Public Exposure: Lelchuk's American Mischief and Ziff: A Life?

Abstract

Public Exposure: Lelchuk's American Mischief and Ziff: A Life?Alan Lelchuk. American Mischief. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2004. 507 pp. $19.95.Alan Lelchuk. Ziff A Life? New York: Carroll, 2003 (2004 pb). ix + 409 pp. Cloth $25.00; pb $14.00.Catching a man off guard that way, with his pants down so to speak, can result in exposing certain truths about his whole life that were only dimly in evidence before. (Lelchuk, American Mischief 15)If people would live private lives that reflect what they publicly say they believe, then understanding human action would appear to be a simple task of connecting the dots. As it usually goes, however, people speak one belief (set of truths) and live according to another. The public sphere of life holds universally constructed ideals and desires, ideas that consistently mimic or challenge the norm. It is by delving into the private closets of life that true beliefs are exposed, and then the simple task of connecting the dots becomes complicated. The task of exposing both the private life and the ensuing public life complications (or vice versa) is one voluntarily undertaken by Alan Lelchuk in his latest novel, Ziff: A Life? The goal of exploring binary themes of public/private, reconciliation/alienation, and rebellion/compliance is not new to Lelchuk's writing. As a matter of fact, he began his writing career by engaging these very subjects in American Mischief. In this earlier novel, the lines of public and private beliefs and practice cross the lines of social and political rebellion characteristic of the 1960s. The deterioration of productive communication among generations, sexes, races, and various belief systems led to both private and public chaos. The major characters in American Mischief bleed real blood and shed real tears in what appears to be a futile attempt at reconciling the two spheres. However, in his more recent fictional exploration of the literary friendship between two established writers in Ziff: A Life? Lelchuk moves the question of public and private alignment to a level of personal exploration. The real blood and real tears of this novel come in the main characters' desperate attempts to publicly uncover, discover, and then recover exposed, private truth(s).Although reviews of Ziff: A Life? acknowledge the novel's obvious references to Lelchuk's literary relationship with Philip Roth, there also is another aspect that the Lelchuk books share with Rothian works. The reprinting of American Mischief in 2004 and the availability of Ziff: A Life? in paperback that same year conveniently provide an avenue for a discussion of these connections. The manipulation of fact and fiction, public and private is a recurring subject in many of Roth's works, and Lelchuk's attempts to address the same issues make for an interesting comparison.Despite the ring of simplicity that truthfulness in both public and private identity has, locating it, especially in writing, is usually a difficult task to accomplish. Besides the classic unwillingness of many people to reveal their private lives to the public eye, there are times when the public does not wish to see the truth of private desires; consequently, the public voice or image that a person has dominates his or her perceived identity. Thus, the lines between what to say or do and when to say it or do it are not as distinct as some would like them to be. These are times when an expected public image supersedes any private expression. The fight to establish or reestablish a clear, feasible connection between the two is evident in much of modern literature, particularly in the literature of multiethnic writers. Here, public and private identities and their expressions take on many layers, including, but not limited to, those that address identity as it relates to the ethnic group, the larger social and political world, the individual, the writer within the writing community, and the writer within the particular ethnic community. …