Raymond A Kennedy

Full disclosure: I gave up on this novel halfway through; with that said, I���m still marking it as read���I feel as if I have read it as, at the point at which I threw in the towel, the monotony and repetitive dialogue and almost predictable rise-in-the-chain-of-command ascendancy of Frankie Fitzgibbons made me feel as if I had the end of the novel pretty well nailed. (Of course, I now wonder how the novel does end: perhaps it ends as some huge cult scene of slaughter, sacrifice, and mass suicide. Although that wouldn���t surprise me all that much either, so I���m happy living with the uncertainty.������

Raymond Kennedy���s Ride a Cockhorse has polarized a lot of reviewers here on Goodreads, and for good reason. I think that a lot of us expect a certain quality of books from NYRB, and this certainly doesn���t feel like a NYRB title at all. Another point of contention has to do with the marketing blurb on the back of the book itself, something that George Ilsley points out in his review below. From the blurb:���

Brimming with snappy dialogue and gleeful obscenity, Ride a Cockhorse is a rollicking cautionary tale of small-town demagoguery that might be seen to prefigure both America���s current financial woes and the rise of Sarah Palin.

While I���m hardly a fan of Sarah Palin, I���m not sure that a publisher should be espousing political agendas on the back covers of their books. On top of that, I prefer to make my own connections while reading instead of having the marketing department at NYRB decide it for me, thank you very much.������

The first chapter of Ride a Cockhorse is wonderful: it���s witty; it���s perverse; it���s hilarious; it���s sickening; it���s like watching a train wreck and being somehow immobilized, unable to look away. After this, Kennedy���s pace slows down as we witness the previously docile and demure Frankie Fitzgibbons come into a strange midlife crisis that, for her, involves the blessing (or curse) of a growing ego, libido, and deluded inflation of her view of herself in relation to others. Her constant denigrations and whip-quick put-downs of those in her power are funny, but they grow old quickly���all the more so as they are repeated almost verbatim on every other page. (On this note, some words get repeated too frequently as well: e.g., ���paranoid��� and ���liquid��� being two words that caused me to cringe each time I saw them peppered throughout the text.)������

Moria has made a good point about the novel���s sexist message: it does indeed read like a male author���s own paranoia���deflected and refracted through the main female character here in the novel���about women rising to positions of power. I also found the sycophantic Bruce and his partner to be characterized in comical ways that could also be read as bordering too closely on homophobia. Ride a Cockhorse is, if anything, a portrait of two-dimensional characters drawn along lines of stereotypes and cliches, so perhaps this was Kennedy���s intention; if it was, the message was not delivered properly to many readers, simply reading comments below.������

Nathan N.R. Gaddis brought ���camp��� up earlier, and as I was making my way through Ride a Cockhorse, I realized that the true way to appreciate the humor and the satire at work in Kennedy���s novel was to read it as camp. It���s the only way, and actually, you know something, Kennedy does camp really well. But there also comes a point when camp is overdone, and, in the case of Ride a Cockhorse, 300 pages filled with phrases, characterizations, put-downs, you-name-it that are repeated ad nauseam is far too long to sustain camp, if you ask me. (Of course, I could also be biased in suggesting Kennedy might well have turned this novel into a solid short story or novella: it seems the last few novels I reviewed���Gerard Murnane���s Inland and Barry Webster���s The Lava in My Bones���were also, in my view, pieces that would have functioned better as short fiction.)���

���NYRB publishes some truly wonderful books, translations, brings long out-of-print titles back into circulation, etcetera. Perhaps Kennedy���s should have been shelved in favor of bringing more typical NYRB titles into our always-greedy hands (ahem, like MacDonald Harris���s Mortal Leap). Ride a Cockhorse, including its Sarah Palin marketing blurb, should be viewed as an experiment on NYRB���s part, one that failed pretty miserably���although it was fun as far as chapter one goes, I���ll give them/him/it that much.… (más)

Wow. The joy of finding a new voice, of finding a novel that captivates and holds me, causing me to lose sleep, literally. Especially terrific is that I had never heard of this author or this book before grabbing it from the pile at the Goodwill Outlet.

Lulu is an inconspicuous 21-year-old wallflower who works in a dime store in the 1950s. She lives with her mother, prays perhaps excessively, dresses drably, rarely wears makeup or does anything with her hair. She sometimes has lunch at the lunch counter, and it is here where her life begins to change.

An older, very well put-together man sits at the counter and draws her attention with his comments about her. He is complimentary and careful. Over time he gains her trust and interest and the two meet at a nearby museum, where they have tea and where Lulu learns to ignore the server. This action heralds what is to come. Rather like putty, she wants to mold herself in the right shape, although she isn't sure what that is. She only knows her life wasn't going anywhere and now it looks more interesting.

Mr. Rafferty introduces Lulu to a society woman, Mrs. Gansevoort, who lives in a mansion with her niece, Chloris. Mrs. Gansevoort is clearly taken by Lulu after having a brief conversation with her, and asks her to move in that very day. Lulu is taken with Mrs. Gansevoort, finding her thoughtful and kind. Lulu is especially thrown by all the attention given her, the positive helpful attention, and she giddily accepts. She is very quickly made over by Mrs. Gansevoort, dressed in clothes worn by Mrs. Gansevoort's daughter, who died in a car accident about five years before, as well as in clothes and jewelry belonging to Mrs. Gansevoort's sister, the mother of the young woman living there. Mrs. Gansevoort even cuts her hair.

Lulu emulates Lucia Gansevoort, walking as she does, behaving as she does. She is brought in as a companion to Mrs. Gansevoort, a helper in the writing of a book, and she does her work industriously and with care. She quickly picks up how she is to treat others, including Chloris, who is treated unkindly. Lulu figures out how to overpower the teenager, how to assert her superiority. When she accomplishes tasks like this, she finds she has the approval of both Mrs. Gansevoort and Mr. Rafferty, a frequent visitor.

Lulu grows in her skills in presenting herself to others and managing her relations. She learns by watching and listening, and even by implication rather than outright direction. She learns how to read Mrs. Gansevoort and Mr. Rafferty and wants nothing better than to please her hostess at all times. She is devoted to her in a way that she previously was devoted to her prayer, if not more so.

When Chloris's brother Douglas comes home from college Lulu finds her allegiances challenged. But she's well trained.

I found it to be a provocative psychological thriller confined almost entirely to the inside of a house.
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