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Going Down
Unlike David Markson’s most recent works, including Vanishing Point and Wittgenstein’s Mistress, which David Foster Wallace described as "pretty much the high point of experimental fiction in this country," his early novel, Going Down, is a more traditional effort, a masterfully plotted narrative set in Mexico in the 1960s. Three Americans, a man and two women, are living together in obvious intimacy. Their habits, strange to the Mexicans, are strangest of all to themselves.
When Fern Winters’ attention is caught by movement behind a window in a run-down Greenwich Village apartment building, she can’t suspect that her encounter with the apartment’s occupant will eventually lead her to be come upon in an abandoned chapel, in a tiny mountain village—clutching the bloody machete with which one of the three has been murdered.
Going Down is a rarity among novels—brilliantly and poetically written, faultlessly constructed, centered on fully realized people, and yet completely uninhibited in its depiction of startling eroticism.
When Fern Winters’ attention is caught by movement behind a window in a run-down Greenwich Village apartment building, she can’t suspect that her encounter with the apartment’s occupant will eventually lead her to be come upon in an abandoned chapel, in a tiny mountain village—clutching the bloody machete with which one of the three has been murdered.
Going Down is a rarity among novels—brilliantly and poetically written, faultlessly constructed, centered on fully realized people, and yet completely uninhibited in its depiction of startling eroticism.
290 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
2 people are currently reading
248 people want to read
About the author
David Markson
24 books349 followersDavid Markson was an American novelist, born David Merrill Markson in Albany, New York. He is the author of several postmodern novels, including This is Not a Novel, Springer's Progress, and Wittgenstein's Mistress. His most recent work, The Last Novel, was published in 2007 and received a positive review in the New York Times, which called it "a real tour de force."
Markson's work is characterized by an unconventional approach to narration and plot. While his early works may draw on the modernist tradition of William Faulkner and Malcolm Lowry, Markson says his later novels are "literally crammed with literary and artistic anecdotes" and "nonlinear, discontinuous, collage-like, an assemblage."
Dalkey Archive Press has published several of his novels. In December 2006, publishers Shoemaker & Hoard republished two of Markson's early crime novels Epitaph for a Tramp and Epitaph for a Dead Beat in one volume.
In addition to his novels, he has published a book of poetry and a critical study of Malcolm Lowry.
The movie Dirty Dingus Magee, starring Frank Sinatra, is based on Markson's first novel, The Ballad of Dingus Magee, an anti-Western. He wrote three crime novels early in his career.
Educated at Union College and Columbia University, Markson began his writing career as a journalist and book editor, periodically taking up work as a college professor at Columbia University, Long Island University, and The New School.
Markson died in his New York City, West Village apartment.
Markson's work is characterized by an unconventional approach to narration and plot. While his early works may draw on the modernist tradition of William Faulkner and Malcolm Lowry, Markson says his later novels are "literally crammed with literary and artistic anecdotes" and "nonlinear, discontinuous, collage-like, an assemblage."
Dalkey Archive Press has published several of his novels. In December 2006, publishers Shoemaker & Hoard republished two of Markson's early crime novels Epitaph for a Tramp and Epitaph for a Dead Beat in one volume.
In addition to his novels, he has published a book of poetry and a critical study of Malcolm Lowry.
The movie Dirty Dingus Magee, starring Frank Sinatra, is based on Markson's first novel, The Ballad of Dingus Magee, an anti-Western. He wrote three crime novels early in his career.
Educated at Union College and Columbia University, Markson began his writing career as a journalist and book editor, periodically taking up work as a college professor at Columbia University, Long Island University, and The New School.
