American Literary Stratigraphy

Abstract

American Literary Stratigraphy Christopher Leise (bio) Personae Sergio De La Pava University of Chicago Press www.press.uchicago.edu 216 Pages; Print, $17.00 The details of Sergio De La Pava’s rise to indie esteem seem as improbable as the events that comprise his two very impressive novels. His first pranksteresque accomplishment, A Naked Singularity (2008) features the world’s most talented and indefatigable public defender, extended musings on the life of boxer Wilfred Benítez, glimpses into warm family meals, explanations of advanced physics, and the tandem of Uncle Sam and a chimpanzee stalking the increasingly paranoid protagonist. Remarkably, it also has a plot, which keeps the raucous story more or less focused on reaching a strangely satisfying conclusion. Not so remarkably, given its ambition and disregard for distracted readers, De La Pava could not place his manuscript with a publisher. In what I can only imagine is the career John Kennedy Toole might have carved for himself had self-publication and self-promotion been as accessible (as it is now) for A Confederacy of Dunces in 1963, De La Pava released the book himself in 2008. Over time, a constellation of eager testimonials grew, attesting to the novel’s rare ludic gravity. For devotees of Gaddis, Gass, Pynchon, and Coover—the postmodern maximalist spellbinders—A Naked Singularity positioned De La Pava as the adoring but confident young cousin, sipping Pabst Blue Ribbon lazily from a can in the hipper corners of an increasingly legitimate DIY culture. He offered the distraught David Foster Wallace a valium, goosed the science-serious Richard Powers in the ribs, and reminded Jonathan Franzen that this oft-embittering world still contains good people we can root for, no matter how great the distance between our fingertips and the shimmer of perfection. I have not seen any early copies, and so cannot comment on the material attributes of Singularity’s first incarnation, but the University of Chicago Press did the literary world a great service in giving De La Pava’s novel the legitimacy of its imprimatur. In marked contrast to the beauty of Steve Tomasula’s breathtaking book-object VAS, however, their minimalist print (and, sadly, proofreading) provides an unfortunate low-fi counterpoint to the glossy narrative. Fixing the ultra-dense writing with a cheap grayscale print, shot through with tiny white voids presumably to save on ink, Chicago found a way to balance risk with reward and make this major work of American writing more visible. Reprinted by Chicago in 2013, Personae’s pages are marked by its suggestively rich black ink, in typeface that hints at a universe somehow ages younger than Singularity’s cosmos—though denser, the shorter novel nevertheless contains the base components of its predecessor’s more numerous elements. Thus while its jacket-copy announces boldly that Personae “is nothing like” his first book, De La Pava’s second novel shares key attributes that make it a highly satisfying heir to Singularity. Both novels cohere around a crime: the first, one to be executed; the second, one seemingly to be discovered. They also share, as central characters, prodigiously talented agents in an urban criminal justice system. But whereas Singularity works to represent the totality of American life on the cusp of our current communications revolution (its hero, Casi, does not own a cell phone, and a TiVo-like device defines the horizon of media-technology progress), Personae works to provide something like a stratigraphic portrait of literature across the twentieth century. Click for larger view View full resolution Detail from cover At its outset, Personae promises to be an exciting addition to the neo-noir trend that has attracted the likes of Colson Whitehead, Denis Johnson, Coover, Pynchon, and other major writers in the last fifteen years. Called to the scene of a mysterious death, preternaturally gifted homicide detective Helen Tame finds the corpse of a 111 year-old man in a tiny New York apartment. Her superior intellect makes dealing with lesser colleagues tiresome—as tiresome, one might fear, as the initially over-wrought prose and made-for-TV cliché damaged-detective trope threatens to be: I am here because of blood, blood that makes little sense...