In Firework, a novel that starts in the gutter and never once looks at the stars, Eugene Marten accomplishes two extraordinary feats. Not only does the book establish Marten, author of In the Blind and Waste, two other bleak miracles, as one of our finest contemporary prose stylists, but it also introduces its publisher, Tyrant Books, as one of our best purveyors of contemporary fiction.
The novel opens with a prostitution sting in the early nineties. Throughout the ensuing decade—beginning with the LA riots and ending with the Bush election—Jelonnek, the protagonist, finds himself in the middle of many other less-than-auspicious events. He sits in the backseat during a high-speed chase from a pimp on a rampage. He wakes one morning to find his house has been spray-painted with racial slurs. What happens between those two events cause such an appalling character, a misogynist and a racist and a criminal, to become somehow more of an appealing individual for the reader. Jelonnek is us after all. The personal tumult of his life brings him to the same place our national tumult has brought us now.
Marten’s prose also helps bring about pity for Jelonnek. Here is our laissez-faire Travis Bickle on a date with a black woman:
He wondered who else she might show him he was, in that light of her dark that lit him alone, and while he wondered he might have considered that she was about to leave, that if he was going to ask her now was the time, and then it didn’t matter because she asked him instead.
Elsewhere, the crisp, clean sentences combine with metaphoric turns of phrase to create a beautiful, surreal landscape, physically and emotionally. No one just shrugs. They “shrug catastrophically [and] the world with its billions teemed again.” Things don’t just burn. They “became fire, and the fire used him to make itself.” Language is a character in this novel.
Words appeared in Jelonnek’s mind, sage and gulch, words he vaguely knew and thought of as Western words, but he didn’t know if they were Wyoming words, and maybe if you knew what to call things you would feel less lonely, or maybe the words just got in the way and only if you lost the right ones would you find yourself in the distance.
Despite its thematic stronghold, however, Marten’s Firework displays evidence of larger aims. It’s not just about language; it’s about American language. It’s not just about culture; it’s about American culture. Tyrant Books and Firework have an actual mission, both in the sense of their carrying on with militaristic purpose and in the sense of their following a religious edict. The literary press as well as its second novel are each a call to arms as much as a declaration of faith.
5 responses
I’m sorry, Mr. Wright, but Jelonnek is not me. Not by any stretch. And I’d argue that Eugene Marten’s latest novel is less about “American culture†and “American language†than pushing an unbelievable story idea beyond the point of ridiculousness.
From the senseless plot to the tedious descriptions to the numerous copyediting errors, Firework was a disappointment. I’m sad to say this because I expected a lot more from this book, given its NYTyrant stamp of approval.
After recently reading the novel, a friend and I engaged in a breathless email dialogue about why it didn’t work. Though I never intended to make my comments public, because, let’s face it, there could be some kind of backlash — the indie lit scene feels way too insular most of the time — I can’t sit back in good conscience and let the Rumpus literati be swayed by Wright’s assertion that “Jelonnek is us†and somehow this book fulfills a noble literary mission. The opposite is closer to the truth.
You know how it is: There is so little time, and so many better new books to read. If you will then, please consider the following email excerpt a public service.
PLEASE NOTE: MAJOR SPOILERS DEAD AHEAD
– – –
i mean, really… the premise of the whole road trip thing made zero sense. and for me, the biggest problem was this protagonist who’s so checked out, right? then he all of a sudden gets assertive — but not really b/c he’s still pretty much checked out the whole time — by taking personal responsibility for this crack whore and her daughter? to the point of wrecking his entire life, however sad it may be? but w/out ever saying (or mindfully doing) much at all, ever? then he ends up making a home with them in the suburbs — kaboom! and now he really asserts himself, even though he hasn’t actually done much or said anything the entire book, by going ninja white supremacist superhero and burning himself up in an act of…??? yeah… right.
sure, there was some good weirdness at the beginning and a decent setup w/ the kafka gig and the way the language was cut up, put me in another place, familiar but not, ugly american wasteland, reminded me of john hawkes. but then the overdone language omissions — just to make it more of a pain in the ass to read? oblique dialogue is soooo postmodern… — got tired in no time, and description after description after description — with some more truncated dialogue — then more description and more… and more… TEDIOUS. and the story is set into motion by that guy from the wedding gunning for high times? yeah, i hate when the overwhelming need to cruise for drugs and whores hits me at the most inopportune moments. hate hate hate when that happens. unbelievable plot. awful pacing. overdetermined dialogue.
and what’s the “perfect†birthday present at the end? a picture of the baby the whore’s daughter had from jelonnek raping her in her sleep, but the girl, you know, she thought it was only a dream of being molested b/c she’s a deep sleeper? that’s some badass writing. I mean, dood, the symbolism. it’s not meant to be realistic. yeah. bad ass. or maybe it’s just bad.
Once again, Jesusangelgarcia proves to everyone that he cannot read.
@jesus: therumpus – please patroll trolls at a more adequate rate please. thank you,
concerned reader
Anonymous “Alonzo” & Nick: If you would like to discuss any of the points I’ve made, I’m open to a dialogue. Please, feel free to counter any of my arguments with your own. Let’s talk. Show me how I’m wrong. Make me want to read this book again.
Snowden Wright nails it. Firework is an extraordinary book. Having read an early copy, I have been saying the same to anyone I know who reads and desires the experience to be strong and unsettling. I have not kept up with its reception, but hope it is doing well and that Eugene Martin — that mild human being — is well along on another.
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