Guest Review: SEARCHING FOR VAN GOGH

Donald Lystra's latest book, Searching for Van Gogh, is a great read, combining a coming-of-age story with a road trip adventure to the top of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Don't miss this one.

 

According to Hemingway, "The writer's job is to tell the truth." He also said, "All you have to do is write one true sentence." Lystra is obviously a Hemingway devotee, as evidenced not only by his writing style, but also by his relentless efforts to create characters that are true to life, as well as situations and story lines that ring true. He did it in his award-winning debut novel, Season of Water and Ice, continued in his story collection, Something That Feels Like Truth, and the commitment is evident in his latest book, Searching for Van Gogh. And it works, as I was immediately drawn into his tale of Nathan and Audrey, as unlikely a pair as Lenny and George or, more recently, Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo (names familiar to readers and moviegoers). 

 

Of the pair, seventeen year-old Nathan is the innocent, a whiz in mathematics and electricity, newly on his own in 1963, living in a rooming house and working in an auto plant in Grand Rapids while pursuing a new interest, trying to paint like Van Gogh. Audrey is a few years older, living in a rundown hotel and working a drugstore lunch counter, and, on the side, offering guided tours of the city's downtown and "companionship" to lonely businessmen from out-of-town. The two meet when Nathan is painting on the bank of the Grand River, and Audrey, watching from the street, offers him advice on "color theory." She reveals her own dream of being a furniture designer, and how, although she's unable to afford the Kendall School of Design, she sits in the hallway outside classroom doors there and listens in. 

 

There are, however, darker sides to both their stories. In Nathan's case it is an uneasy relationship with his stern father and the recent, mysterious death of his older brother, Gary, on a firing range at an Upper Peninsula Army camp where he was stationed. Gary, we learn was "different" -- a highly sensitive and very talented pianist, forced into the Army by their father to “make a man” out of him.

With Audrey, it's a little darker. Nathan gradually learns she'd had a child out of wedlock and was estranged from her parents. (There's more to it, but I don't do spoilers.) There are a couple of road trips, a short, nearly disastrous one to Newaygo, Audrey's hometown, and a much longer one to the top of the U.P., to the Army post where Gary died. Both trips contribute to Nathan's 'education,' sexually and emotionally, but the longer one is especially meaningful, as it takes place concurrently with the national shock and tragedy of the assassination of President Kennedy.

 

As was true of Danny, the teenage protagonist of Lystra's first book, Nathan is a true innocent, trying earnestly to learn the ways of the world without hurting anyone along the way. There is a scene, in which Nathan has an encounter with a prostitute in a cheap hotel, that immediately calls to mind a similar situation with Holden Caulfield in Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, and of the two characters, although Nathan is a couple years older, he seems even more innocent than Holden. Yeah, almost that hesitant, that fearful of crossing that line from childhood to the adult world.

 

In the end, Nathan does cross that line, and there is a sadness in all that he learns, but he keeps on with his painting, even knowing that –

 

... I'd never find Van Gogh's passion, but it - that failure - didn't seem to matter. The world as it existed was enough. For me and for that time it was enough. I didn't need to change it to make it interesting or to find out what was true.

 

A deliberate carefulness, a delicacy even, characterizes Lystra's writing, even as it incorporates the twin influences of Hemingway and Salinger. I'm not sure how he does it, but it works to the -nth degree, and in the process, he does the writer's job – he tells the truth, one true sentence at a time. 

 

This is fine writing of the highest caliber and has my very highest recommendation.

 

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, Booklover

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Reader and writer Tim Bazzett lives in Reed City and frequently reviews of some of the many books he reads. Thanks, Tim!

 

Customers, I will let you know as soon as I have this title in stock, which should be soon!