Half a Look of Cain
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Part fable and part rhapsodic exploration of desire and loss, Half a Look of Cain bears Goyen's unmistakable artistic signature on every page. Told as a series of nested episodes, the novel is narrated alternately by a male nurse, his patient, and a lighthouse keeper. As boundaries blur and connections between the men emerge, Half a Look of Cain becomes a meditation on communion and alienation, and an exploration of emotional and physical longing. The novel is both a rediscovered cry against the conformity and suppressed emotions of the 1950s and a celebration of passion. Reginald Gibbons has edited the novel from the author's multiple manuscripts and has contributed a wonderful afterword.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
For fans of the fabulist tradition, Goyen was a standard-bearer of sorts from the publication of his seminal novel, The House of Breath , in 1950 to his death in 1983. Written during the '50s and '60s but never published, this short, experimental novel is framed by the narration of an unnamed man in the Pacific Northwest who replaces a murdered lighthouse keeper named Curran. The new ``Lighthouse Keeper'' finds ``Curran's Log''--an intricate account of Curran's days as a nurse during WW II, when he cared for a comatose patient who kept his own journal, which Curran copied into the Log. The patient's and Curran's lives share certain symbols and characters--a trapeze artist named Marvello; a murderous putative brother, Pietro; a circus (and hospital) filled with animals; and Shipwreck Kelley, a flagpole sitter in a small American town. For all its eccentricities and the grandeur of its precise language, however, this remarkable novel never quite pulls itself together. As the new Lighthouse Keeper says, ``There is an idea running through this record,'' as various characters variously muse on the various texts they read, and, indeed, Goyen seems to be reaching for some grand, Heisenbergian theory about the relationship between reader and writer. Unfortunately, the best he can cobble up is a rickety conclusion that leaves the question unresolved. A thrilling but ultimately disappointing novel.
