GOING NATIVE by Stephen Wright

(Not!! the comedian)

Finished Fr 5/4/18 I was eagerly awaiting the biography of Carrie Brownstein, HUNGER MAKES ME A MODERN GIRL, and I finished this novel the same evening that Brownstein's book arrived.

This is one of my old trade paperbacks. No notation of when I got it and I'm sure that I'd never read it. I love finding books that I've ignored, but read them and love them. If I've picked something out, usually I'll like it- sooner or later.


From the author's page at wikipedia-

"Stephen Wright (born 1946) is a novelist based in New York City known for his use of surrealistic imagery and dark comedy. His work has varied from hallucinatory accounts of war (Meditations in Green), a family drama among UFO cultists (M31: A Family Romance), carnivalesque novel on a serial killer (Going Native), to a picaresque taking place during the Civil War (The Amalgamation Polka). He has taught writing courses at various universities, including Princeton University, Brown University, and The New School.

Going Native was ranked #13 on Larry McCaffery's 20th Century’s Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction."

This novel is composed of eight, more or less, stand-alone sections. The author's description and language are brilliant and the characters and situations are picaresque to say the least.

1.) 500 MOSQUITOES AN HOUR- A description of a suburban dinner party. Two couples and one of the men disappears in a 1969 Ford Galaxie at the end of the section. This Ford Galaxie is mentioned in several other sections, but it isn't necessarily the same car (I think?).

2.) A HEADFUL OF CORPSES- Mr. CD and Latisha are two crack addicts and this is about their hallucinatory world. A wild examination of the drug addled mind.

3.) BLACKWORK- A hitchhiker is hassled by the police and then picked up by a man driving on a rainy night; strange dialog. They begin passing a bottle, and the hitchhiker wants out of the car. This is a '69 Galaxie. (It's spelled 'ie', not with a 'y')

4.) THE 25 MILE PISS-The action is set at the Yellowbird Motel in Cool Creek, Colorado. Odd artifacts in the lobby and very strange characters. The Galaxie is back again.

5.) GETTING HAPPY- "Perry resides (temporarily) in a Fuck House, his term for this deteriorating South Side SRO, rentals available on an hourly basis, the communal john at the end of the corridor one green-bearded bowl with a cracked seat, the view from his window the 24-7 promenade of the broken-glass people, their sharp-edged psyches coming at you like ninja implements every time you braved the block for a food run."  Lurid description of orgy.

6.) THE QUEEN OF DIAMONDS- Life at 'The Happy Chapel'- Weddings For Sale and the strange family that run the place.

7.) THE NIGHT OF THE LONG PIGS- Drake and Amanda Copeland, Hollywood people connected to the movie industry, seek out the badlands of Borneo. They meet headhunters and hunt wild pigs in very primitive conditions. Drake gets a 'palang' which is a metal ornament attached to his penis; an ancient form of piercing from Indonesia.
They survive in Borneo only to be murdered at a dinner party in the home. All the guests are taken to separate rooms after the man and woman robbers take under one hundred dollars from the group. The man decides to shoot them all in the head for no real reason- just because he can. Amanda wonders if her death will be anything like the way death is understood in Indonesia.

This might be my favorite section of the book.

8.) THIS IS NOT AN EXIT- Will Johnson is married to a very rich woman in Malibu, CA. He has a suitcase of disguises and likes to pretend that he is someone else.  He's kind of a trickster. He comes back to the beach house and goes for a walk on the beach with his stepson, Todd and Tia, his wife.

In the final scene he has put on one of Tia's dresses and entered the garage where he gets into his Galaxie 500. He had cut his finger while slicing a lemon for a drink. The novel begins with a woman slicing her finger while preparing a meal in the first section. He gets in the car and maybe thinking of suicide or just the randomness of life in general.
"...the ruined teeth fixed in a yellowy smile that will not diminish, that will not fade, he's happy, he's being entertained."

I'm going to order another novel by this guy.