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Jernigan
Peter Jernigan's life is slipping out of control. His wife's gone, he's lost his job and he's a stranger to his teenage son. Worse, his only relief from all this reality - alcohol - is less effective by the day. And when the medicine doesn't work, you up the dose. And when that doesn't work, what then? (Apart from upping the dose again anyway, because who knows?)
Jernigan's answer is to slowly turn his caustic wit on everyone around him - his wife Judith, his teenage son Danny, his vulnerable new girlfriend Martha and, eventually, himself - until the laughs have turned to mute horror. But while he's busy burning every bridge back to the people who love him, Jernigan's perverse charisma keeps us all in thrall to the bitter end.
Shot through with gin and irony, Jernigan is a funny, scary, mesmerising portrait of a man walking off the edge with his eyes wide open - wisecracking all the way. (Taken from this edition).
Jernigan's answer is to slowly turn his caustic wit on everyone around him - his wife Judith, his teenage son Danny, his vulnerable new girlfriend Martha and, eventually, himself - until the laughs have turned to mute horror. But while he's busy burning every bridge back to the people who love him, Jernigan's perverse charisma keeps us all in thrall to the bitter end.
Shot through with gin and irony, Jernigan is a funny, scary, mesmerising portrait of a man walking off the edge with his eyes wide open - wisecracking all the way. (Taken from this edition).
339 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
33 people are currently reading
2045 people want to read
About the author
David Gates
74 books80 followersDavid Gates (born January 8, 1947) is an American journalist and novelist. His first novel, Jernigan (1991), about a dysfunctional one-parent family, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1992 and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. This was followed by a second novel, Preston Falls (1998), and two short story collections, The Wonders of the Invisible World (1999) and A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me (2015). He has published short stories in The New Yorker, Tin House, Newsweek, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Rolling Stone, H.O.W, The Oxford American, The Journal of Country Music, Esquire magazine, Ploughshares, GQ, Grand Street, TriQuarterly, and The Paris Review. Gates is also a Guggenheim Fellow.
Until 2008, he was a senior writer and editor in the Arts section at Newsweek magazine, specializing in articles on books and music.
He teaches in the graduate writing program at The University of Montana as well as at the Bennington Writing Seminars. Here he is a member of the Dog House Band, performing on the guitar, pedal steel, and vocals.
Until 2008, he was a senior writer and editor in the Arts section at Newsweek magazine, specializing in articles on books and music.
He teaches in the graduate writing program at The University of Montana as well as at the Bennington Writing Seminars. Here he is a member of the Dog House Band, performing on the guitar, pedal steel, and vocals.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 133 reviews
August 26, 2021
Jernigan, el libro y el personaje, está en la línea del Bob Locum de Joseph Heller en “Algo ha pasado” (y a quien se hace un guiño en la novela) o del Sammy Samuels de James Kelman en “Es tarde, muy tarde”, personajes a los que acompaño de mil amores, perdedores sarcásticos y auténticos capullos de los que, a pesar de unas cuantas razones objetivas para su derrumbamiento, te preguntas, y no consigues alcanzar una respuesta definitiva, si hubiera sido otro el desenlace de haberse desarrollado todo de otra manera, si todo se hubiera podido desarrollar de otra manera.
Jernigan es un representante de esa gente que consigue sacar la cabeza de una clase media depauperada a la que se deja de pertenecer para no encajar en ningún otro sitio; alguien que quiere hacer las cosas bien pero que no consigue más que estropearlo todo, que destruye su vida perjudicando seriamente la de los demás, que sabe lo que no se debe hacer y sin embargo lo hace y estar permanentemente borracho es una de ellas; alguien que es todavía capaz de darse cuenta de lo inapropiado, de lo cruel que son a veces sus pensamientos, sus sentimientos y que solo dispone de la ironía como defensa.
Como digo, todo esto me encanta leerlo y en este libro se lee de forma fácil y ágil, pero el tono, la forma, la música no acabó de llegarme hasta alcanzar sus últimas páginas, al menos no como la música de esas otras novelas que he mencionado. Por ello, como el problema es claramente del receptor y no del emisor, no quiero que el comentario desanime a nadie a su lectura, porque el libro la merece: excelentes diálogos y reflexiones interesantes; no tengo peros al retrato que hace de los personajes y de sus vidas, todos y todas atractivos… simplemente es eso, ha logrado interesarme pero no emocionarme.
Jernigan es un representante de esa gente que consigue sacar la cabeza de una clase media depauperada a la que se deja de pertenecer para no encajar en ningún otro sitio; alguien que quiere hacer las cosas bien pero que no consigue más que estropearlo todo, que destruye su vida perjudicando seriamente la de los demás, que sabe lo que no se debe hacer y sin embargo lo hace y estar permanentemente borracho es una de ellas; alguien que es todavía capaz de darse cuenta de lo inapropiado, de lo cruel que son a veces sus pensamientos, sus sentimientos y que solo dispone de la ironía como defensa.
Como digo, todo esto me encanta leerlo y en este libro se lee de forma fácil y ágil, pero el tono, la forma, la música no acabó de llegarme hasta alcanzar sus últimas páginas, al menos no como la música de esas otras novelas que he mencionado. Por ello, como el problema es claramente del receptor y no del emisor, no quiero que el comentario desanime a nadie a su lectura, porque el libro la merece: excelentes diálogos y reflexiones interesantes; no tengo peros al retrato que hace de los personajes y de sus vidas, todos y todas atractivos… simplemente es eso, ha logrado interesarme pero no emocionarme.
August 8, 2018
Gates's Jernigan might be one of the most relate-able yet horrible characters ever. He's a jackass and doesn't know any other way to be.
When you're brought up by weak people and fraternize with weak people, you tend to have an inclination to be weak yourself unless you do something about it. Peter Jernigan's not trying to find himself, he knows himself. He's a terrible father, husband and irresponsible as hell. He does what he feels like without thinking about others feelings and drinks more than Anthony Bourdain while filming in Tbilisi.
As horrible as he is, he is unfortunately relate-able to many people in this world because some ARE Jernigan at their fullest or share some of the qualities that he exhibits on a daily basis.
This is a pretty dark book, but Gates writes Jernigan so well that his outward personality takes the forefront when most of us would crawl into a ball and say bye to the world for a very long time.
If you like Bukowski's Henry Chinaski, you'll like Peter Jernigan.
When you're brought up by weak people and fraternize with weak people, you tend to have an inclination to be weak yourself unless you do something about it. Peter Jernigan's not trying to find himself, he knows himself. He's a terrible father, husband and irresponsible as hell. He does what he feels like without thinking about others feelings and drinks more than Anthony Bourdain while filming in Tbilisi.
As horrible as he is, he is unfortunately relate-able to many people in this world because some ARE Jernigan at their fullest or share some of the qualities that he exhibits on a daily basis.
This is a pretty dark book, but Gates writes Jernigan so well that his outward personality takes the forefront when most of us would crawl into a ball and say bye to the world for a very long time.
If you like Bukowski's Henry Chinaski, you'll like Peter Jernigan.
Read
February 16, 2015Some books you're just relieved to finish. Thank Odin, Zeus, the Buddha, whomever, for putting me across the finish line. Books like this are notoriously difficult to rate, so I'll leave the stars behind some mostly cloudy.
See, the old dilemma is this: What if you hate the protagonist? I mean, can't stand the guy? Does that sway your view of the book? Should it? I know you can argue that the book is BRILLIANT because the author is causing you to loathe his main character, but what if it has nothing to do with the writing? Chicken, meet egg, and all that.
Jernigan is a drunk. An overeducated drunk. I think one of the blurbs, from The Village Voice Literary Supplement, about nails it: "... bitterly ironic, crippled by hyperactive intelligence, at war with itself." It goes on to compare it to A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley, which I recall reading and loathing as well back, back, back when I was young(er).
I also marked a quote on page 162, one where Peter Jernigan (our anti-hero) gets this from his live-in lady: "You just know so much, Peter," she said. "What a man. Treat 'em bad and they come back for more, right? You're a true asshole."
