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Gravity Flow: The Jimmy Whistler Stories
244 pages, Hardcover
Published December 10, 2024
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October 16, 2025
E.M. Schorb’s Gravity Flow: The Jimmy Whistler Stories is a seriocomic anthology of various moments in the life of Jimmy Whistler, a writer through his post-WWII childhood, his maturity during the conformist 1950s, and adulthood and love life during the tumultuous 1960s.
The book begins during Jimmy’s childhood in Philadelphia, where he is raised by his bickering parents and opportunistic Aunt Gertrude. It’s a troubling childhood that appears idyllic on the surface. Jimmy is kept from the news happening around the world, but he can see tension enveloping his own home.
His mother greets another man in an overly friendly way, ignoring Jimmy’s questions of who he is. His Aunt Gertrude exploits and financially abuses them if they don’t honor her requests. His father’s friendly persona hides manic behavior, elaborate schemes, and odd fixations. His parents stay together but make each other and everyone around them, particularly Jimmy, miserable.
All of this tension builds in a household in which family members pretend to be happy when they are not. Jimmy’s conflicts with his parents and theirs with each other explain a lot about the issues that plague Jimmy throughout his life, such as troubles with women, career dissatisfaction, and general unhappiness.
Jimmy is thrown into complicated situations with a bevy of strange, bizarre, and eccentric people. One of them is Sunny Day, who, despite her name, is not a cheerful, optimistic person. She is a showgirl who works at Minsky’s Burlesque, where Jimmy hangs out. A historical fun fact is that burlesque actually had its heyday in the 20s and 30s, seen as the racy adult alternative to the more family-friendly vaudeville. By the 1950s, when Jimmy encounters it, it is long past its glory days and is desperately holding onto a dwindling audience.
That is what this book is like, nostalgically holding onto the past while at the same time acknowledging the dirty, seedy sides that people don’t want to remember or talk about. Sunny gives Jimmy his first time and a cold dose of reality when, even though he has fallen in love with her, she does not feel the same. She leaves, and Jimmy enlists in the Marines to escape from his feuding, toxic parents and broken heart.
Another interesting character that Jimmy encounters is Marsayas, a Beatnik poet and editor. He encourages Jimmy to pursue his writing talent and to embrace a wilder nonconformist side, particularly taking drugs like pot and later LSD. Marsayas and Jimmy talk about philosophy, society, politics, and whether to conform like everyone else, fight the system, or fight the system while still being a part of it. Marsayas helps his friend in practical ways, such as giving his friend money when he needs it or a place to crash when he has nowhere to go. However, Marsayas’ iconoclastic nature also has negative aspects, particularly with his incompatible wife, whom he complains is more like a mother than a wife to him.
Characterization is probably Gravity Flow’s strongest advantage. Instead of telling Jimmy’s story as a continuous novel, Schorb gives us different vignettes and incidents of Jimmy’s life that show the readers who he is. In many ways, Jimmy serves as an Everyman, a neutral observer chronicling exciting times and adventures that happen around him. It’s easy to see why he is a writer because he has an acute sense of observation, recognizing characters and settings, even sometimes capturing their interior lives and the secrets they are hiding. He describes other people as they encounter him, but detaches himself from them on a personal level.
That is not to say Jimmy is simply a bland narrator with no personality of his own. He can be very arrogant and self-involved. His relationships often crumble because of his disregard for others’ feelings. He talks more about writing than he actually writes. This suggests idleness and a lack of interest in actively pursuing the craft where his talent lies. He sometimes acts without thinking, and when faced with the consequences, he questions how it will affect him over everyone else. He is Everyman, but sometimes Everyman can be an Everyjerk.
The narration is told solely through Jimmy’s point of view, which is an advantage for him, but not always for the other characters, particularly the women in his life. Jimmy has romances with different characters, including the emotional Leilani, surly Vera, intellectual Denise, and troubled Phyllis, all of whom are interesting characters but can only be observed through Jimmy’s lens.
Because this is Jimmy’s lens, the other characters’ flaws seem magnified. Arguments become volatile. Jimmy and his women become emotionally unstable. They respond negatively to each other and react in toxic ways that increase stress rather than reduce it. It reflects Jimmy’s relationship with his parents that he can’t find a positive pairing of his own. Many of these women are written as harridans, but some are remote and unattainable. The women are not really characters with their own agencies so much as they are ideals of what Jimmy imagines the perfect woman to be or reflections of what he doesn’t want her to be.
One of the strongest themes throughout this book is Jimmy’s transitions, constantly searching for something. He moves through different stages in his life, never finding satisfaction or contentment. Every time he achieves some milestone, his thoughts turn towards things that he hasn’t achieved. He is always looking outward towards the next step, next possibility, next romance. Adults who like to read about the 50s-60s and anyone who likes a good, solid character study will enjoy Gravity Flow by E.M. Schorb.
The book begins during Jimmy’s childhood in Philadelphia, where he is raised by his bickering parents and opportunistic Aunt Gertrude. It’s a troubling childhood that appears idyllic on the surface. Jimmy is kept from the news happening around the world, but he can see tension enveloping his own home.
His mother greets another man in an overly friendly way, ignoring Jimmy’s questions of who he is. His Aunt Gertrude exploits and financially abuses them if they don’t honor her requests. His father’s friendly persona hides manic behavior, elaborate schemes, and odd fixations. His parents stay together but make each other and everyone around them, particularly Jimmy, miserable.
All of this tension builds in a household in which family members pretend to be happy when they are not. Jimmy’s conflicts with his parents and theirs with each other explain a lot about the issues that plague Jimmy throughout his life, such as troubles with women, career dissatisfaction, and general unhappiness.
Jimmy is thrown into complicated situations with a bevy of strange, bizarre, and eccentric people. One of them is Sunny Day, who, despite her name, is not a cheerful, optimistic person. She is a showgirl who works at Minsky’s Burlesque, where Jimmy hangs out. A historical fun fact is that burlesque actually had its heyday in the 20s and 30s, seen as the racy adult alternative to the more family-friendly vaudeville. By the 1950s, when Jimmy encounters it, it is long past its glory days and is desperately holding onto a dwindling audience.
That is what this book is like, nostalgically holding onto the past while at the same time acknowledging the dirty, seedy sides that people don’t want to remember or talk about. Sunny gives Jimmy his first time and a cold dose of reality when, even though he has fallen in love with her, she does not feel the same. She leaves, and Jimmy enlists in the Marines to escape from his feuding, toxic parents and broken heart.
Another interesting character that Jimmy encounters is Marsayas, a Beatnik poet and editor. He encourages Jimmy to pursue his writing talent and to embrace a wilder nonconformist side, particularly taking drugs like pot and later LSD. Marsayas and Jimmy talk about philosophy, society, politics, and whether to conform like everyone else, fight the system, or fight the system while still being a part of it. Marsayas helps his friend in practical ways, such as giving his friend money when he needs it or a place to crash when he has nowhere to go. However, Marsayas’ iconoclastic nature also has negative aspects, particularly with his incompatible wife, whom he complains is more like a mother than a wife to him.
Characterization is probably Gravity Flow’s strongest advantage. Instead of telling Jimmy’s story as a continuous novel, Schorb gives us different vignettes and incidents of Jimmy’s life that show the readers who he is. In many ways, Jimmy serves as an Everyman, a neutral observer chronicling exciting times and adventures that happen around him. It’s easy to see why he is a writer because he has an acute sense of observation, recognizing characters and settings, even sometimes capturing their interior lives and the secrets they are hiding. He describes other people as they encounter him, but detaches himself from them on a personal level.
That is not to say Jimmy is simply a bland narrator with no personality of his own. He can be very arrogant and self-involved. His relationships often crumble because of his disregard for others’ feelings. He talks more about writing than he actually writes. This suggests idleness and a lack of interest in actively pursuing the craft where his talent lies. He sometimes acts without thinking, and when faced with the consequences, he questions how it will affect him over everyone else. He is Everyman, but sometimes Everyman can be an Everyjerk.
The narration is told solely through Jimmy’s point of view, which is an advantage for him, but not always for the other characters, particularly the women in his life. Jimmy has romances with different characters, including the emotional Leilani, surly Vera, intellectual Denise, and troubled Phyllis, all of whom are interesting characters but can only be observed through Jimmy’s lens.
Because this is Jimmy’s lens, the other characters’ flaws seem magnified. Arguments become volatile. Jimmy and his women become emotionally unstable. They respond negatively to each other and react in toxic ways that increase stress rather than reduce it. It reflects Jimmy’s relationship with his parents that he can’t find a positive pairing of his own. Many of these women are written as harridans, but some are remote and unattainable. The women are not really characters with their own agencies so much as they are ideals of what Jimmy imagines the perfect woman to be or reflections of what he doesn’t want her to be.
One of the strongest themes throughout this book is Jimmy’s transitions, constantly searching for something. He moves through different stages in his life, never finding satisfaction or contentment. Every time he achieves some milestone, his thoughts turn towards things that he hasn’t achieved. He is always looking outward towards the next step, next possibility, next romance. Adults who like to read about the 50s-60s and anyone who likes a good, solid character study will enjoy Gravity Flow by E.M. Schorb.
Displaying 1 of 1 review