Markson died in his New York City, West Village apartment.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
July 28, 2024
Enthusiasts of Markson’s taut, mercurial, trivia-packed antinovels will find little pleasure in this unmitigated shambles of a novel, the writer’s first attempt at literary brilliance in the form of a muddled impersonation of Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano. Unlike Markson’s earlier pulp parodies, the freewheeling bawdiness of Springer’s Progress, and the drollery of the mosaic-like non-novels, Going Down is a novel of self-conscious grandiloquence, an overseasoned borscht of bizarre, maddening scenes where characters speak in sub-DeLilloan non-sequiturs (most of them unfinished) and strained olde-worlde phrases within meandering psychological sketches of unhinged women whose realities might or might not be taking place. This soup of hair-tearing incoherence takes place (or does it—what is really real, hombre?) in a Mexican topos of some description within a style so laughably pretentious the reader might have wandered into a Gilbert Sorrentino parody, à la Mulligan Stew’s sur-neofictional mystery Guinea Red. Markson’s talents as a wizard word-slinger peacock across the page here—alas, it would take the more subdued form of Wittgenstein’s Mistress for his talents to explode in the reader’s unworthy face. (Bailed on p.222).
August 1, 2025
Markson dedicates this novel, about a Bohemian gringo throuple unhinging in darkest Mexico, to Malcolm Lowry — but it reads like Lowry lobotomized, or maybe Lowry lampooned by someone overfamiliar with the baroque excesses of literary Modernism. I hated too many things to list, but I’ll try anyway:
– Spanish dialogue rendered in English, but marked as Spanish by leaving a random word (hombre, or borracho or just sí) untranslated. Or, even more infuriating, weird in-sentence self-translations like “perhaps nearby in the night came the xopilotes, the vultures” (this is supposed to be a Mexican person speaking). For most of the book the Mexican characters — either unknowable Indians or shady mestizos — are cardboard cutouts, but when we do get a glimpse of their inner lives they turn out, amazingly, to be even more clichéd within than without.
– Masses of tenuous literary-artistic allusions that are oh-so-unoriginal. Joyce, Eliot, Shakespeare, Van Gogh, Goya, give it a goddamn rest. Nobody in real life thinks or talks this way.
– Dialogue that reads like interior monologue — every utterance ending in an inconclusive em dash — and interior monologue distinguishable only because it’s in italics.
– Flashbacks that are only there so Markson can tick the “non-linear narrative” box on his highbrow novel bingo card, and a burglary scene that’s somehow both excruciating and superfluous.
– A handful of three-way sex scenes that, despite getting Kurt Vonnegut hot under the collar (based on his thigh-rubbing blurb), made me fairly certain that Markson wrote them with a dog-eared copy of “The Joy of Sex” at his elbow.
– A main character whose name is Steve Chance. Another character whose name is Talltrees.
– Dictionary-bothering vocab deployed more clunkily than a copy of the OED falling down the stairs: “The doctor’s voice fell, enclitic. For the moment, staring at him, Talltrees felt a curious sense of displacement himself, as if time were someway abeyant.”
I guess the redeeming features of this book were someway abeyant from me. I just found it, to use another of Markson’s pet adjectives, stercoraceous. Wittgenstein’s Mistress is great though.
– Spanish dialogue rendered in English, but marked as Spanish by leaving a random word (hombre, or borracho or just sí) untranslated. Or, even more infuriating, weird in-sentence self-translations like “perhaps nearby in the night came the xopilotes, the vultures” (this is supposed to be a Mexican person speaking). For most of the book the Mexican characters — either unknowable Indians or shady mestizos — are cardboard cutouts, but when we do get a glimpse of their inner lives they turn out, amazingly, to be even more clichéd within than without.
– Masses of tenuous literary-artistic allusions that are oh-so-unoriginal. Joyce, Eliot, Shakespeare, Van Gogh, Goya, give it a goddamn rest. Nobody in real life thinks or talks this way.
– Dialogue that reads like interior monologue — every utterance ending in an inconclusive em dash — and interior monologue distinguishable only because it’s in italics.
– Flashbacks that are only there so Markson can tick the “non-linear narrative” box on his highbrow novel bingo card, and a burglary scene that’s somehow both excruciating and superfluous.
– A handful of three-way sex scenes that, despite getting Kurt Vonnegut hot under the collar (based on his thigh-rubbing blurb), made me fairly certain that Markson wrote them with a dog-eared copy of “The Joy of Sex” at his elbow.
– A main character whose name is Steve Chance. Another character whose name is Talltrees.
– Dictionary-bothering vocab deployed more clunkily than a copy of the OED falling down the stairs: “The doctor’s voice fell, enclitic. For the moment, staring at him, Talltrees felt a curious sense of displacement himself, as if time were someway abeyant.”
I guess the redeeming features of this book were someway abeyant from me. I just found it, to use another of Markson’s pet adjectives, stercoraceous. Wittgenstein’s Mistress is great though.
October 31, 2017
The only logical continuation to Lowry, this. Also Markson's only narrative tragedy. Pay close attention to Fern's italicized bits: that is how you write internal dialogue/monologue. If very-occasionally spotty, more than made up for by my a) absolute slavishness to Markson; and b) lots'o boobies and pee-pees. Oh, and a persnickety machete. Three, it's the magic number.
August 31, 2021
заплутана наратологічна конструкція, перший складний роман Марксона, у якому вже помітні його майбутні експерименти. роман-омаж Малькольму Лаурі, і про зміст краще за Воннеґута все одно не скажу: "секс, смерть і Мексика".
April 8, 2010
I am normally a real flag-waving fanboy of David Markson. I like all of his recent(ish) novels (or whatever they are), from Wittgenstein's Mistress on to the present. But this? This is. Well.
Well, you might call it a prelude to Wittgenstein's Mistress, actually. At least parts of it. There is a character (Fern) in this book who is mad (intermittently in the early chapters and stark-raving in the later ones) and who confuses Classical and Renaissance history and literature with what is happening now, or rather, then (late-1950's Mexico); just as there is a character (Kate) in the other book who is mad (stark-raving throughout) and who confuses Classical, Medieval and Renaissance history, art and literature with what is happeing now, or rather then (late-seventies? New England?). But while Kate exists entirely in her mind, Fern still inhabits our world, that is, the "real" world which is recreated in the novel Going Down. Kate's madness is pure and, to my ear, fascinating. Her lists and odd obsessions, her repetitions, her, her utter insanity is fascinating. While Fern's madness is just plain crazy.
I'm always annoyed when classical allusions pepper a "real" dialogue. Because it always sounds "fake", that is, fake. And in the case of Going Down, Markson didn't simply pepper his dialogue, he turned it into a three-alarm chili of myths and misdirection. (Chapter Eight was particularly intolerable and it almost made me drop the book entirely.)
Most of the characters in this novel can't finish a sentence. Markson makes use of the dash almost as much as Celine made use of the ellipsis. He gives them exotic words to use too, like contumacious, stercoraceous, sedulous and soricine. I like to learn new words. Nabokov and Banville alone have given me a formidable vocabulary of words I'll never need outside of the books I found them in (or, perhaps, some day, on Jeopardy). But when they're in the mouths of Markson's mundane men and women, they irk.
I wonder how Markson looks back at this book? He was in his forties when he published it, so he can't write it off as juvenilia. Perhaps he sees it as Picasso (a ghost Markson often invokes) saw his very early art, which was realistic, naturalistic, mannered and a little dull. It was only later, after he let go of all of those art school trappings that he became the artist we know today. No matter how Markson sees it, I see it as a disappointment, although I imagine there are those that prefer early Markson over late Markson. If I may quote an old American tourist I overheard at the Picasso museum in Paris some years ago while we were both standing in front of one of Picasso's early portraits: "Who knew the guy could paint?"
Well, you might call it a prelude to Wittgenstein's Mistress, actually. At least parts of it. There is a character (Fern) in this book who is mad (intermittently in the early chapters and stark-raving in the later ones) and who confuses Classical and Renaissance history and literature with what is happening now, or rather, then (late-1950's Mexico); just as there is a character (Kate) in the other book who is mad (stark-raving throughout) and who confuses Classical, Medieval and Renaissance history, art and literature with what is happeing now, or rather then (late-seventies? New England?). But while Kate exists entirely in her mind, Fern still inhabits our world, that is, the "real" world which is recreated in the novel Going Down. Kate's madness is pure and, to my ear, fascinating. Her lists and odd obsessions, her repetitions, her, her utter insanity is fascinating. While Fern's madness is just plain crazy.
I'm always annoyed when classical allusions pepper a "real" dialogue. Because it always sounds "fake", that is, fake. And in the case of Going Down, Markson didn't simply pepper his dialogue, he turned it into a three-alarm chili of myths and misdirection. (Chapter Eight was particularly intolerable and it almost made me drop the book entirely.)