Maybe that should have been the title: The True Asshole. And watching him disintegrate for 200-some-odd pages is no treat. And listening to his bile is no fun. And finishing the book is an amen, hallelujah.
Witty at times? Sure. If you like reading about drunk English majors who are as sarcastic as hell, be my guest. Me, I've got enough negatives to fend off in life. I don't need a book to add to my workload.
See, the old dilemma is this: What if you hate the protagonist? I mean, can't stand the guy? Does that sway your view of the book? Should it? I know you can argue that the book is BRILLIANT because the author is causing you to loathe his main character, but what if it has nothing to do with the writing? Chicken, meet egg, and all that.
Jernigan is a drunk. An overeducated drunk. I think one of the blurbs, from The Village Voice Literary Supplement, about nails it: "... bitterly ironic, crippled by hyperactive intelligence, at war with itself." It goes on to compare it to A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley, which I recall reading and loathing as well back, back, back when I was young(er).
I also marked a quote on page 162, one where Peter Jernigan (our anti-hero) gets this from his live-in lady: "You just know so much, Peter," she said. "What a man. Treat 'em bad and they come back for more, right? You're a true asshole."
Maybe that should have been the title: The True Asshole. And watching him disintegrate for 200-some-odd pages is no treat. And listening to his bile is no fun. And finishing the book is an amen, hallelujah.
Witty at times? Sure. If you like reading about drunk English majors who are as sarcastic as hell, be my guest. Me, I've got enough negatives to fend off in life. I don't need a book to add to my workload.
July 24, 2016
Peter Jernigan's life has hit the rocks, after the death of his wife through a freak accident he has failed miserably as a father to his teenage son and has a bit of drink problem, the answer?...move in with the mother of your son's girlfriend (predominantly to get your sex life back!) and try to play happy familys again, get fired, sell your own house once the dollar signs flash before your eyes, and in the face of what life throws back at you just simply drink some more and laugh everything off. Best described as a tragic-comedy and shot through with gin and irony this has completely split me down the middle, as for everything I liked about it, there was much that bothered me, the characters for example other than Jernigan were a bit on the dull side and conversations were always broken up with far to much 'I said, she said, he said', which was most annoying. As debut novels go this was not at all bad, grimly funny, smart and witty and what's lacking in substance is make up for in style although it's not something that will linger in the mind for long. Easily readable but flawed.
October 11, 2021
Nessun feeling
Lessi anni fa ”Preston Falls”, l’unico romanzo di Gates oltre a questo ad essere stato pubblicato in Italia e, a quanto mi risulta, unico altro romanzo tout court, dopo di chè l’autore si è dedicato solo a un’altrettanto scarna (un paio di raccolte) produzione di racconti.
“Preston Falls” lo apprezzai per la qualità della scrittura e la capacità di immergersi nel contesto, pur ampiamente sfruttato, del mondo suburbano degli USA, ma con ”Jernigan” non è scattato il medesimo feeling ed ho concluso il romanzo solo per forza d’inerzia, un romanzo molto datato, finalista al Pulitzer una trentina di anni orsono.
Eppure c’è una continuità di ispirazione fra le due opere nelle cui pagine nulla accade di eclatante, se non in flashback, e tutto si svolge all’interno di ordinari drammi quotidiani, di periferia e di gente comune, e Peter Jernigan presenta caratteristiche comuni al protagonista di “Preston Falls”: “…la malinconia, il risentimento e il disincanto prendono il sopravvento sulla vita di Doug, lo spingono a decisioni insensate, a reazioni violente e autolesioniste, a non muovere un dito per salvare il salvabile… (non amo citare miei commenti precedenti, ma qui è giocoforza, anche perché su Gates non si trova molto materiale in giro…).
Non ricordo con precisione i personaggi del romanzo precedente ma quelli di “Jernigan” sono scarsamente empatici, sterotipati ed il protagonista arrogante, bisbetico e autolesionista è uno dei più malamente antipatici e respingenti in cui mi sia imbattuto da molte letture a questa parte…
Non aiuta inoltre lo stile dell’autore, accattivante in modo stridente con quel continuo, ossessivo e un po’ nevrotico rivolgersi ammiccante, fra parentesi o meno, al lettore “(battutina), (affermazione carina e consolante),(tanto per rendere l’idea)…”, intercalari con cui Jernigan narrante in prima persona giudica in tempo reale sé stesso e i suoi malcapitati interlocutori, rappresentati per lo più dal figlio adolescente e dalla nuova amante.
Insomma si sarà capito che il romanzo mi è, per così dire, andato di traverso, ma onestamente non so dire se si tratti di valori oggettivi o se semplicemente, quando lessi con soddisfazione “Preston Falls”, mi trovassi in una disposizione d’animo migliore, più propensa ad accogliere una prosa di questo genere, forse perché ero reduce da letture intrise di massimalismo.
Con (Peter) Jernigan, nientepopodimeno che “…uno dei più memorabili antieroi della letteratura contemporanea…” secondo il New york Times, non sono riuscito a stringere amicizia.
Lessi anni fa ”Preston Falls”, l’unico romanzo di Gates oltre a questo ad essere stato pubblicato in Italia e, a quanto mi risulta, unico altro romanzo tout court, dopo di chè l’autore si è dedicato solo a un’altrettanto scarna (un paio di raccolte) produzione di racconti.
“Preston Falls” lo apprezzai per la qualità della scrittura e la capacità di immergersi nel contesto, pur ampiamente sfruttato, del mondo suburbano degli USA, ma con ”Jernigan” non è scattato il medesimo feeling ed ho concluso il romanzo solo per forza d’inerzia, un romanzo molto datato, finalista al Pulitzer una trentina di anni orsono.
Eppure c’è una continuità di ispirazione fra le due opere nelle cui pagine nulla accade di eclatante, se non in flashback, e tutto si svolge all’interno di ordinari drammi quotidiani, di periferia e di gente comune, e Peter Jernigan presenta caratteristiche comuni al protagonista di “Preston Falls”: “…la malinconia, il risentimento e il disincanto prendono il sopravvento sulla vita di Doug, lo spingono a decisioni insensate, a reazioni violente e autolesioniste, a non muovere un dito per salvare il salvabile… (non amo citare miei commenti precedenti, ma qui è giocoforza, anche perché su Gates non si trova molto materiale in giro…).
Non ricordo con precisione i personaggi del romanzo precedente ma quelli di “Jernigan” sono scarsamente empatici, sterotipati ed il protagonista arrogante, bisbetico e autolesionista è uno dei più malamente antipatici e respingenti in cui mi sia imbattuto da molte letture a questa parte…
Non aiuta inoltre lo stile dell’autore, accattivante in modo stridente con quel continuo, ossessivo e un po’ nevrotico rivolgersi ammiccante, fra parentesi o meno, al lettore “(battutina), (affermazione carina e consolante),(tanto per rendere l’idea)…”, intercalari con cui Jernigan narrante in prima persona giudica in tempo reale sé stesso e i suoi malcapitati interlocutori, rappresentati per lo più dal figlio adolescente e dalla nuova amante.
Insomma si sarà capito che il romanzo mi è, per così dire, andato di traverso, ma onestamente non so dire se si tratti di valori oggettivi o se semplicemente, quando lessi con soddisfazione “Preston Falls”, mi trovassi in una disposizione d’animo migliore, più propensa ad accogliere una prosa di questo genere, forse perché ero reduce da letture intrise di massimalismo.
Con (Peter) Jernigan, nientepopodimeno che “…uno dei più memorabili antieroi della letteratura contemporanea…” secondo il New york Times, non sono riuscito a stringere amicizia.
September 4, 2025
Jernigan es otro de esos perdedores americano de los que hemos leído decenas de ejemplos.
Clase media, trabajo mediocre o sin trabajo, familia desestructurada, un hijo que lo desprecia (con razón) y una novia que intenta encontrar en él lo que ella tampoco tiene.
