REVIEW: Sweet Land Stories / Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow

This past month I have been fortunate enough to read a number of very good books. There was True Grit by Charles Portis, whose narrator is one of the most engaging I've ever encountered. I read a collection of stories by Richard Yates, one of my favourite American authors, called Liars in Love, which I didn't find quite as good as some of his other writing but still head and shoulders above the current American male literati. I also reread several favourite books: The Fairies in Tradition and Literature, which I have already praised in an earlier entry, and in immediate response to that, Susanna Clarke's books; these are like old friends, however, and I'm going to keep to my maxim of reviewing books that are new to me.

Most engaging of all the new books I read were two by E.L. Doctorow: Sweet Land Stories and Homer and Langley and, as they seemed to act as a question and answer to one another, I'm going to treat them as such. The former is a collection of short stories with no explicit common theme, although three of them have an explicitly criminal element, one dealing with a serial killer, another with the kidnapping of a baby, and the third with the murder of a child. The other two, one chronicling the life of an unfortunate young woman, the other regarding life on a religious commune, both introduce characters who do some morally questionable things but aren't quite as clear-cut. The latter book, Homer and Langley, is based on the lives of a pair of reclusive brothers who lived in New York in the first half of the twentieth century. Doctorow makes some minor artistic changes and extends their lives by about thirty years, but his story follows a similar narrative to reality.

Of note, none of the narrators or principal characters of the Sweet Land Stories are the true "villains"; their actions are the product of circumstance and the inducement of others. In "A House on the Plains", Earle helps his mother dispose of the bodies but she is the brains and muscle of the operation. Jolene commits adultery - but it's her husband's uncle who first acts on his feelings. Lester in "Baby Wilson" goes along with the kidnapping because his girlfriend brings the baby home. (As a side-note, Lester repeatedly states that it's in his character to just do whatever is easiest for him, and that going to the police would involve too much effort. But surely it's more effort to go on the run with the girlfriend and the child when there's an ongoing nationwide manhunt for them?)

Perhaps the clearest unifier stems from the title: Sweet Land Stories, a reference to a line in the song My Country 'Tis Of Thee. The irony of considering any of the stories representative of life in a "sweet land" is obvious - perhaps particularly in the final story, "Child, Dead, in the Rose Garden", where an F.B.I. agent uncovers a government conspiracy. However, in the song, the words "sweet land" are followed by "of liberty"; it is the question of liberty that I think is at the heart of the book. Liberty is a common theme in American literature, perhaps stemming from the promise in the Declaration of Independence of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", and Sweet Land Stories seems to merge all three ambitions together in its discussion of what it means to live in America, placing liberty at the forefront.


Liberty - but from what? And at what point does liberty become a matter of keeping out of reach of would-be captors? The book is concerned with these two questions. In the first two stories liberty does seem to mean the freedom to live on the run from the police without being caught; it's the liberty of a creature aware that its freedom is neither permanent nor assured. (One is reminded, reluctantly, of the caged animals of Kate Chopin.) In "Jolene: A Life", liberty refers more to transience that an American lifestyle can bring: Jolene can leap from prostitution to the life of a wealthy housewife with relative ease - until her past comes to catch up with her. It is only at the culmination of the story that she finds a different (and perhaps more genuine) form of personal liberty, which allows her to live without compromising her lifestyle to that of someone else.


"Walter John Harmon", the story of life on a cult, is rather different. Its narrator and his wife moved to live under the guidance of Walter John Harmon some years before the story begins, and he describes their lifestyle and the aftermath of his wife's eventual elopement with Harmon. In particular, how can the WJH cult continue now that Harmon has been proven a liar and charlatan? The WJH cult is conservatively Christian with the exception of Harmon himself (who practices free love) - but apparently not otherwise unethical (no child-rape horror stories, for example). Yet the cult receives wide condemnation from the outside world; it cannot exist untormented by critics and it is eventually reduced to a militaristic state. The final, ominous line - "We are assured of a clear and unimpeded field of fire" - indicates that in order to exercise their liberty, the cultists will meet the outsiders who seek to collapse them face on.


