Morgantown.

Joseph Jones is a reference librarian in the Koerner Library at the
University of British Columbia.

This second novel in a coming-of-age quartet finds John Dupre in the middle of his college years at West Virginia University in Morgantown. His in-between life coincides with an in-between time.

Inklings of the incipient sixties dot the timescape: hootenanny, dressing in denim, the Student Peace Union morphing into SDS, Zen Buddhism, and the I Ching. Appropriate fifties precursors like Kerouac, existentialism, and Holden Caulfield pervade the situation.

An event like the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis scarcely penetrates Dupre’s consciousness. Despite his affiliation with the campus fringe, in particular “commie” friend Marge Levine, his stance is far more cultural than political. Various kinds of folk music keep pouring out of his mouth and guitar.

Dupre yoyos between goofing around with his two high school buddies, Cohen and Revington, and “running frantically from girl to girl.” All the while, undemanding schoolwork gets done offstage.

A year of involvement with local high school senior Natalie helps Dupre to transition from and compensate for his separation from younger hometown girlfriend Cassandra. The second of the nine chapters dwells elegiacally on their idyll. Then Dupre’s junior year fills the novel with his perverse and tortured relationship with graduate student Carol Rabinowitz. At the outset Dupre describes his “exquisite tension” as a means to understanding Dante, Petrarch, and the Troubadour poets.

Dupre’s pursuit of the anima is only one facet of a determined quest for the transcendental that leans heavily on Rilke. Friend Cohen exemplifies actual attainment of satori, while friend Revington parades through endless masks while exhibiting cheerful despair.

Two folkloric incidents briefly open windows into raw worlds of adult horrors. A jovial lecherous crone named Viv cadges drinks in a dive. A demonic trucker becomes a late-night hitchhiker’s lift from hell. In a curious climax, Dupre’s search culminates in a scarcely willed fast that almost turns into suicide.

At the end of the novel, Dupre follows the example of his two friends and drops out of college with utmost nonchalance. This world lies just ahead of one where the Vietnam-era draft channels all young men toward staying in college to keep their student deferments.