Todo empapado en alcohol a raudales, ironía cruda, crueldad y mala leche.
Jernigan es todo esto, pero, por desgracia, en su historia no hay nada más. Es ágil y la leí rápido, pero no puedo decir que me contará nada nuevo ni diferente.
Clase media, trabajo mediocre o sin trabajo, familia desestructurada, un hijo que lo desprecia (con razón) y una novia que intenta encontrar en él lo que ella tampoco tiene.
Todo empapado en alcohol a raudales, ironía cruda, crueldad y mala leche.
Jernigan es todo esto, pero, por desgracia, en su historia no hay nada más. Es ágil y la leí rápido, pero no puedo decir que me contará nada nuevo ni diferente.
April 3, 2008
Ultimately, this novel is a pretty fast read and fairly entertaining. But it has a lot of bad writing and a number of poor decisions by its author, David Gates.
Define bad writing? Sure. It's when the narrator's insecurity leads him to be needlessly intrusive. Here are some examples of bad writing in Jernigan:
I mean, at least I'd found out that this was a neighborhood where blacks weren't moving in, however you were supposed to feel about that. Uh-oh, no cultural diversity. Though in fact all I'd really found out was that this was a neighborhood where people didn't want blacks moving in. However you were supposed to feel about that. Uh-oh, be coming after me next. (page 86)
See, a secure narrator would either write the first part of these thoughts and allow the reader to decide what they meant, or he'd leave them out altogether. Instead, we get Jernigan feinting at racial commentary - just in time to lecture us about how we should feel about such commentary. It's petty and safe rebellion, and it's quite contrary to what Gates seems to want us to think he's up to with this novel.
Here's some more bad writing:
He picked up his slice and blew at the molten cheese creeping over the point . . . "Good," I said. "You want the rest of it? Looks like you got outside of yours pretty fast." He shook his head no. I took another bite. It either was or wasn't good. (page 93)
First of all, the nature of pizza hasn't a thing to do with this story. Since the story has but 237 pages in it, one would assume there was no good reason to give two or three of those pages to something as irrelevant as pizza.
But of course there's a reason: It's to show the reader how clever the author is. When one reads about "molten cheese", he can't help but think, I wonder how long Gates carried that little nugget around in his writing journal?
And then there's the "it either was or wasn't good" line. If this is to show indecision on the narrator's part, it's unnecessary. After all, by this point in the book, the narrator has already overwhelmed readers with his indecisiveness. No, this line is one more clever bit of intrusion on the author's part - one more place of refuge for the insecure writer: Even the folks who claimed to hate my novel had to admit I'm talented!
All that written, Jernigan will appeal to a certain group of readers. Those who are desperate to see Frederick Exley's achievement in impostors may even think they've found Exley in Gates's first novel. Unfortunately, they have not.
Define bad writing? Sure. It's when the narrator's insecurity leads him to be needlessly intrusive. Here are some examples of bad writing in Jernigan:
I mean, at least I'd found out that this was a neighborhood where blacks weren't moving in, however you were supposed to feel about that. Uh-oh, no cultural diversity. Though in fact all I'd really found out was that this was a neighborhood where people didn't want blacks moving in. However you were supposed to feel about that. Uh-oh, be coming after me next. (page 86)
See, a secure narrator would either write the first part of these thoughts and allow the reader to decide what they meant, or he'd leave them out altogether. Instead, we get Jernigan feinting at racial commentary - just in time to lecture us about how we should feel about such commentary. It's petty and safe rebellion, and it's quite contrary to what Gates seems to want us to think he's up to with this novel.
Here's some more bad writing:
He picked up his slice and blew at the molten cheese creeping over the point . . . "Good," I said. "You want the rest of it? Looks like you got outside of yours pretty fast." He shook his head no. I took another bite. It either was or wasn't good. (page 93)
First of all, the nature of pizza hasn't a thing to do with this story. Since the story has but 237 pages in it, one would assume there was no good reason to give two or three of those pages to something as irrelevant as pizza.
But of course there's a reason: It's to show the reader how clever the author is. When one reads about "molten cheese", he can't help but think, I wonder how long Gates carried that little nugget around in his writing journal?
And then there's the "it either was or wasn't good" line. If this is to show indecision on the narrator's part, it's unnecessary. After all, by this point in the book, the narrator has already overwhelmed readers with his indecisiveness. No, this line is one more clever bit of intrusion on the author's part - one more place of refuge for the insecure writer: Even the folks who claimed to hate my novel had to admit I'm talented!
All that written, Jernigan will appeal to a certain group of readers. Those who are desperate to see Frederick Exley's achievement in impostors may even think they've found Exley in Gates's first novel. Unfortunately, they have not.
September 27, 2019
Jernigan (1991) by David Gates is mesmerising.
I cannot really explain how one of the most misanthropic, troubled, bitter drunks imaginable, with few, if any, redeeming features, results in such a brilliant and compelling book.
Peter Jernigan's life is spiralling out of control. His wife's gone, he's lost his job and he's a stranger to his teenage son and his only relief is to drink himself stupid.
All the reader can do is look on in horror as Jernigan shares his sorry tale with customary erudition, caustic wit, half formed thoughts and perverse logic in a relentless narrative. It shouldn’t work and yet it does. After a slowish initial 30 pages, I was gripped and in thrall through to the bitter end.
I read this for my book group and am delighted it was chosen. I doubt I would have come across it any other way.
Jernigan has been compared to Stoner and there are parallels, both in terms of the content, but also because both books are/were unheralded classics languishing in obscurity (see also Revolutionary Road and Alone in Berlin).
5/5
I cannot really explain how one of the most misanthropic, troubled, bitter drunks imaginable, with few, if any, redeeming features, results in such a brilliant and compelling book.
Peter Jernigan's life is spiralling out of control. His wife's gone, he's lost his job and he's a stranger to his teenage son and his only relief is to drink himself stupid.
All the reader can do is look on in horror as Jernigan shares his sorry tale with customary erudition, caustic wit, half formed thoughts and perverse logic in a relentless narrative. It shouldn’t work and yet it does. After a slowish initial 30 pages, I was gripped and in thrall through to the bitter end.
I read this for my book group and am delighted it was chosen. I doubt I would have come across it any other way.
Jernigan has been compared to Stoner and there are parallels, both in terms of the content, but also because both books are/were unheralded classics languishing in obscurity (see also Revolutionary Road and Alone in Berlin).
5/5
July 2, 2024
Sigo con mi particular lectura de derrotados.
Este cúmulo de anéctodas y vivencias existenciales va perdiendo excesivo interés; al final, terminas con la sensación que, quitando la idea, Gates no tenía mucho que contar sobre Jernigan, más que la targeta de identificación del personaje.
Para un lector español, quizá tiene demasiadas alusiones a la cultura televisiva y cultural de andar por casa -americana-.
"Los escritores pueden engañarnos, pero sus personajes nunca mienten." Y añado yo: lo que nos transmiten sus personajes nunca mienten. En este caso: más bien poco, quitando esa mera presentación del: Yo soy Jernigan, soy así, y así te lo iré repitiendo durante toda la novela hasta que, por fin, llegues a la última página.
Este cúmulo de anéctodas y vivencias existenciales va perdiendo excesivo interés; al final, terminas con la sensación que, quitando la idea, Gates no tenía mucho que contar sobre Jernigan, más que la targeta de identificación del personaje.
Para un lector español, quizá tiene demasiadas alusiones a la cultura televisiva y cultural de andar por casa -americana-.
"Los escritores pueden engañarnos, pero sus personajes nunca mienten." Y añado yo: lo que nos transmiten sus personajes nunca mienten. En este caso: más bien poco, quitando esa mera presentación del: Yo soy Jernigan, soy así, y así te lo iré repitiendo durante toda la novela hasta que, por fin, llegues a la última página.
February 25, 2008
Very funny, sad drunk-guy writing. Definitely part of a school, but in the front row.
there's some nimble plotting that makes the book more.
there's some nimble plotting that makes the book more.
