. Los
Angeles Times, June 16, 1972,
RECORD by
Jules Siegel (Straight Arrow)
By TOM NOLAN
JULES
SIEGEL makes an
implicitly acknowledged bid here for the literary
fame and serious recognition he so obviously
feels entitled to; attention which, judging from
the rich prose exhibited in his first book, he
does indeed richly deserve. He presents a
collection of short stories, essays, magazine
articles and a fragment of a novel written over
the past eight years. Such a mixed bag of work
assembled between two covers is a daring (one
might say grandstand ploy), reminiscent of Norman
Mailer's ground-breaking Advertisements for
Myself.
Like
that anthology and its sequels, Record is
partly an exercise in self-aggrandizement, with
the writer granting himself the expected
indulgences. But with Record, as with Mailer's
collections, the occasional inessential piece is
more than compensated for by the impressive
strength of the rest of what's on display.
Siegel
emerges from the relative obscurity of Playboy,
Esquire and New American Review as a
strong, original, disturbing and compelling
author. As a journalist, he chronicles with
chilling insight the chaos of an era coming down
from LSD in which politicians and rock musicians
compete for the same disillusioned and dangerous
crowds, and where seemingly idyllic communes are
seen to be open-air sanitariums, rest camps for
the damaged and rootless refugees of
America.
This
is some of the finest journalism around,
crackling with significant leaps and telling
anecdotes.
As
a fictionist and essayist, Siegel fashions tales
of cardinal emotions that spring from inescapable
facts and duties of life. In both genres, he is
precise and uncompromising in spelling out his
exacting visions. But it is in the fiction and
serious essays written with the drama of short
stories, composed without thought of exigencies
governing the popular press, that Siegel exhibits
his real gift. Here he is at his best, and at his
best he is dazzling.
"Family
Secrets" is
an amazing portrait of the author's father,
"a warm, decent, soft-spoken man who had
once done eight years for armed robbery in
Dannemora, a maximum-security prison for
incorrigibles" With love and chilling
candor, Siegel recalls the wisdom and despair of
his past and his parents' past with
autobiographical honesty and drama, pride and
muted horror that can realistically be compared
with the best qualities found in the works of
Isaac Babel.
To
discover Record is to discover a fresh,
astonishing, exasperating writer who cannot
possibly leave you indifferent. Siegel swoops in
a pendulum parabola from bleak pits of psychic
despair to elevated states of clarity and
ecstasy, in pages describing simply and exactly a
timeless range of human emotion induced by life's
costs and compensations.
This is at
least as impressive a debut volume as Phillip
Roth's Goodbye Columbus. It is the sort of
book with which a reputation is made.
USED BY
PERMISSION
|
