Some readers will recognize the slant of the pen’s I from Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea (1938) or J. Promisingly directionless, engagingly solipsistic, Harold has quit his job to keep his journal, one of those existentialist-sorry, sexistentialist-affairs. He’s 26, and we all know what might happen to Californians in this era when they turn 27. Living in Berkeley in 1970, the nēmontēmi of the Summer of Love, Harold is approaching the darkness at the end of youth’s bright tunnel. No Charles Highway or Humbert Humbert maybe, but he does keep a rigorous journal full of sexual succès, the geocentrism of the novel. They were called Nenoquich, which means ‘Worthless person’ or ‘Will never amount to anything.’”Įnter Harold Raab. The five “useless” days at the end of each 360-day cycle were called n e mont e mi by the Aztecs Sahagun also mentions the n e mont e mi: “In these five days, which were of evil omen, they said that those born during this time would have bad luck in everything and would be poor and miserable. Now, a reasonable question to have at this stage is, “What is a ‘Nenoquich?’”-and, perhaps, “How do you pronounce it?” We are left to our own tied tongues on the latter, though Bean doesn’t beat around any scorched Californian bushes in the what department. This debut, or better say rebut, is our first masterpiece this decade-and it was written in 1982. I linger in this subway cart of memory, where the titles of secret masterpieces still sail by with a slight list in the mirrory windows, for one reason: no one’s got anything better up their sleeve than Henry Bean’s born-again debut The Nenoquich, out for resurrection this week by McNally Editions. What can I say? I was 19.īut when Edwin didn’t choose the novels I debriefed him on, I learned it was because he had something even better up his sleeve. Before catching the F Train, Edwin would present me with a new bulk and I’d try to pay our bill. I’d write up reports on them and we’d rendezvous in the West Village to discuss their chances for rebirth over a beer and Polish sausage. By a rare mettle, but also a crucial felicity, Edwin reads at least five estranged and out-of-print books at a go, and he used to entrust me with the ones he didn’t have time for, handing over stacks just too tall to wedge under my arm. I used to work for the founder of this literary phenomenon, vigilante resurrectionist Edwin Frank of NYRB Classics. “nce when the body dies, and once when the talent dies.” But in our era of the reboot, the remake, and the literary reissue, it just so happens that some writers can be born twice too. “WRITERS DIE TWICE,” Martin Amis wrote in 2009.
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