Read
November 23, 2019i'm confused. it's sad front to back. the casually cruel & hypocritical narrator's #1 hobby is drunk driving & lol if you dare to think he might redeem himself. there's virtually nothing of interest going on at the sentence level. ffs, there's a climactic scene where a Real Bad Thing happens juxtaposed w/ dialogue from it's a wonderful life... and it works. i don't think there's any way i can describe this to make it sound worth your while but, like... it is. read in the most wretched possible setting (swaying from one arm on the jam-packed train home, ebook on phone stuck under nose) & i looked forward to it every night. promise to update this if i ever figure out why i liked it so much
March 22, 2008
If you took John Updike and Richard Ford and gave them each a serious drinking problem then they would've probably come up with this bleak portrait of an American Father on the edge. At times shocking and touching, it nevertheless keeps you reading due to Gate's keen prose and razor sharp eye for detail. After finishing it you'll see why it was shortlisted for the Pulitzer.
March 28, 2013
Masie Cochran (Associate Editor, Tin House Books): Recently, at the urging of Nanci McCloskey, I began reading David Gates’ Jernigan. She tossed the book to me while packing for a business trip. I skimmed the jacket copy, my eyes widening. “Geez, Nanc, this is super dark and they kind of give it away in the description.” What startled me was something like this “chainsaw that he turns, with disastrous consequences, on his wife, his teenaged son, his dangerously vulnerable mistress—and, not least of all, on himself.”
About forty pages in, I started wondering how Gates was going to pull it off. The novel was quiet, thoughtful, and dark (but not shred-your-loved-ones-to-pieces dark). I flipped the book over and read carefully, “Peter Jernigan, who views the world with ferocious intelligence, grim rapture, and a chainsaw wit that he turns, with disastrous consequences, on his wife, his teenaged son, his dangerously vulnerable mistress—and, not least of all, on himself. This novel is a bravura performance: a funny, scary, mesmerizing study of a man walking off the edge with his eyes wide open—wisecracking all the way.” Jernigan is all of these things. Chainsaw or not, it is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.
About forty pages in, I started wondering how Gates was going to pull it off. The novel was quiet, thoughtful, and dark (but not shred-your-loved-ones-to-pieces dark). I flipped the book over and read carefully, “Peter Jernigan, who views the world with ferocious intelligence, grim rapture, and a chainsaw wit that he turns, with disastrous consequences, on his wife, his teenaged son, his dangerously vulnerable mistress—and, not least of all, on himself. This novel is a bravura performance: a funny, scary, mesmerizing study of a man walking off the edge with his eyes wide open—wisecracking all the way.” Jernigan is all of these things. Chainsaw or not, it is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.
September 10, 2015
like being buttonholed by a slobbery drunk who pisses his pants, is self-obsessed, who treats everyone with disdain and cynicism, including - especially - those he sleeps with, and those closest to him. Might not sound great, but I enjoyed every word. Peter Jernigan is kind of fun in a terribly un PC way.
July 31, 2023
This was a well written novel. The protagonist, Peter, is a brooding soul and spiraling out of control. The human dynamics in the story are dysfunctional in the way of 'A Clockwork Orange'. The story however is more realistic and thus more depressing and relatable. When Peter is sober, albeit not that often, he makes decent choices and seems to care at least a little about others. And when he is drunk, well he makes very poor choices.
4 stars
4 stars
September 4, 2020
Picture "Leaving Las Vegas", narrated by the Nicholas Cage character, but here the guy is a smartass with no redeeming qualities. Just pages of drinking and compounding misery inflicted by protagonist Jernigan on himself and everyone around him.
There's rage, self sabotage, fighting, job loss, verbal cruelty, death, suicide, alienation, bad parenting, drugs, more drinking, sexual abuse and animal cruelty. It's all here, delivered with a tone of relentless ambivalence.
What's the payoff? I don't know.
Author Gates loves to use phrases like "The pizza was either delicious, or it wasn't". Characters say to each other what they didn't mean, but then don't say what they meant.
Jernigan is unhappy enough to drink far too much, but it's not clear what's really eating him. He starts out with a decent job, but hates it. His parents and grandparents drank, as did his wife. He's self destructive and cruel, but capable of charm, like many alcoholics.
Is the book well written? Maybe. Maybe not.
It certainly evokes misery and cruelty well. I don't know alcoholism first hand, but this felt like an accurate depiction of it.
So, what's the point? As in so many of the stories they made us read in high school, like "The Lottery", "The Scarlet Ibis" and "Thus I refute Beelzy", describing misery and cruelty seems to be the whole purpose of Gates' Jernigan narrative.
Do you want to spend a few days not learning, being enlightened or entertained, but just wallowing in the misery of a bunch of unredeemable characters? Maybe you do. Maybe you don't.
There's rage, self sabotage, fighting, job loss, verbal cruelty, death, suicide, alienation, bad parenting, drugs, more drinking, sexual abuse and animal cruelty. It's all here, delivered with a tone of relentless ambivalence.
What's the payoff? I don't know.
Author Gates loves to use phrases like "The pizza was either delicious, or it wasn't". Characters say to each other what they didn't mean, but then don't say what they meant.
Jernigan is unhappy enough to drink far too much, but it's not clear what's really eating him. He starts out with a decent job, but hates it. His parents and grandparents drank, as did his wife. He's self destructive and cruel, but capable of charm, like many alcoholics.
Is the book well written? Maybe. Maybe not.
It certainly evokes misery and cruelty well. I don't know alcoholism first hand, but this felt like an accurate depiction of it.
So, what's the point? As in so many of the stories they made us read in high school, like "The Lottery", "The Scarlet Ibis" and "Thus I refute Beelzy", describing misery and cruelty seems to be the whole purpose of Gates' Jernigan narrative.
Do you want to spend a few days not learning, being enlightened or entertained, but just wallowing in the misery of a bunch of unredeemable characters? Maybe you do. Maybe you don't.
August 27, 2007
This book is the darkest painting of suburbia I've read in awhile. If your life stinks, replace it with Jernigan's. Here's what you get----alcoholism, self-abuse, teenage son on drugs, shacking with mother of teenage son's girlfriend, death of wife, death of rabbits for food, loss of job, plus did I mention drinking large quanities of gin. Now why does this character continue to shot himself in the foot (or in his case hand)? Seems like he just doesn't give two hoots. What makes the book work though, is Jernigan's wisecracking nature, basically condescending everything, as his life drops away by his own powers. This is brought on by the tight, descriptive naratives by David Gates, Jernigan's creator.
Not that Jernigan is alone in his life of horror. There's a cast of characters that are barely functioning. Of course, Jernigan cannot stand them. He's going to do things his way and it's a way so unimaginable yet possible, it leaves you riveted.
Not that Jernigan is alone in his life of horror. There's a cast of characters that are barely functioning. Of course, Jernigan cannot stand them. He's going to do things his way and it's a way so unimaginable yet possible, it leaves you riveted.
August 30, 2007
I am rounding Jernigan's rating down to a two and a half. This book rises and falls on its narrator and main character, Jernigan. Though the author was hoping to create an adult version of Holden from Catcher in the Rye, he did not succeed. Jernigan lacked whatever makes a reader sympathize with Holden. For most of the book, I found myself wishing that Jernigan would attempt the suicide that I was sure was inevitable so I could stop reading or at least get a new narrator.
With that extensive disclaimer, my enjoyment of the book did increase the more I read. But that maybe because the plot had some far-fetched twists at the end that I found simultaneously ridiculous and compelling.
With that extensive disclaimer, my enjoyment of the book did increase the more I read. But that maybe because the plot had some far-fetched twists at the end that I found simultaneously ridiculous and compelling.
September 3, 2007
Calling Peter Jernigan the anti-hero is just not enough. Sure the book is a story of Peter's decent after getting fed up with not only failure, but that the suburban life wasn't all what he expected. But there is way much more to it, and I can't even begin to explain it all. Each page I was taken back by not only the story but how I was getting drunk on the intensity of each character. No one really writes like david gates but most wish they could.
