Tom is a character whose life hasn’t gone the way he expected. Having looked forward to a long career in academia, he finds himself instead working as a New York taxi driver. His old friends are horrified by the way he’s let himself go, and Auster puts the problem succinctly when he says:

“Tom had slipped from the ranks of the anointed, and his downfall seemed to shake their confidence in themselves, to open the door onto a new pessimism about their own prospects in life.”

Tom keeps more and more to himself, forgetting his own thirtieth birthday because there is no one around to remind or congratulate him. He is dwelling in Purgatory, and the person who rescues him is Harry Brightman, a second hand book dealer who wants Tom to come and work for him. Tom prevaricates, but after a dangerous incident in his taxi when a crackhead pulls a gun on him, Tom decides it is time for a career change. Harry Brightman, however, is not the man he appears to be. He has invented a fabulous past for himself while he is actually an ex-con who sold forged paintings on the international art market. Harry’s schizophrenic daughter is the one who lets the cat out the bag when she turns up demanding to see her father. This character, Flora, is the subject of a particularly memorable section where, institutionalised, she becomes obsessed with the statistics of life and death, the number of people who are born or who die. Every forty-odd seconds, she cries out in acknowledgement of their entry into the world, or their departure. Auster’s prose is flowing and elegant, his characters well drawn. The last chapter seems to lead back to the book’s narrator, previously absent in the excerpt, and the reader is left with a tantalising glimpse of what else ‘Brooklyn Follies’ might contain.

I’ve never read Auster before and his prose swept me along, leaving me curious to read his other works. ‘Purgatory’ is followed by a brief essay by Mary Morris. Her lengthy interview with Auster takes up the rest of the book. It’s always interesting to read interviews with writers to get a sense of how they work, and this interview covers a lot of ground. Inevitably, with a novel set around New York, and the writer living there, the subject of 9/11 comes up in the interview, as well as Bush, the present political climate, and the Iraq War. Auster is clearly horrified by Bush: “We truly have the worst government I have experienced in my lifetime.” But the interview deals with other subjects too, and Auster recounts a wonderful story about Kafka which also appears in the novel, ‘Brooklyn Follies’. In the last months of his life, Kafka moved to Berlin. He and his partner went for walks in the park, and he came across a little girl crying because she’d lost her doll. Kafka told her not to worry, the doll had gone on holiday. When the child asked him how he knew this, he said that the doll wrote him a letter. The girl asked to see the letter, but he said he’d left it at home. Kafka then went home and wrote a letter from the doll, and for the next two or three weeks he continued to write letters from the doll which he then read to the little girl in the park. This cured her of her misery. Auster is clearly very moved by the dying Kafka going to such lengths to cheer up a little girl.

Other subjects covered in the interview include the influence of American literature on Auster’s writing, the process of writing itself, his experiences as a film maker and screenwriter, and the writer’s relationship to Brooklyn.

‘Purgatory’ is a fascinating little volume full of beautiful writing, memorable characters, and insights into the author, his influences and working methods.

Kara Kellar Bell is a film and media graduate from the West of Scotland, with a passion for European novels, French films, silent cinema, and Brazilian music (everything from Daniela Mercury and other pop stars through to bossa nova). As a writer, she likes to have room to move around creatively, so she’s not located in one genre. She writes realism and also stories of a more fantastic nature, usually grounded to some extent in the real world. She also takes delight in writing across the sexual spectrum, and as a bisexual, considers it important to remind people that things are not always black and white, either/or, in sexuality or in gender. For a selection of Kara’s writing on the Showcase section of this site, click here

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.