Race Rock by Peter Matthiessen (1954)

 As a bookseller, I had become used to the idea of Peter Matthiessen as a writer, apparently, of stirring books on nature, with an ecological bent, it seemed. Thus it was a surprise to discover that the beginning of his career was so far back, and in fiction. And, wow, is this a novel of the fifties. The major takeaway for me is its quality of being a potential vehicle for a hothouse film, typical sultriness of the period. If Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, Rock Hudson, Frank Sinatra, Mercedes McCambridge and James Dean were not considered for roles in a film of this, I'd be surprised. It sits well in the wake of From Here to Eternity and Edna Ferber, right through to Hemingway and the like. It is the story of four young people who grew up in a wealthy coastal corner of New England, their parents and those who served on their estates. There are the tropes of shooting, both in parties and alone, family secrets, some agitation over class. Kids who have bad starts are 'taken over' by other families, and resentments are stricken up by some of the kids lording it, others being destructive and attention-seeking. Their lives are so circumscribed that the ripples caused by these 'small' things carry on undulating through into adulthood as remembered slights, avatars for judgements of behaviour, and mature into conflict. Then comes the war, and their ways separate. They all grow up into the postwar world, and have lost something in the process, becoming world-weary and dislocated. There are three main male characters: George McConville, very controlled wealthy son of the big house on the point, but still a little childlike in some ways; Sam Rubicam, adopted into the McConville clan, weedier, but clever, and always a little more witty and caustic; and Cady Shipman, tough and spiky illegitimate son of a poorer family, who knocked around with George and Sam, who is dangerous even when young, showing signs of psychological cruelty, and who butts heads with Sam continuously. The only major female character is Eve Murray, daughter of another established family, who tomboys around with the older boys when young, and then, as she grows older, has relationships with both George and Sam, even a first kiss with Cady. Her marriage to Sam is unsuccessful, and she and George are, in the contemporary world of the novel, trying to see if they can return to their former love, and make something work. All of the stories of what happened in their childhoods together are looked back upon from this stage, and occupy large parts of the novel. Everything comes to a head in a short period in New York, followed by a weekend in the old stomping ground. Eve thinks she's pregnant to George. George is freaked out by this, and runs back 'home' after a wild night drinking with Sam. Sam, having got steaming drunk with George without knowing why George is nervous and depressed, is dealing with the outflow of his failed marriage to Eve, and a general sense of meaninglessness and despair, though he is quite happy for George and Eve to give things a try. Back at Shipman's Crossing, George and Sam meet Cady, and the usual fireworks between them all explode, except that they're a bit older, a bit more tired, their personal philosophies presumably altered by their war experiences. A crisis is reached, where Cady yet again bests Sam, in a game of Russian roulette which turns out not to be through a trick, who leaves a note saying that he's had enough and is heading out to drown himself. George finds this, but then sees Sam return (the trope of his unsuccess is unremitting) and stumble off into the woods in the direction of the town. George, for a reason best known to himself, allows a Native American, Daniel, who looks after the house, and who has a peculiar and wary half-friend, half-servant relationship with them all, to find the note without enlightening him to the fact that Sam has survived. Daniel, panic-stricken, sets out to try to save Sam, and drowns himself in the attempt. Eve then turns up at the end of this 'boys' weekend', thinking that she'll end it with George, who has seemed childish and disengaged, but finds herself in a bind, torn between her new strong feeling of needing to leave all this history behind for fresh pastures, and a nagging care for George. The fact that the last part of the book is all about Eve and George's relationship, and leaves behind Daniel dead and his girlfriend traumatised, is notable in a negative way. Finally, Eve and George reach an exhausted sense of amity in a downbeat roadside motel on the way back to New York, having given each other hell. Thus the novel ends as it begins, in an atmosphere of storm, with the steel-grey colouring and sense of buffet which shades it throughout. The writing is often quite quietly impressive, though there is a sense of the psychology not being fully followed through - the reader would like to know more about why they're all so weary and alienated. Also intriguing is the question of how much of this, like many a first novel, is autobiographical - was Matthiessen's youth anything like this? Daniel's demise being made somehow secondary is a key issue, not fully addressed, as is Sam's nickname from childhood of Sam Sissypants - there's just a feeling that there may be something more there that Matthiessen either didn't feel he could investigate, or just didn't want to. It feels like unexplored territory, possibly meaningful in its original autobiographic space and not translated into the fiction here, assuming this story had that genesis. A career beginning which is very much of its time, seemingly well-exceeded later, but still striking.