March 28, 2014
Jernigan is a selfish drunk who somehow, miraculously, interests me in his pathetic scrambling through his life by virtue of the writing talent of his creator, David Gates. I had no reason to like Jernigan, except he didn't like himself either, and he's funny. Those two qualities and the writing kept me with him to the last page, and I did wish I could find out what had become of him after that.
January 11, 2010
Je l'ai lu en entier, mais je n'ai pas aimé..
Déjà lu des livres déprimants, mais celui-ci m'a laissé vraiment une impression désagréable.
Je n'ai pas aimé non plus certains "tics d'écriture" de l'auteur comme : "J'ai bu 2 bières (donc comprendre 3, bien sûr)" ou "J'ai fait ceci (je blague)". La parenthèse pour commenter ce qu'on vient d'écrire...
Déjà lu des livres déprimants, mais celui-ci m'a laissé vraiment une impression désagréable.
Je n'ai pas aimé non plus certains "tics d'écriture" de l'auteur comme : "J'ai bu 2 bières (donc comprendre 3, bien sûr)" ou "J'ai fait ceci (je blague)". La parenthèse pour commenter ce qu'on vient d'écrire...
June 12, 2008
I picked this up on a whim at a book store. I'd never heard of the book or the author, but I guess there was a tempting blurb. In any case, great book about modern America. Plenty of despair and drinking. Quick read and good story-telling that is shocking in a low-key way.
December 28, 2008
I didn't really like Catcher in the Rye, but I figured it was because I was too old when I read it. This is supposed to be like an adult Catcher in the Rye, but I still didn't like it, so maybe it's me. I have a problem with books where I hate everyone in the story.
May 9, 2024
more 4.5 but only because the last page didn’t sit right. the rest of this book made me go insane because it feels so much like it was written exactly for my tastes ; crooked family dynamics, the suburbs will kill you, lonely charming boy in a sold empty house, we forgive those who trespass against us, samuel beckett nods, burgers made out of the rabbits in the basement, death on fourth of july, freezing in the face of disaster, shooting oneself in the webbed part of the hand to know what a bullet feels like, 102nd and riverside, anxious ER trip from getting a little too high, (little joke), uncle fred just being a drunk kid named michael, son with a gun, daughter with a gun, mother with a gun, father with a gun. cannot express how much i loved this book but would never in a million years recommend it to someone else.. nursed this book like I nurse my morning coffee even though I hate you peter jernigan!
May 5, 2021
Hmm.. This is a tricky one. Have I read better books on self-sabotage? Oh yes. Nothing quite comes as close as any of Edward St. Aubyn's works. The sheer decline, the inability to escape from oneself. And then there was 'The Butcher Boy' by Patrick McCabe. Had I not read these, Jernigan would have been a full 4 star. Now, it just about gets there.
So we have Jernigan, who's on a road to decline. Literally and figuratively. He holes up in an ice cold camping trailer after driving many miles, fully drunk and doped and is rescued with some damage to self and institutionalized. And he narrates in 1st person his many relationships. We have Danny, his son. His wife Judith who's now dead (whole other story that). Clarissa who is Danny's girlfriend. And Martha, Clarissa's mom with whom Jernigan starts living. Messed already? It gets messier without anything additional thrown in.
So we have Jernigan, who's on a road to decline. Literally and figuratively. He holes up in an ice cold camping trailer after driving many miles, fully drunk and doped and is rescued with some damage to self and institutionalized. And he narrates in 1st person his many relationships. We have Danny, his son. His wife Judith who's now dead (whole other story that). Clarissa who is Danny's girlfriend. And Martha, Clarissa's mom with whom Jernigan starts living. Messed already? It gets messier without anything additional thrown in.
June 25, 2019
Full disclosure, I’m very partial to the author, David Gates, who was my advisor at Bennington. This book is an insane, unputdownable noise dive into the inner mind of a drunk, unhappy suburban white guy in the twilight of the twentieth century. Gates does bleak and funny well but voice best. His constant fourth wall breaking - always controlled and purposeful - makes Jernigan spring fully formed out of the novel like a cringeworthy, creepy uncle you love to watch self-destruct at a BBQ. Do not read this around the holidays (unless your life is a Frank Capra film) and definitely keep the bottle far away. But read it! I couldn’t look away.
April 4, 2014
Cut to the Chase:
A dark portrait of suburban life gone awry, Jernigan’s misery is due in equal parts to bad luck/unfortunate circumstance as well as chronically bad life choices on his part. Jernigan is self-deprecating, yet kind of a bully; he’s intelligent but completely underutilized; he’s psychologically damaged but also simultaneously aware and oblivious in a way that’s hard not to identify with. Though Jernigan is plagued with specific psychoses and vices (his bunny-killing lover, alcoholism), there is an everyman quality about him and his circumstances where you can’t help but relate to him, and even root for him. Both depressing and hilarious, this is a brilliant novel that is compulsively readable.
Greater Detail:
Jernigan is a 40 year old man who finds that, within the same year, he’s lost his father (an artist who dies in debt, instead of with the inheritance they had half-expected but which was never there), his wife (who dies in one of those “you recognize it could’ve been you” situations, if you were as unlucky as Jernigan is), his job (one he didn’t want and yet stayed at for 10 years nonetheless) and maybe his self-respect/sanity (he takes up with a woman who kills bunnies and may be crazy, who also happens to be the mother of his son’s girlfriend; he worries whether he can say the general parenting type of things in view of his past drug use and current alcoholism). Jernigan goes through life with a scarily detached complacency where he knows things are wrong, and becoming gradually more and more wrong, and where he keeps telling himself to fix it, do something, anything…
There’s a lot of great, very dry, humor sprinkled throughout. Like the characters Gates created in Wonders of the Invisible World, Jernigan is a guy whose life has gone off the track and who is extraordinarily self-reflective and self-deprecating about it all. Here’s a taste of his voice:
“But Jernigan is no life-changer. Though willing enough to lie back and let it happen. So I ended up simply resolving to limit things to maybe a beer once in a while but really just a beer, and to do better with the little daily stuff. A smile of greeting, a thank you after a meal – oh believe me, I know how Reader’s Digesty this all sounds – and really listening to what loved ones are saying instead of finding ways to let them know that you wish they’d leave you the fuck alone… … I was going to be part of this household again: take my turn doing dishes and feeding the bunnies. Death chamber duty too…”
However, unlike the characters in Wonders, Jernigan seems to have more things that happen to him, rather than because of him. I’m reminded of the movie Adaptation where the narrator is humorous, satirical, and constantly analyzing and over-analyzing rather than doing. Jernigan is more of a screw-up than Kauffman in Adaptation, however, and therefore the humor is much darker and more fierce here.
The good thing is that Gates, through Jernigan, is a very good, articulate observer of the world. At one point, when Jernigan is trying to find out more about the neighborhood, he approaches a woman walking a baby and asks whether the neighborhood is safe:
“She looked over her shoulder, then said, more quietly, ‘You mean is it going black? I would say not at all.’
It had taken, what, ten seconds to find the ugly place in her? Probably she was nice on the whole and this was just something that was being discussed around here a lot. So now I would have to manage some way of not embarrassing her for having said a racist thing without being complicit myself.”
The only caveat I’ll give is that the novel sometimes requires you to be a patient reader — the sometimes stream-of-consciousness, super-cerebral-meta-conscious-unconscious passages aren’t for everyone (despite how well written they are), and Jernigan is such a screw-up that you’ll sometimes be a bit exasperated with him (i.e. being drunk while talking to the kids about drugs)
What makes Jernigan ultimately worth the read however, is how familiar he’ll seem, despite the fact that he’s a bit of a jerk. Although many of the events seem to be happening to him, the people and situations are drawn so realistically, you’ll find yourself relating to him, despite not always liking him. He’s a fluid character, and despite the alcoholism and the emotional numbness, you want to maybe not exactly like him, but at least to understand and sympathize with him. You recognize enough everyman in Jernigan to be a little scared and also thankful that at least you’re not him.