The final story, "Child, Dead, in the Rose Garden", is perhaps the least successful. A child's body is found in the garden of the White House and an F.B.I. agent takes it upon himself to investigate when everyone else wants it hushed up. The subsequent narrative draws on the unequal dichotomy between established white Americans and poor Mexican immigrants. Immigration is obviously an important theme in any work that wants to tackle the subject of American life, but I felt that Doctorow handled it with far more flair in his Ragtime. In this story the meaning of liberty shifts again, while Doctorow considers the cost of liberty for immigrants - will they keep quiet about the death of their son for the sake of life in America? - and the freedom of speech - what are the benefits and losses of keeping a national scandal quiet? Perhaps it would have been better as a full-length novel; as it was, I felt that there was too much stuffed in there.


Perhaps the lasting lesson from Sweet Land Stories is that unqualified liberty can be a dangerous thing. If you're lucky, you may end up with a peaceful life of isolation - married in Alaska, as in "Baby Wilson", or living alone, as in "Jolene: A Life". If you're unlucky, the future may bring rootlessness ("A House on the Plains"), conflict and uncertainty ("Walter John Harmon"), or disillusionment ("Child, Dead, in the Rose Garden"). For the most part the main characters in each story are left happy ("Child, Dead, in the Rose Garden" is the exception), but it's a happiness of compromise and lowered expectations.


If Sweet Land Stories considers the joys and terrors of liberty, then Homer and Langley does just the opposite. As I have said, the book is based on the lives of Homer and Langley Collyer, and sticks fairly close to reality. As the years pass, the pair become more and more bound to their house and the piles of newspapers and trash they amass, until eventually they couldn't get out even if they wanted to.

The story is narrated by Homer, who went blind early on in his life and is dependent on his brother to aid him, thus strengthening the barrier against the outside world. There is no hope of liberty, whether literal or spiritual. Even the papers they keep in the house are eventually filled with stories about their curious life. The final passage of the book is truly terrifying; as good as any serious horror story.

Together, the two books complemented each other well, with their diverse attitude towards liberty. Side-by-side, the difference is striking. Where the central concern of Sweet Land Stories is that of liberty, Homer and Langley refuses to engage with the subject. Liberty means the outside, a place of change and insecurity, two things which the brothers are opposed. Much of Langley's time is spent in the creation of a newspaper that is wholly representative of every newspaper ever and will therefore only need to be bought once: "Collyer's eternally current dateless newspaper." Homer is more cynical but even so his blindness and his reliance on Langley prevent change from forming a striking impact. Far better to inflict imprisonment on oneself within the safety and stability of one's own home than to risk the myriad of dangers that can come from venturing outside.


What I find both bizarre and frustrating about Doctorow is his determination to avoid admitting his sources. This is less problematic in the case of Homer and Langley, where the title explicitly refers to the real Collyer brothers, and yet in spite of this, there is no reference to them in the blurb, or in the reviews on the cover, or even as an epigraph (which would have worked quite well, I think). In fact, had I not looked the book up on the internet before reading it, I wouldn't even have realised that it was based on true events. Perhaps this is in part due to the fact that I am not American and that Doctorow assumed that the Collyer brothers were notorious enough in his own country that there was no need to provide an explanation.


Similarly, "A House on the Plains" in Sweet Land Stories is a point-for-point retelling of the story of Belle Gunness, a serial killer who lived at the turn of the twentieth century. What baffles me about this is that Doctorow claims that the two stories have little in common - even though they are nearly identical, other than a few superficial biographical details. The most obvious addition is that of Earle, the narrator and Dora's son and co-conspirator, but really, what does he bring to the story? He acts as an instrument to reveal the horrors of Aunt Dora's farm without giving explanation to her actions. He is there to narrate rather than as an integral cog in the story's mechanics.


The silly thing is that my argument isn't with ficionalising real life; that is an age-old technique. No: the use of obscure, uncited sources is problematic because at some point the reader has to distinguish what part of the story is to be admired as the author's own creation. I recognised the Belle Gunness story only because I'm a true crime nut. If the other stories in Sweet Land Stories have real sources, I am not aware of them.



Complaints aside, I very much enjoyed both books and wouldn't hesitate to recommend either of them. Doctorow is, in my opinion, one of the greatest living American writers and is well worth your time.