Russell Banks
When it comes to fiction, I generally read genre: romance, science fiction, crime, horror, fantasy, and any or all of the above with as many hyphens as you care to add. It’s not that I don’t dig realist fiction; it’s just that, ironically, I don’t often find it all that realistic. I reckon I’ve got a problem with the voice of the author in realist literature; because a lot of writers in this tradition seem intent on exposing the Human Condition in all its Frailness and Rich Ambiguity, I often find the Author’s Message almost too obvious, too overstated, like it’s being Shouted in Capitals, which soon gets Rather Tiresome (italics are just plain fun). Good genre writing can tango with all that existential guff just as well, only it’s hidden amongst all the action scenes; so for me the pleasure of genre is in the reading between the lines of monstrous alien gods doing battle with gun-toting, ass-kicking, date-stamping librarianess hotties.
But I’m nothing if not full of shit and open to self-contradiction (that’ll be my Human Condition shining through), so last week on a whim I read the latest novel by the American rugged realist Russell Banks – and really enjoyed it. The Reserve is set in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York during the summer of 1936 (which technically makes it historical fiction and therefore almost a genre piece). Spoiled socialite Vanessa Cole (formerly the Countess von Heidenstamm) is holidaying with her wealthy parents and friends in the ancestral forest lodge nestled deep within the reserve of the book’s title, when super-famous artist and international pants-man Jordan Groves comes landing his seaplane on the family’s private lake. The sexual attraction between the pair is white hot and dangerous to look at with the naked eye, but unfortunately Groves is married to Alicia (who is having an affair with local guide Hubert St. Germain) and the ex-Countess has some icky family secrets of the “why did Daddy take those photos of me?” kind. Within minutes Cole is riding in Groves’ biplane, grabbing his joystick and plunging the craft deep between a suggestive cleft in the mountains. Bloody hell, that was quick! At least that’s what her father thinks, who promptly has a heart attack and thus sets in motion a series of gross misunderstandings and escalating violence worthy of a Coen Brothers’ screenplay. Which is probably what Banks is hoping for.
You know, reading over this synopsis I’ve just realised why I took to this so-called “realist” novel so well – with character names like “Hubert St. Germain” and lines like, “This can’t be wrong. Not when it feels so right,” this book is clearly high camp soap opera dressed up as high tragedy. But hey kids, that’s a good thing, and it’s exactly why I’d recommend The Reserve to you all so highly. Who’d have thought the Great Depression could be so damn raunchy? (Martin)
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Posted Tuesday 29 September, 2009. Updated Tuesday 29 September, 2009.
