A 72 year old man, wanting to get high, goes inside the ladies room; the men's room is occupied. Smoking now, he hears a voice from the men's room. He responds through a small hole and despite his gruffy old-man voice, realizes that the man mistakes him for a woman.
The old man trolls, he becomes Rachel, a truly lewd 24 year old Jewess, and the unknowing voice, a 41 year old married Insurance Salesman. They begin a relationship akin to that of phone-sex partners, they do no see each other, but only hear each other's voices through a hole in between the two restrooms. But that is just the start.
In leaps and bounds outrageous and even gruesome, this 1966 stream of consciousness novel is written in a voice of a persona who is arguably on high. One could joke that perhaps the author was (high) as well. for starters, take the premise, and the phone-sex like relationship which is just the beginning of a distorted sequence that explodes in your face.
This is quite a short book, but there were times that I had to put it down and laugh(and curse) in disbelief of what is happening. And yet this book is arresting and it is more than just a trip. It is also very slippery, just when I thought i figured out the metaphor of the whole set up, that is -their relationship is actually symbolic of relationship that is mundane. It starts off in another outrageous direction. it is funny, tragic, unbelievable but highly readable.
The novel written by Kenneth Davids deserves a spot in my list of unknown and old books that are definitely worth the read.
No comments:
Post a Comment