Comparisons to Other Authors:
I will admit that reading Jernigan was at times almost like a Woolf/Faulkner/Beckett combo with acid/alcohol. I’ve heard other people say that Jernigan is a grown up Holden Caulfield… which I think is a bit polarizing, as many of us either loved or hated that novel when it was assigned in school (as someone who liked JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, I’d like to think that Holden hung onto a bit more of his innocence/optimism than this). I think Jernigan’s a much more depressed, alcoholic Miles Roby (from Empire Falls by Richard Russo) or what Bone (from Russell Banks’ Rule of the Bone) might be like if he actually grew up and had children.
A dark portrait of suburban life gone awry, Jernigan’s misery is due in equal parts to bad luck/unfortunate circumstance as well as chronically bad life choices on his part. Jernigan is self-deprecating, yet kind of a bully; he’s intelligent but completely underutilized; he’s psychologically damaged but also simultaneously aware and oblivious in a way that’s hard not to identify with. Though Jernigan is plagued with specific psychoses and vices (his bunny-killing lover, alcoholism), there is an everyman quality about him and his circumstances where you can’t help but relate to him, and even root for him. Both depressing and hilarious, this is a brilliant novel that is compulsively readable.
Greater Detail:
Jernigan is a 40 year old man who finds that, within the same year, he’s lost his father (an artist who dies in debt, instead of with the inheritance they had half-expected but which was never there), his wife (who dies in one of those “you recognize it could’ve been you” situations, if you were as unlucky as Jernigan is), his job (one he didn’t want and yet stayed at for 10 years nonetheless) and maybe his self-respect/sanity (he takes up with a woman who kills bunnies and may be crazy, who also happens to be the mother of his son’s girlfriend; he worries whether he can say the general parenting type of things in view of his past drug use and current alcoholism). Jernigan goes through life with a scarily detached complacency where he knows things are wrong, and becoming gradually more and more wrong, and where he keeps telling himself to fix it, do something, anything…
There’s a lot of great, very dry, humor sprinkled throughout. Like the characters Gates created in Wonders of the Invisible World, Jernigan is a guy whose life has gone off the track and who is extraordinarily self-reflective and self-deprecating about it all. Here’s a taste of his voice:
“But Jernigan is no life-changer. Though willing enough to lie back and let it happen. So I ended up simply resolving to limit things to maybe a beer once in a while but really just a beer, and to do better with the little daily stuff. A smile of greeting, a thank you after a meal – oh believe me, I know how Reader’s Digesty this all sounds – and really listening to what loved ones are saying instead of finding ways to let them know that you wish they’d leave you the fuck alone… … I was going to be part of this household again: take my turn doing dishes and feeding the bunnies. Death chamber duty too…”
However, unlike the characters in Wonders, Jernigan seems to have more things that happen to him, rather than because of him. I’m reminded of the movie Adaptation where the narrator is humorous, satirical, and constantly analyzing and over-analyzing rather than doing. Jernigan is more of a screw-up than Kauffman in Adaptation, however, and therefore the humor is much darker and more fierce here.
The good thing is that Gates, through Jernigan, is a very good, articulate observer of the world. At one point, when Jernigan is trying to find out more about the neighborhood, he approaches a woman walking a baby and asks whether the neighborhood is safe:
“She looked over her shoulder, then said, more quietly, ‘You mean is it going black? I would say not at all.’
It had taken, what, ten seconds to find the ugly place in her? Probably she was nice on the whole and this was just something that was being discussed around here a lot. So now I would have to manage some way of not embarrassing her for having said a racist thing without being complicit myself.”
The only caveat I’ll give is that the novel sometimes requires you to be a patient reader — the sometimes stream-of-consciousness, super-cerebral-meta-conscious-unconscious passages aren’t for everyone (despite how well written they are), and Jernigan is such a screw-up that you’ll sometimes be a bit exasperated with him (i.e. being drunk while talking to the kids about drugs)
What makes Jernigan ultimately worth the read however, is how familiar he’ll seem, despite the fact that he’s a bit of a jerk. Although many of the events seem to be happening to him, the people and situations are drawn so realistically, you’ll find yourself relating to him, despite not always liking him. He’s a fluid character, and despite the alcoholism and the emotional numbness, you want to maybe not exactly like him, but at least to understand and sympathize with him. You recognize enough everyman in Jernigan to be a little scared and also thankful that at least you’re not him.
Comparisons to Other Authors:
I will admit that reading Jernigan was at times almost like a Woolf/Faulkner/Beckett combo with acid/alcohol. I’ve heard other people say that Jernigan is a grown up Holden Caulfield… which I think is a bit polarizing, as many of us either loved or hated that novel when it was assigned in school (as someone who liked JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, I’d like to think that Holden hung onto a bit more of his innocence/optimism than this). I think Jernigan’s a much more depressed, alcoholic Miles Roby (from Empire Falls by Richard Russo) or what Bone (from Russell Banks’ Rule of the Bone) might be like if he actually grew up and had children.
April 14, 2025
New Jersey drunk, what’s not to love? Representation matters
April 13, 2015
I came across David Gates for the first time this year in the Best American Short Stories collection. It was a story titled ‘A Hand came down to guide me’. It’s a story about friendship between men with an eye to looking back over how a life is lived and how it might end. It’s good.
Then my friend Naomi recommended this novel which was shortlisted for the Pulitzer in 1991. It was Gates’ first published novel. In an interview, he says that Jernigan was an experiment. "I think what I wanted to do was to push all my worst imaginings and all my worst qualities to a terrible extreme and see what came of it," he says. "The isolation, the selfishness, the callousness, the indifference, the cruelty. Those awful qualities that are innate in all of us. I'm not uniquely that way." (http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/18/boo...)
Peter Jernigan is 39. The immediate 12 months prior to the opening of the novel have not been kind to him. He is not kind to himself – or anyone else. He has a distinctive voice which drives the novel. One reviewer described him as “like a Holden Caulfield who has grown up to find himself trapped in a novel by Richard Yates”. (http://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/24/boo...) Holden Caulfield came to mind many times in reading this; in the brittleness of tone, the pretence at offhandedness, the irony and self-sabotage that Jernigan displays. He speaks directly to the reader, a device that “creates a powerfully immediate portrait that's devoid of the slightest hint of condescension or superiority.”
Here’s an interesting segment from an interview with Gates at the time of writing this book. "Beckett is my main man," Mr Gates says in his office at Newsweek magazine, where he writes about music and books. "Beckett writes so beautifully about such bleak things. We're all going to die, and we all die alone. And we all live alone. Yes, we live in relation to other people. But so much of the daily noise is not the noise of conversation; it's the noise of the talk that goes on in our heads. And Beckett is the one who speaks to me, and probably to many other people who for whatever reason can sit alone in a room and make things up." (http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/18/boo...)
I have to say that about half way through Jernigan, I thought that I might not be able to stomach too much more of the man. The book is experiential in that way. He is foul in the way that dysfunctional people self-sabotage – he loathes himself and behaves in such a way that the people closest to him are likely to loathe him too. This is a good summary: “It’s a relentless, combustible mix of high literary art and low humour, wisecracking profanity and shellac dark glimpses into a man’s wilful self-annihilation. Narrated by Jernigan himself, we see the world through his gin-bloomed eyes, playful and funny one moment, appalling and offensive the next.” (http://www.thefolioprize.com/category...) What makes it bearable is that Gates is always on the money – he renders the relationships between Jernigan and his teenage son, and Jernigan and the woman that he is sleeping with, with pitch perfect precision. I just wanted to know more even though it was hard to bear.
Again in interview, Gates says of writers that he values: “Jane Austen came to me somewhat later, and probably I was past the age of being strongly influenced. But I was aware, in reading her, of how well she shows her characters’ motivations and agendas, and how they come into conflict with the agendas of other characters. It’s something to which every writer of realistic fiction should pay attention, and certain scenes of hers stick in my head as touchstones: the two encounters between Elinor Dashwood and Lucy Steele in Sense and Sensibility, the Sotherton episode in Mansfield Park.” (http://www.iowareview.org/blog/interv...)
I’ll go looking for more of his work – he writes so well about men in particular. Here’s a bit – you won’t be able to tell from this excerpt why I liked the novel so much but for some reason this appealed. I think it’s the juxtaposition of the promise of youth with the shambolic self-destructive father that Jernigan has become. Here’s Jernigan and his son:
“Up ahead, a branch crested with snow hung low over the sidewalk. Danny made a run at it ̶ I took the opportunity to get the bottle out quick and have a good gulp that made me cough and gag ̶ and leaped, right arm high, as if going in for a lay-up. Snow covered his bare head. He waited for me to catch up, hand moving backward and forward across his hair, stirring snowflakes that sparkled in the streetlight. Judith and I had made this beautiful boy.”
Then my friend Naomi recommended this novel which was shortlisted for the Pulitzer in 1991. It was Gates’ first published novel. In an interview, he says that Jernigan was an experiment. "I think what I wanted to do was to push all my worst imaginings and all my worst qualities to a terrible extreme and see what came of it," he says. "The isolation, the selfishness, the callousness, the indifference, the cruelty. Those awful qualities that are innate in all of us. I'm not uniquely that way." (http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/18/boo...)
Peter Jernigan is 39. The immediate 12 months prior to the opening of the novel have not been kind to him. He is not kind to himself – or anyone else. He has a distinctive voice which drives the novel. One reviewer described him as “like a Holden Caulfield who has grown up to find himself trapped in a novel by Richard Yates”. (http://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/24/boo...) Holden Caulfield came to mind many times in reading this; in the brittleness of tone, the pretence at offhandedness, the irony and self-sabotage that Jernigan displays. He speaks directly to the reader, a device that “creates a powerfully immediate portrait that's devoid of the slightest hint of condescension or superiority.”
Here’s an interesting segment from an interview with Gates at the time of writing this book. "Beckett is my main man," Mr Gates says in his office at Newsweek magazine, where he writes about music and books. "Beckett writes so beautifully about such bleak things. We're all going to die, and we all die alone. And we all live alone. Yes, we live in relation to other people. But so much of the daily noise is not the noise of conversation; it's the noise of the talk that goes on in our heads. And Beckett is the one who speaks to me, and probably to many other people who for whatever reason can sit alone in a room and make things up." (http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/18/boo...)
I have to say that about half way through Jernigan, I thought that I might not be able to stomach too much more of the man. The book is experiential in that way. He is foul in the way that dysfunctional people self-sabotage – he loathes himself and behaves in such a way that the people closest to him are likely to loathe him too. This is a good summary: “It’s a relentless, combustible mix of high literary art and low humour, wisecracking profanity and shellac dark glimpses into a man’s wilful self-annihilation. Narrated by Jernigan himself, we see the world through his gin-bloomed eyes, playful and funny one moment, appalling and offensive the next.” (http://www.thefolioprize.com/category...) What makes it bearable is that Gates is always on the money – he renders the relationships between Jernigan and his teenage son, and Jernigan and the woman that he is sleeping with, with pitch perfect precision. I just wanted to know more even though it was hard to bear.
Again in interview, Gates says of writers that he values: “Jane Austen came to me somewhat later, and probably I was past the age of being strongly influenced. But I was aware, in reading her, of how well she shows her characters’ motivations and agendas, and how they come into conflict with the agendas of other characters. It’s something to which every writer of realistic fiction should pay attention, and certain scenes of hers stick in my head as touchstones: the two encounters between Elinor Dashwood and Lucy Steele in Sense and Sensibility, the Sotherton episode in Mansfield Park.” (http://www.iowareview.org/blog/interv...)
I’ll go looking for more of his work – he writes so well about men in particular. Here’s a bit – you won’t be able to tell from this excerpt why I liked the novel so much but for some reason this appealed. I think it’s the juxtaposition of the promise of youth with the shambolic self-destructive father that Jernigan has become. Here’s Jernigan and his son:
“Up ahead, a branch crested with snow hung low over the sidewalk. Danny made a run at it ̶ I took the opportunity to get the bottle out quick and have a good gulp that made me cough and gag ̶ and leaped, right arm high, as if going in for a lay-up. Snow covered his bare head. He waited for me to catch up, hand moving backward and forward across his hair, stirring snowflakes that sparkled in the streetlight. Judith and I had made this beautiful boy.”
December 12, 2025
Imagine you’re plagued with what I term subjective detective syndrome. This is a disease most appositely relating to the discovery of an unbeknownst piece of media, esoteric and celebrated in small communities. It strokes your ego ever-so-slightly that you’ve read this book that seemingly no one or their mother has heard of. The Catch-22 is that you feel a genuine enthusiasm for said book and know no one will ever read it. Jernigan by David Gates isn’t the kind of novel that’s Reddit-popular or highbrow in its prompting an upward jerk of noses at literary dinner parties. It is actually unheard of. When you read it, though, it is clearly the marquee headline for what should have been a canonical, laudable literary career; though, by this time, a book positing its main character next to Holden Caulfield and Warner Herzog in its summary was likely losing the popularity contest. And this was 1991. Imagine if this was published today, and there’s the rub—it wouldn’t be. This is what makes books like Jernigan so edifying for me. Who knew that I would have to dig so fervently to find a book about an alcoholic white guy and his relationship with his son in late-80s America?
I found Jernigan to fit in cozily to my current favorite literary subgenre. These are narratives about male alcoholics with cinder blocks tied to their feet, sinking in suburban and self-inflicted despair. This is the lineage of Hard Rain Falling (my favorite read of the year), and Fante’s Ask the Dust: recalcitrant males who consciously, happily inflict pain onto themselves. Jernigan is one of the most extreme examples of this, a seminal entry point into this subgenre because of its refusal to explain itself or testify as meritorious. I don’t highlight the book’s refusal to explain itself as an acerbic attribute to its narrative, a much-used throwaway line in perfunctory literary criticism. The book literally refuses to explain itself, and with a main character who consciously subjects himself to a submergence in alcoholic spirits, why should it?
What captivated me most about Peter Jernigan’s alcoholism is that Gates presents it as a lifestyle, not a condition. It is a conscious choice made so autonomously that the character never, or rarely, feels the need to defend himself. Jernigan drinks and drives like others get up in the morning to brew coffee, which he also does. He’s also incredibly well-tempered for a drunk: his “outbursts” are paper cuts—he punches with limp wrists, hurling self-important, manufactured jargon and smart-ass cultural references. While other reviewers dismiss this as if to display the impossibility of his ego, it’s more disturbing when you swallow just how well-adjusted his body has become to never-ending gin-binges. If humans are 50 to 70% water, Peter Jernigan is a walking gin-and-tonic. I kept picturing him with a little cocktail umbrella attached to his hair like the coruscating butterfly clip of a five year-old girl. That is to say that the guy has achieved a horrifying equilibrium with his own destruction; it’s almost Buddhist.
I read many reviews proclaiming that the main character of this book is so unlikable, is an—literary critics love this term—“unreliable narrator,” which is akin to remarking that the sky is blue and we live on planet earth. The guy is an alcoholic, and, you’d think that a reader picking up this abstruse of a book would comprehend that from its wildly disorienting beginning. I find our ability to elicit selective sympathy as readers really telling of where we are culturally. Everyone has different struggles and fiction is inclined to teach sympathy, so why—just because this guy is white and middle-aged, a smart-ass at best—can’t we at least feel sympathetic while witnessing his self-destruction? I still feel affected by the book, witnessing the impacts of Peter’s alcoholism on his son, but that doesn’t mean I sympathetically sidestep the main character completely.