Most of the characters in this novel can't finish a sentence. Markson makes use of the dash almost as much as Celine made use of the ellipsis. He gives them exotic words to use too, like contumacious, stercoraceous, sedulous and soricine. I like to learn new words. Nabokov and Banville alone have given me a formidable vocabulary of words I'll never need outside of the books I found them in (or, perhaps, some day, on Jeopardy). But when they're in the mouths of Markson's mundane men and women, they irk.
I wonder how Markson looks back at this book? He was in his forties when he published it, so he can't write it off as juvenilia. Perhaps he sees it as Picasso (a ghost Markson often invokes) saw his very early art, which was realistic, naturalistic, mannered and a little dull. It was only later, after he let go of all of those art school trappings that he became the artist we know today. No matter how Markson sees it, I see it as a disappointment, although I imagine there are those that prefer early Markson over late Markson. If I may quote an old American tourist I overheard at the Picasso museum in Paris some years ago while we were both standing in front of one of Picasso's early portraits: "Who knew the guy could paint?"
July 8, 2021
Markson is taking himself far too seriously in this early novel; he hasn’t figured out yet that it’s through the humorous that he will really get at the serious. Still, it’s fascinating to see how in this Joyce / Lowry-infused Mexican gothic narrative he fashions ideas which will surface, years later, in ”Wittgenstein’s Mistress” and the so-called Notecard Quartet. I think ”Going Down” is best experienced after these, though.
April 9, 2011
Markson is a writer's writer...
This book is a curious transition in the point where he wrote pulp to when he did more experimental fiction. Wanting to earn the reader's trust at the beginning, it is droll story telling and who-dunnit crime nonsense.... gutless and not worth reading. Unless you're a reader and not a writer and one of those readers that likes plot and "Golly gee, what will happen next?! The characters are developing so well!" types of stories... then you may like it. Still, it eventually evokes the foundation for WITTGENSTEIN'S MISTRESS.... disjointed beautiful narrative that, had you not read later Markson, might think it is gorgeous. But, if you've read his later work, it just makes you want to pat him on the back with a "Almost there, buddy... keep going..." smile.
This book is a curious transition in the point where he wrote pulp to when he did more experimental fiction. Wanting to earn the reader's trust at the beginning, it is droll story telling and who-dunnit crime nonsense.... gutless and not worth reading. Unless you're a reader and not a writer and one of those readers that likes plot and "Golly gee, what will happen next?! The characters are developing so well!" types of stories... then you may like it. Still, it eventually evokes the foundation for WITTGENSTEIN'S MISTRESS.... disjointed beautiful narrative that, had you not read later Markson, might think it is gorgeous. But, if you've read his later work, it just makes you want to pat him on the back with a "Almost there, buddy... keep going..." smile.
December 17, 2012
I read this after listening to an NPR show about this author who I was not familiar with. It was a difficult book in that I was uncomfortable throughout. Tough and uneasy characters, well written, and imagery that was instantly recognizable. I want to read more of him, but it is a task, not a joy.
September 10, 2007
strange how no one finishes their sentences. when the racy middle was over, i didn't care how it ended.
September 16, 2013
For a full review, go here:
http://www.jeffbursey.com/downloads/B...
http://www.jeffbursey.com/downloads/B...
March 25, 2017
Very reminiscent of Wyatt Gwyon's febrile episodes. Which is not a bad thing. Markson makes the reader work as hard as the writer: clues abound but inconspicuously, like in everyday perception or consciousness when we don't have luxury of an omniscient narrator to spell it all out and spare us the labor of decoding what's important or not, what monumental and what minuscule. And ala Lot 49/Gaddis the affect is a sense of something lost, whether taken or only ever longed for, maybe coming soon (suspense!) or maybe already gone (tragedy!) or maybe incognito (comedy!) or maybe in the wrong hands (farce!) or yet still maybe whoring out its promiscuous significance the world over (...!). It's all here, depending on how you look. Allusions and idiosyncratic anacolutha are the scaffolding left intact around the crumbling (or work-in-progress?) homely structures of character and plot. The title is obviously suggestive innuendo, but you'll have to seek elsewhere for smut galore: libido, partial drives, and textual prestidigitation are the Real subjects in the threesome. And over it all hangs the inescapable voyeuristic gaze of death. Enjoy!
October 5, 2020
Three very damaged Americans (a man and two women) form a menage in a small Mexican village. Their relationship is painfully unhealthy. The sex, on the other hand, is great. Then there is a murder.
David Markson tells the trio's story out of sequence, sometimes using stream of consciousness, with lots of unfinished sentences.
Even Markson's early pulp novels (three mysteries and a western) featured a certain number of literary and historical references, some obscure. Going Down, his first "literary" novel, has them in spades. One could go to Google and track them down, but it's not necessary for the enjoyment of the story. This tendency to collect such references to fill his novels led to its obvious conclusion in his final four books, which dispensed with story and characters altogether, and were nothing but references. Those four books are, unexpectedly, "unputdownable."
David Markson tells the trio's story out of sequence, sometimes using stream of consciousness, with lots of unfinished sentences.
Even Markson's early pulp novels (three mysteries and a western) featured a certain number of literary and historical references, some obscure. Going Down, his first "literary" novel, has them in spades. One could go to Google and track them down, but it's not necessary for the enjoyment of the story. This tendency to collect such references to fill his novels led to its obvious conclusion in his final four books, which dispensed with story and characters altogether, and were nothing but references. Those four books are, unexpectedly, "unputdownable."
August 3, 2023
Three Americans, two women and a man, in a menage-a-trois in Mexico, and not the fun kind. Although not without humor and steeped in typically Marksonian erudition, the mode here is of near unremitting bleakness as the story's central lost souls (and they're not just the trio) propel themselves into further desolation in the early 1960s. Markson was of course a great scholar of Malcolm Lowry but this work doesn't feel like a homage to "Under the Volcano;" it's wrenched out of something more personal, perhaps. Admirable.
September 29, 2019
Will haunt me for the rest of my life. Thank god.
November 4, 2010
I am really glad I didn’t read a book description or sum-up before reading the actual book. Even the GoodReads synopsis I think gives too much away. One of the coolest things for me about Going Down was how it leads you to discover things piece-by-piece – relationships between different characters, details about their pasts, how distinct events fit together – everything is revealed in dribs and drabs. And not in that annoying way where you feel like the writer is just trying to keep you confused to make up for the lack of original ideas or entertaining story. Here, the book’s structure reflects the intricacies of the story: people interpret events differently, with profound effects; relationships that you thought were one way turn out to be another; people that you didn’t think were important turn out to have large contributions, and vice versa.
So: highly recommended. I really enjoyed reading it, discovering the intricacies and unexpected reveals. I was totally immersed once I got to the last few chapters – one of those books where I HAD to finish it and then was instantly disappointed that it was over.
So: highly recommended. I really enjoyed reading it, discovering the intricacies and unexpected reveals. I was totally immersed once I got to the last few chapters – one of those books where I HAD to finish it and then was instantly disappointed that it was over.
January 6, 2014
I can't say that I enjoyed reading it, but this book marks the first time in my life that I have marveled at fiction writers and what it must take to create characters and a world for them to inhabit. The characters and the life they experience are dark, but also incomplete. There were huge chunks missing from the psyche or spirit (and dialogue!) of the "main" characters, and maybe their missing parts define them. I'd like to say more, but my limited experience in analyzing fiction craftsmanship has not provided me with the skill to meaningfully pick apart the things that drew me in, and those that made it a drag to read.
I think people into capital L literature may enjoy it though. I have the suspicion that it may be good.
I think people into capital L literature may enjoy it though. I have the suspicion that it may be good.
July 11, 2010
five stars for atmosphere... would make a nice double bill with Under the Volcano, as it's obviously influenced by it but is still excellent in its own right
January 20, 2011
Intense, well-written. Captures Mexico extremely well. I was impressed.
April 10, 2015
I can see how this lead to Wittgenstein's Mistress, which I will now reread again.
July 24, 2007
I'm sure there are worse ways to pay for college, but I can't think of any.
August 25, 2016
Very depressing, but beautifully written. Just not my kind of book.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews