Elegy for September

by John Nichols

A middle-aged writer is completely enraptured by a nineteen-year-old fan who comes to town hoping to seduce him, but their subsequent relationship faces an uncertain future. Reprint.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

John Nichols is the author of the New Mexico trilogy, a series about the complex relationship between history, race and ethnicity, and land and water rights in the fictional Chamisaville County, New Mexico. The trilogy consists of The Milagro Beanfield War (which was adapted into the film The Milagro Beanfield War directed by Robert Redford), The Magic Journey, and The Nirvana Blues.

Two of his other novels have been made into films. The Wizard of Loneliness was published in 1966 and the film version with Lukas Haas was made in 1988. Another successful movie adaptation was of The Sterile Cuckoo, which was published in 1965 and was filmed by Alan J. Pakula in 1969.

Nichols has also written non-fiction, including the trilogy If Mountains Die, The Last Beautiful Days of Autumn and On the Mesa. John Nichols has lived in Taos, New Mexico for many years.

Reviews

[KT Sierra]

Why did I read this horny old man book.

[James Spencer]

I found it to be a remarkable piece of writing, evoking many truths about the progressions of relationships and of age in just a few pages. I couldn't put it down, and finished it in one sitting. This was my first encounter with the author's work, and it won't be the last!

[Candorman]

Latter day Jim Harrison with a touch of Hemingway. Descriptions of nature put the reader there.

[Timmy Cham]

Boy meets girl: 50-something writer meets his 19-year-old "#1 fan." A romantic affair ensues. An intense one, since the chica is intense: "I'm too young to be saddled and tamed!" she declares (31), and she wears that attitude in her eyes: "She lowered her eyelids halfway and smirked. She was a devil, bewitching, nasty, coy. And hungry" (51). Their involvement is complete: They write together, they fish together, they hunt together, she sweetly plays her violin for him. They discuss the art of writing, they plan story-plots, their typewriters clatter together in the dead of night.

Yes, there's the sex, too. At times, there are scenes reminiscent of Last Tango In Paris (91-97). They're in nature a good deal, and author John Nichols writes these scenes lyrically and lushly.

I'd read this novella again. Lovely writing, inviting plot, realistic resolution.

[John Benson]

This book tells the story of an aging writer, in his 50s with heart problems who is going through a divorce, and a young college girl (19 years old) who is a fan of his and attending a writing workshop where he lives and begins an affair with him. The novel seems to be a fictional depiction of the author's own experiences. No names are given in the book. The book is very strong in the description of the natural environment of northern New Mexico and the older man's thoughts, but very weak in bringing up that actions of the young woman. We get a sense of her bizarre behavior but no real sense of her as a person, even a physical description. Ironically, John Nichols died this week of the heart conditions he describes in this book.

[Beau]

A quick, one-sitting read. Full of nature and passion and ageing and youth and contemplation and beginnings and endings and risk and caution and sex. Plenty of sex.

I bought this lovely novela online from a wonderful bookshop in Taos, NM. When it arrived I found that it was autographed by the author, who it turns out is a resident of that high desert community.

[Amanda Hawthorne]

i loved this i don’t know what else to say.
gonna read it every september from here on out.

[David Roberts]

An interesting book with a somewhat different approach than Nichols' other novels. Short, lyrically descriptive of the flora, fauna, and natural beauty of northern New Mexico, and a fleeting relationship that enriched two very different lives. I found the other reviews a bit confusing. While the book is certainly sexual in some parts, I did not find it pornographic. In fact, I thought the erotic passages clearly ran parallel to the almost-erotic descriptions of the vast canvas of natural beauty and violence painted buy the author.

I agree that it "isn't the same as the New Mexico Trilogy," but then not every author can write a dozen identical books (like John Irving, I suppose.) There was an aching depth to the beauty of every chapter, whether the subject was nature or relationships, or, yes, even sex. There is also an interesting segment where the protagonist describes his "method" of writing, which I took to be that of the author himself. Painstaking, extensively revised, words carefully chosen from many candidates, each a description of this Elegy's end product of beautifully lyric prose.

[Amy]

Sentimental, dated, and at times sticky-sweet, this is nonetheless a book that I go back to every couple of years because there is just something about it.... An aging novelist, twice-divorced, falls haphazardly into a relationship with a [stalkerish] fan his daughter's age. There's very little doing, but lots of thinking about doing (and thinking about thinking, even). Still, Nichols has a way of making it appealing and real.

[Steve]

This is one of those books that was a new discovery, and I was only vaguely familiar with the author, but after reading it I knew that it had made a definite impression on me. Nichols' tale of a summer spent by middle aged novelist and the aspiring young writer who loves him is very haunting and surprising -- an undiscovered treasure, to me. It's definitely worth a second read to glean the details that I might have missed the first time around!

[Milo]

Poorly done. Not up to the level one would expect from the writer of the New Mexico Trilogy. Sucks......

[Tianna]

Story Progression/Development: 2
Characterization: 2
Conflict: 1
Conclusion: 3

Additional Thoughts:
Pretty pornographic without substantial reason for it being so. Oh well...

Quotes:

[Chris]

i bought this on friday, but forgot it up in flagstaff. shoot

[DeniMulisha]

Very interesting.

[Diana Donnelly]

This was not worth reading. It was a short 145 page book otherwise I would have stopped after 50 pages. I really do not even know how I came by having the book, but I'll not be passing it on.