ALL FALL DOWN

by James Leo Herlihy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 15, 1960

James Leo Herlihy, a contributor to the Paris Review, is the author of The Sleep of Baby Filbertson and Other Stories. His short stories though perverse and steeped in the psychically grotesque were imaginative, sometimes funny and touching. This novel, unlike the stories, which gave one the impression that the characters were left dangling in mid-air, brings to a conclusion the attitudes of the kind of people Herlihy seems to favor. The Williams are a strange family. Ralph was a Socialist who went into real estate because his wife Annabel assured him that a good liberal could also be a shrewd businessman. They have two sons, Clinton, who spends his time filling notebooks with people's conversation, and Berry-berry, a psychopath who travels around the country, in and out of scrapes and jail. The book is mainly an account of Clinton's search for some kind of contact with his brother. At one point this search leads him to a bordello on the west coast of Florida and the knowledge of Berry-berry's usual companions. Eventually Berry-berry comes home to Cleveland and apparently falls in love with the beautiful Echo O'Brien, daughter of his mother's clairvoyant school chum. But Berry-berry who had been only using Echo, rejects her and she kills herself. Clinton then turns on his brother, determines to kill him, but can't. Somehow out of this dismal mess Clinton manages to salvage something of himself and the book ends on the upbeat. Herlihy's characters are very close to the people Flannery O'Connor creates. There's something terribly wrong with them and the fact that their essential problems are the same as everyone else's has two effects: it both intensifies the horror of their dilemmas and permits the reader not to take them too seriously. Herlihy's book is special.

Pub Date: Aug. 15, 1960

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1960

Categories: FICTION