Additionally, Peter Jernigan is not as unlikable as the reviews make him out to be. Sure, he’s a wise-guy, intellectualizing everything in his warpath to avoid an iota of self-reflection and contact with his own emotionality; but, by the way people write about him, you’d think he commits a murder-suicide at the end of the book, offing his girlfriend, her daughter and his son. Really, the only person he kills is himself, internally. It’s clear that even in his stupor, he cares about his son, Danny, a great deal, infinitely paranoid about his hypothetical drug usage behind closed doors, cognizant of his cigarette habit.
Danny is perhaps the most compelling aspect of the entire book, a product of late-80s cultural zeitgeist. He’s obsessed with the guitar, his sexually and psychologically scarred girlfriend and seemingly nothing else. You would expect this character to be a stark and offensive contrast to Jernigan’s older age (in a typical sitcommish fashion), making it all the more heart-wrenching how innocuous this boy is. He serves as both witness and martyr, his whole role in the book to be an accessory for his girlfriend, who he loves with all his might. You would expect Jernigan to dismiss and despise his son, and even though he speaks terribly of him via intrusive, interior thoughts: he doesn’t. He looks at snowflakes falling alight his head toward the end and notes “[my wife] and I had made this beautiful boy.” Here is a revelation of nascent clarity, a sobering epiphany that breaks through all that gin-soaked cynicism and misanthropy, even if for just a moment.
The book is so fractal and hard to track, unapologetically nonlinear as tribute and simulacrum of Jernigan’s alcoholism: it unravels at its beginning with one of the most physically and geographically disorienting interstices, a motif you think will resolve itself and dovetail beautifully by the book’s end. It doesn’t, because Jernigan’s life doesn’t dovetail, and it surely isn’t beautiful. It drinks itself sick until it points a gun at the people it once loved until it drives away. And perhaps that’s the most radical, offensive and detestable thing Jernigan does: leave, without the excuse that he’s going out for milk. He never needed an excuse.
On the book’s last page we’re in a recovery program, (inexorably, because we don’t even know how he got there, that’s how nonlinear this book is) it’s like the entirety of the book was a manuscript he’d been writing for his recovery program. He’s still unable to say the de facto alcoholics A.A. statement: “I’m So-and-so and I’m an alcoholic. I’m Such-and-such and I’m a drug addict. I’m Somebody Else and so forth and so on…When it comes around to you, you have to give them something, if only name and spiritual disease…So what I’ve figured out is this. I stand up and say: Jernigan.”
It is a genius finale and a disorienting ending sentiment. The last name is so distinguishable and unique that, before I read the novel, I had no idea that it was a name. It sounds so catchy that it could be a concept or an adjective for all I knew. The structure itself is inebriated, lurching forward and backward, losing time, blacking out entire sequences. Gates doesn’t give you the A.A. chip of satisfaction and relinquishes narrative sobriety because Jernigan never achieves it until that final, devastating frame. And even then, we don’t know if it’s newfound fervor or folklore.
I found Jernigan to fit in cozily to my current favorite literary subgenre. These are narratives about male alcoholics with cinder blocks tied to their feet, sinking in suburban and self-inflicted despair. This is the lineage of Hard Rain Falling (my favorite read of the year), and Fante’s Ask the Dust: recalcitrant males who consciously, happily inflict pain onto themselves. Jernigan is one of the most extreme examples of this, a seminal entry point into this subgenre because of its refusal to explain itself or testify as meritorious. I don’t highlight the book’s refusal to explain itself as an acerbic attribute to its narrative, a much-used throwaway line in perfunctory literary criticism. The book literally refuses to explain itself, and with a main character who consciously subjects himself to a submergence in alcoholic spirits, why should it?
What captivated me most about Peter Jernigan’s alcoholism is that Gates presents it as a lifestyle, not a condition. It is a conscious choice made so autonomously that the character never, or rarely, feels the need to defend himself. Jernigan drinks and drives like others get up in the morning to brew coffee, which he also does. He’s also incredibly well-tempered for a drunk: his “outbursts” are paper cuts—he punches with limp wrists, hurling self-important, manufactured jargon and smart-ass cultural references. While other reviewers dismiss this as if to display the impossibility of his ego, it’s more disturbing when you swallow just how well-adjusted his body has become to never-ending gin-binges. If humans are 50 to 70% water, Peter Jernigan is a walking gin-and-tonic. I kept picturing him with a little cocktail umbrella attached to his hair like the coruscating butterfly clip of a five year-old girl. That is to say that the guy has achieved a horrifying equilibrium with his own destruction; it’s almost Buddhist.
I read many reviews proclaiming that the main character of this book is so unlikable, is an—literary critics love this term—“unreliable narrator,” which is akin to remarking that the sky is blue and we live on planet earth. The guy is an alcoholic, and, you’d think that a reader picking up this abstruse of a book would comprehend that from its wildly disorienting beginning. I find our ability to elicit selective sympathy as readers really telling of where we are culturally. Everyone has different struggles and fiction is inclined to teach sympathy, so why—just because this guy is white and middle-aged, a smart-ass at best—can’t we at least feel sympathetic while witnessing his self-destruction? I still feel affected by the book, witnessing the impacts of Peter’s alcoholism on his son, but that doesn’t mean I sympathetically sidestep the main character completely.
Additionally, Peter Jernigan is not as unlikable as the reviews make him out to be. Sure, he’s a wise-guy, intellectualizing everything in his warpath to avoid an iota of self-reflection and contact with his own emotionality; but, by the way people write about him, you’d think he commits a murder-suicide at the end of the book, offing his girlfriend, her daughter and his son. Really, the only person he kills is himself, internally. It’s clear that even in his stupor, he cares about his son, Danny, a great deal, infinitely paranoid about his hypothetical drug usage behind closed doors, cognizant of his cigarette habit.
Danny is perhaps the most compelling aspect of the entire book, a product of late-80s cultural zeitgeist. He’s obsessed with the guitar, his sexually and psychologically scarred girlfriend and seemingly nothing else. You would expect this character to be a stark and offensive contrast to Jernigan’s older age (in a typical sitcommish fashion), making it all the more heart-wrenching how innocuous this boy is. He serves as both witness and martyr, his whole role in the book to be an accessory for his girlfriend, who he loves with all his might. You would expect Jernigan to dismiss and despise his son, and even though he speaks terribly of him via intrusive, interior thoughts: he doesn’t. He looks at snowflakes falling alight his head toward the end and notes “[my wife] and I had made this beautiful boy.” Here is a revelation of nascent clarity, a sobering epiphany that breaks through all that gin-soaked cynicism and misanthropy, even if for just a moment.
The book is so fractal and hard to track, unapologetically nonlinear as tribute and simulacrum of Jernigan’s alcoholism: it unravels at its beginning with one of the most physically and geographically disorienting interstices, a motif you think will resolve itself and dovetail beautifully by the book’s end. It doesn’t, because Jernigan’s life doesn’t dovetail, and it surely isn’t beautiful. It drinks itself sick until it points a gun at the people it once loved until it drives away. And perhaps that’s the most radical, offensive and detestable thing Jernigan does: leave, without the excuse that he’s going out for milk. He never needed an excuse.
On the book’s last page we’re in a recovery program, (inexorably, because we don’t even know how he got there, that’s how nonlinear this book is) it’s like the entirety of the book was a manuscript he’d been writing for his recovery program. He’s still unable to say the de facto alcoholics A.A. statement: “I’m So-and-so and I’m an alcoholic. I’m Such-and-such and I’m a drug addict. I’m Somebody Else and so forth and so on…When it comes around to you, you have to give them something, if only name and spiritual disease…So what I’ve figured out is this. I stand up and say: Jernigan.”
It is a genius finale and a disorienting ending sentiment. The last name is so distinguishable and unique that, before I read the novel, I had no idea that it was a name. It sounds so catchy that it could be a concept or an adjective for all I knew. The structure itself is inebriated, lurching forward and backward, losing time, blacking out entire sequences. Gates doesn’t give you the A.A. chip of satisfaction and relinquishes narrative sobriety because Jernigan never achieves it until that final, devastating frame. And even then, we don’t know if it’s newfound fervor or folklore.
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