Jernigan
From Holden Caulfield to Moses Herzog, our best literature has been narrated by malcontents. To this lineage add Peter Jernigan, who views the world with ferocious intelligence, grim rapture, and a chainsaw wit that he turns, with disastrous consequences, on his wife, his teenaged son, his...
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From Holden Caulfield to Moses Herzog, our best literature has been narrated by malcontents. To this lineage add Peter Jernigan, who views the world with ferocious intelligence, grim rapture, and a chainsaw wit that he turns, with disastrous consequences, on his wife, his teenaged son, his dangerously vulnerable mistress—and, not least of all, on himself. This novel is a bravura performance: a funny, scary, mesmerizing study of a man walking off the edge with his eyes wide open—wisecracking all the way.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780679737131 (0679737138)
Publish date: March 31st 1992
Publisher: Vintage
Pages no: 256
Edition language: English
I picked this up on a whim at a book store. I'd never heard of the book or the author, but I guess there was a tempting blurb. In any case, great book about modern America. Plenty of despair and drinking. Quick read and good story-telling that is shocking in a low-key way.
This novel is a swirling miasma of melancholia. In the beginning Jernigan is lying on the floor of a dilapidated trailer with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his hand. In between ingesting large quantities of gin, he recounts how he got to this lowly state. A beautiful masterpiece of sadness.
Read this somewhere back in the '90s -- I recall reading some rave about it, then finding the book out of print having to spend some effort tracking a copy down (these were pre-abebooks days)... and then being dazzled by the book. Caveat emptor: I *love* narratives about utterly irresponsible dipsh...
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