The Ghost Country: A Study of the Novels of Larry McMurtry by Raymond Neinstein, and: Kerouac’s Town by Barry Gifford, and: Zen in the Art of J. D. Salinger by Gerald Rosen (review)

Reviews 245 Jay Martin’s biography is always absorbing, if at times depressing. There are some really funny moments, the best coming when Martin tells of the penalties Henry began paying for fame, while reaping few of the benefits (like money and security). By the 1950s the Millers were living in Big Sur, and Henry was sufficiently well-known to be troubled by a suc­ cession of pilgrims making their way up the hill. He scarcely had time to write, for the volume of fan mail and uninvited visitors. “Some made it quite clear that they considered themselves his guests: When would lunch be ready? How about a little drink before lunch just to wet the whistle while they read a new story to him? . . . Several young men and women, who had read of the way Henry had sponged off a variety of people, proposed that he should take them in for a year or two. Some hinted that a stipend of a hundred or so a month would suit them fine. . . .” (p. 445) At last we get an account of June Smith Mansfield, Miller’s second wife, “Mona” in the “autobiographical romances.” Miller’s many references to her whetted our appetites, but never satisfied them. The biography adds substantially to our picture of June/Mona, the destructive, scheming fabu­ list, for whom the boundaries between reality and invention were non­ existent, a chameleon who metamorphosed into one brilliant form after another to enmesh Miller and her many other lovers. Academic criticism will find useful the key Martin gives to the rela­ tionship between Miller’s actual life and his “autobiographical” writings, and Martin’s accounts of the genesis and development of Miller’s various books. Many readers will, like myself, find most fascinating those parts which are pure gossip. Such as how far Miller’s affair with the married Anais Nin went. And just how 75-year-old Henry came to marry 27-year-old jazz singer Hiroko Tokuda, and how their marriage fared. ROGER JONES, Toronto, Ontario The Ghost Country: A Study of the Novels of Larry McMurtry. By Ray­ mond Neinstein. Kerouac’s Town. By Barry Gifford. Zen in the Art of J. D. Salinger. By Gerald Rosen. (Berkeley: Creative Arts Book Company. $2.50 each.) Few publishing ventures must be less profitable than the production of monographs; even poetry chapbooks seem to have a better chance to realize 246 Western American Literature a profit. Nonetheless, Creative Arts Book Company, a small Berkeley house of high reputation, has embarked on a series of finely produced — inter­ esting covers, good-quality paper, well-printed — monographs that are sev­ eral cuts above most comparable projects. All three of the titles so far released in the series are well-written and stimulating. Barry Gifford’s exploration of Lowell, Massachusetts, Kerouac’s Town, is especially appealing and valuable. It incudes not only the author’s exploration of Jack Kerouac’s home town, but also fifteen pages of black and white photographs illustrating locals that appeared in Kerouac’s work, especially Dr. Sax. Gifford has also included an interesting — at times mov­ ing— visit with Stella Kerouac, Jack’s widow. Any library interested in Kerouac’s life and work should include this small volume. Gerald Rosen’s study, Zen in the Art of J. D. Salinger, while not of central interest of students of Western American literature, is also a stimu­ lating addition to literary scholarship. Rosen, an emerging novelist of con­ siderable talent, demonstrates parallels between the lives of Holden Caul­ field and Siddhartha Gotama, the Buddha. He concludes by citing the Buddha’s final piece of advice — “Work out your own salvation.” — after having shown its centrality to Salinger’s writing. Raymond Neinstein’s study of Larry McMurtry’s novels, The Ghost Country, is a provocative examination of the Texan’s first five novels. “Dis­ placement,” he argues, is the central concern of those books, quoting McMurtry (from an essay in In A Narrow Grave) : “ . . . the place where all my stories start is the heart faced suddenly with the loss of its country, its customary and legendary range.” Neinstein continues, “it is a country of the heart, then, a ghost...