of
beans.
But there’s one group that’s going
to take The Rapist to heart precisely
because they haven’t been indoctrinated by the realities. That’s 15-year-olds
across the U.S., Europe, and Japan. They’ve experienced enough of the killing
machines to doubt their legitimacy. They quite rightly suspect that they’re
soon going to end up in a uniform, holding a rifle, and dropped on their
pubescent heads from an airplane into a country whose name they can’t
pronounce. They are largely male and owing to another war that goes untalked
about, they can’t get laid. They’re going to glance at Truman’s persistent
whacking away and declare, “Not me!”
Then watch out! All that pubescent
energy backed up, searching for an object for their wrath. That they will find
their way to The Rapist is
problematic unless some bitter but adventurous philanthropist buys up copies
and passes them out on the street advancing on a schoolyard.
Unlikely, you say. Hah! No more
unlikely than the miracle of The Rapist
whose knife-edge I lay in your hands now.
--Guillermo O’Joyce, Author, Don’t
Do It Standing Up, Recorder of Births and Deaths: Stories, First Born of an
Ass, For Women who Moan, Listen, America, You Don’t Even Own Your Name, and
Miller, Bukowski and Their Enemies,
among others.
Thank
you for reading O’Joyce’s review. I hope it affected you and showed you what a truly
great writer is capable of on the page.
Blue
skies,
Les
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