Go Very Highly Trippingly to and Fro/the Stretch Run

by Raymond Decapite

Veteran novelist DeCapite (The Coming of Fabrizze, etc.) writes dialogue-centered tough-guy prose, punctuated with occasional moments of compassion. In this two-for-one offering, he reveals the whole spectrum of urban Italian-American living. The author masterfully captures the details of a culture: gambling and gamboling; "eating, drinking, eating"; Sunday afternoon pinochle games; down-on-their-luck men named Cirio, Chooch, Nowinsky and Screwy Phil; an ex-frighter-now-restaurateur named Figaro: Patsy Vovo, who hosts a regular poker game; a parrot named Paul Parrot; and superintendent Tony Zang. Go Very Highly Trippingly To and Fro is haunted by the echoic click of billiard balls, and concerns narrator Andy Farr, who writes bets for a man named "Cappy" and falls head over heels for Rachel, a feisty waitress, while awaiting the return from New York City of his older, slightly mythic brother, Roxie, a fledgling actor and self-professed "culture consultant". When Roxie shows up, Andy loses Rachel to his dashing sibling. Gambling haunts the small world of The Stretch Run, the weaker of the two tales. In each novel, however, a young writer-drifter ("writer" meaning both one who takes bets and one who constructs sentences) finds love, but only at the expense of losing his mentor. "Justice?" writes DeCapite in The Stretch Run. "Forget it".

280 pages, Paperback

First published May 31, 2000

About the author

Raymond DeCapite was born in Cleveland in 1924. His published novels were The Coming of Fabrizze, A Lost King, Pat the Lion on the Head, Go Very Highly Trippingly To and Fro, and The Stretch Run. He wrote three plays: Sparky And Company, Things Left Standing, and Where The Trains Go. He was a recipient of the Cleveland Arts Prize, the Ohioana Award, and the Cleveland Critics' Circle Award.

Reviews

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

"stretch run" is a markedly stronger read than "go very highly"; they come from a similar place. both are narrated by young italian-americans in cleveland's tremont neighborhood (in the chronology of the first book, the highway that carved a nasty scar through the residential core of south-near west cleveland is just being built, although it hardly figures into the plot -- the setting is particularly rich because tremont is both more or less intact, as a neighborhood, and also sealed off a bit by the highways. its proximity to downtown/compact but pleasant urban character has led to some gentrification, but not the truly wretched kind. no chain stores, and ugly condos have only peppered the fringes of the neighborhood. i learned only after reading that these two books were first published in the mid1990s. would bet dollars to donuts/any pastry that they were actually written, or first conceived, long before.) OK setting aside that extremely long parenthetical, both of these books are concerned with three characters, "go very highly" with a young italian sporting fella, his actor brother, and a diner waitress. "stretch" is about a young italian sporting fella, his handicapping buddy, and the dental hygienist that the former takes up with. book 1 is more about romance, book 2 bromance, but both are sweetly rendered in an American Century prelapsarian voice. Sort of a less mean Algren, but not completely wimpy. The second book has far richer descriptive writing, even though it doesn't have as much plot oomph (and book 1 really only has the one oomphy moment). after book 1 i thought about bagging on it as a document of genial, fluffy local literary history but book 2 really made me happy. killer dialogue, a satisfyingly clean set of characters, and just enough depth to make it stick.

description of a guy closing a car door after having a mild spat with the driver:
"He got out of the car and without looking he threw the door back, as if throwing it away"

guy talking to his girl, waiting to hear her response to a confession of love:
"This is like waiting for a parachute to open"

guy on not being sure where he stands with a girl:
"there were moments where I had the feeling she was trying to remember my name"

book one is a soft 3, book two is a solid 4

[Larry Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This double book of Raymond DeCapite's writings (1924-2009) is a real winner, and the metaphor of winning plays well for both novels are tied to the betting and gambling scenes of Cleveland...whether taking bets, dealing cards, or playing the horses at the tracks. But both novels are really love stories of friendships and romance. For me they tell a story of how working class people (of his beloved Tremont ares of Cleveland) survive in body and spirit. Ray is a kind of Midwest Raymond Chandler with a heart. He's a master of the apt and poetic metaphor himself...and we get it for the weather, the food, the streets of his neighborhood. "Rain was like grapes flung against the windows."..."The clouds that Monday morning were piled up like laundry. There was no wind. No wind at all." Lest you think it is all about place, here's a line from the romance that feeds both novels: "One kiss led to another. Carefully we went wild." Raymond DeCapite is a champ and deserves a wide audience. His work makes us all human.

A bit about Raymond DeCapite: Raymond DeCapite (October 4, 1924–July 8, 2009) was an American novelist and playwright. He is best known for The Coming of Fabrizze (1960) and A Lost King (1961). He lived in Cleveland, Ohio, and wrote extensively about the ethnic neighborhoods of the South Side (Tremont) area. His early novels were widely praised by The New York Times and the Herald Tribune. In 1962 he received the Cleveland Arts Prize for Literature

[Thomas McDade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second novel better than the first. Makes the reader want to go to Thistledown race track and bet a trifecta, drink a shot of Echo Spring, chase it with Genesee Ale.