Nathaniel Rich Writes in Tongues

There’s nothing better than a meta-book, as every true bookworm knows. By “meta-book,” I mean a book about books, a book for people who like books, a book about people who like books. Most voracious readers have their favorites in this genre—examples include Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series (containing such gems as The Eyre Affair and First Among Sequels), Brock Clarke’s An Arsonist’s Guide to Writer’s Homes in New England, and even McSweeney’s new Joke Book of Book Jokes.

It’s hard to explain what’s quite so appealing about this sort of literature. Is it the smug satisfaction of understanding the obscure references? Is it the joy of repeated exposure to your favorite books and characters? Is it merely relief that you’re not the only person with this much literary enthusiasm? Whatever the appeal, the genre is firmly established, and with the publication of Nathaniel Rich’s first novel, The Mayor’s Tongue, another book has joined its ink-stained, dog-eared ranks. The Mayor’s Tongue promises an entertaining and deftly structured read, one that is sure to appeal to meta-book bookworms.

The book follows two almost-parallel stories, each taking chapters in turn. The primary plot, and the one to which readers are first introduced, is that of Eugene Brentani, a New York college graduate cum low-paid mover whose fascination with prolific writer Constance Eakins borders on the obsessive. Hired by Eakins’ biographer, eccentric Upper West Sider Abe Chisholm, Eugene winds up following Abe’s daughter to Italy, where she goes missing while trying to hunt down the long-unseen Eakins. Mystery meets magical realism, as Eugene’s quest becomes ever more odd, culminating in his finding Abe’s daughter in a village ruled by Eakins (the “Mayor”) and populated by characters from Eakins’ fiction.

The second story, characterized much more by sentiment than surrealism, concerns a very old and very dear friendship between two aging men, Mr. Rutherford and Mr. Schmitz, which takes an unexpected blow when Rutherford suddenly departs to Italy. Schmitz finds himself lost without his friend, and, after his wife dies, tries to track Rutherford down. Rutherford is suffering from delusions and an unexplained form of linguistic amnesia and ultimately goes into a coma, at which point Schmitz takes him on a quest to find the now-abandoned mountain town where they used to live, hoping to restore his friend’s memory.

These plotlines never quite intersect, but, surprisingly enough, this fails to disturb—they are similar enough that they inform each other. Moreover, the absurdity of Eugene’s tale is moderated by the emotional intensity of Rutherford and Schmitz’s, and vice versa. Without this counterpoint, the novel would skew toward unpleasant extremes. As it is, Rich’s prose is both clever—sometimes too clever for its own good—and moving.

As a frequent contributor to almost all the most high-profile publications and an editor at the Paris Review, Rich is already one of today’s literary superstars. His expertise is clear. He knows how to tell a good story, and, more importantly, he knows how to tell a smart one. The monstrous Eakins, swollen with the power he wields over his characters, is a frightening spectacle to any reader with aspirations of writing, and Rich manages to weave a rather abstract theme—the barriers of language, and how much of what we communicate is simply made up on one or both ends of the conversation—through two quite distinct stories. That said, Rich is perhaps a bit too proud of what is undeniably (and has already been loudly proclaimed as) genius. Some of the plot seems more contrived than convincing, and the literary jokes so vital to this sort of meta-book are occasionally a bit heavy-handed.

Despite these rare blunders, which are almost inevitable in any established writer’s first novel, The Mayor’s Tongue is a fascinating and engaging read. Rich may have some self-indulgent tendencies yet to overcome, but he has written a remarkable novel, one that is not to be missed by any literature enthusiast who doesn’t mind a good, strong dose of highbrow humor.