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In this funny, grouchy, wryly tender novel—first published in 1991—Mary Robison gives us a portrait of a marriage in very rough shape careening toward the breaking point, and of two magnetic and careless people, mad, bad, and dangerous to know.
Paige Deveaux, poet and Harvard professor, is tracking her husband Raf, who has vanished once again. Paige trails him to Houston, where he is holed up in a seedy bar, drunk and cheerfully ashamed of himself. He’s very glad to see her: she’s the only girl for him (and he should know—he’s tried most of the others).
Finding Raf is one thing, but holding on to him is another. To sober him up, to keep him sober, to keep him, Paige enlists Raf’s old friend Raymond (himself an ex-alcoholic) and Raf’s new friend Pru, a holistically inclined contortionist-stripper. For a while life, and Raf, seem to settle down. But this foursome is nothing but trouble for one another. Pru is a hit-and-run artist, a sexual desperado who has already broken Raymond’s heart, and now Raymond is growing sweet on Paige. As Raf says, “Assorted wretchednesses ensue.”
Paige Deveaux, poet and Harvard professor, is tracking her husband Raf, who has vanished once again. Paige trails him to Houston, where he is holed up in a seedy bar, drunk and cheerfully ashamed of himself. He’s very glad to see her: she’s the only girl for him (and he should know—he’s tried most of the others).
Finding Raf is one thing, but holding on to him is another. To sober him up, to keep him sober, to keep him, Paige enlists Raf’s old friend Raymond (himself an ex-alcoholic) and Raf’s new friend Pru, a holistically inclined contortionist-stripper. For a while life, and Raf, seem to settle down. But this foursome is nothing but trouble for one another. Pru is a hit-and-run artist, a sexual desperado who has already broken Raymond’s heart, and now Raymond is growing sweet on Paige. As Raf says, “Assorted wretchednesses ensue.”
240 pages, Paperback
First published February 20, 1991
154 people want to read
About the author
Mary Robison
26 books115 followersMary Robison is an American short story writer and novelist. She has published four collections of stories, and four novels, including her 2001 novel Why Did I Ever, winner of the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction. Her most recent novel, released in 2009, is One D.O.A., One on the Way. She has been categorized as a founding "minimalist" writer along with authors such as Amy Hempel, Frederick Barthelme, and Raymond Carver. In 2009, she won the Rea Award for the Short Story.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 24, 2019
Good to find another gem on my shelf worth reading. Robison is a poet and her writing is genius, excellent characters, too, plus good dialogue; also good depiction of Houston and the heat which took me back to Larry McMurtry novels.
If I'd had the wherewithal to write like Justin Taylor's in Swanee Review Fall 2018, I'd have described this book as follows:
"The novel feels antic, random, and tossed-off because Robison has achieved that superlative unity of voice, style, and character known as total effect. Every sentence is clean as a sun-bleached bone, and scenes rarely start or end where you think they would, but there is always meaning being made, withholding and then revealing itself like a well-bluffed hand of cards. "
https://thesewaneereview.com/articles...
If I'd had the wherewithal to write like Justin Taylor's in Swanee Review Fall 2018, I'd have described this book as follows:
"The novel feels antic, random, and tossed-off because Robison has achieved that superlative unity of voice, style, and character known as total effect. Every sentence is clean as a sun-bleached bone, and scenes rarely start or end where you think they would, but there is always meaning being made, withholding and then revealing itself like a well-bluffed hand of cards. "
https://thesewaneereview.com/articles...
August 9, 2017
I've been rereading Robison for — well, since I first started reading her, let's be real. More people should know this novel. It's a masterpiece, and a master class in dialogue. More than Ann Beattie, even, Mary Robison has a motherfucking ear.
“I would say to myself that Raf kept me strung so tight I sometimes believed I felt the earth turning under my shoe soles. This is no gift that he brings, I would say, and remember how he came at me in bed—with such heat—as if each chance were our last on the very last night of the world. Every time with Raf, I would think—before he chased the thought away—‘This is so scary!’”
“'Oh, you met Raymond, huh?'
'I’ll say I did.'
'There’s a bad story there. I’ll tell it to you sometime. I’m not the hero of the piece.'
'Such a surprise,' I said."
“I would say to myself that Raf kept me strung so tight I sometimes believed I felt the earth turning under my shoe soles. This is no gift that he brings, I would say, and remember how he came at me in bed—with such heat—as if each chance were our last on the very last night of the world. Every time with Raf, I would think—before he chased the thought away—‘This is so scary!’”
“'Oh, you met Raymond, huh?'
'I’ll say I did.'
'There’s a bad story there. I’ll tell it to you sometime. I’m not the hero of the piece.'
'Such a surprise,' I said."
June 6, 2019
“Come on, you gotta like the fuckin’ bird.”
January 6, 2022
I tried. But the early debauchery was too much. It became tedious to read about everyone's sexual energy. I suspect the plot grows out of the phase of "who I want to sleep with is guiding me." But that didn't happen early enough for me.
I may revisit this book later, but having the entire narrative driven by a single shallow emotion (sex, money, jealousy) usually doesn't work for me.
edit: to be clear, I didn't finish, I stopped 1/3 of the way through.
I may revisit this book later, but having the entire narrative driven by a single shallow emotion (sex, money, jealousy) usually doesn't work for me.
edit: to be clear, I didn't finish, I stopped 1/3 of the way through.
May 3, 2021
One of those toy balls with a raccoon tail twitching over the continental US
April 17, 2024
This book felt like a brain massage
October 14, 2012
Oh, why doesn't Goodreads offer 3.5 stars as a choice? I loved the first 2/3 of this novel, with Robison's voice-y portrayal of dumb smart people falling in and out of each other's beds and lives throughout a sticky season in Houston. But I didn't love the latter 1/3, and I really wasn't crazy about the ending. But, man, Robison's voice! She's such a lyrical writer, but her sentences also feel off-the-cuff in a perfect way, as if she just jots down these perfect lines and then hurries on to the next.
January 7, 2015
My favorite Robison yet! Well, maybe tied with "One DOA One on the Way." From 1991 this is the story of Paige Deveaux a sometimes professor of poetry who follows her wayward husband Raf to Houston, poking around for him in bars and strip joints, meeting the last people he met, tracking him down eventually and helping him sober up. It's a story about a marriage, about people who are good for each other but need to wander. It questions conventionality in interesting ways, as Paige and Raf attempt to figure out who they are to each other.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews