ABOUT TILLY BEAMIS

by Sumner Locke Elliott ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1984

As in Signs of Life (1981), Elliott tightropes precariously through a roiling, date-hopping tale of passions--balancing his somewhat overdrawn characters between adventurous psycho-philosophical speculation and solid, plain-Jane storytelling. In 1978, Edward Patterson (old-family, profile like a Roman coin) is astounded at the sight of long-dead Tilly Beamis, whom he once was to marry. Meanwhile, back in 1976, Tanya Van Zandt is also on Tilly's trail--reading Tilly's memoir/diary in Sydney, Australia. The diary goes back to Tilly at 18, leaving her hard-scrabble outback home to live with relatives in Sydney: Aunt Parthea, a would-be novelist who had her children by various lovers, the ""mystical Queen"" of an enchanted kingdom; cousins Dorothy (a dancer), Loli (an exquisite model), and Geoff, composer of music on Aboriginal themes. ""I love them all,"" wrote Tilly--but she also knew that they'd ""come to nothing."" In the 1976 time-frame Tanya visits the crumbling (but still brassy) ex-Miss Australia who brought Tilly to America; she travels to a dismal outpost to confront Jack, the failed actor to whom Tilly gave her heart and trust. (Jack is now an unctuous clergyman, warily monitored by his teen-aged son.) Tanya uncovers how Jack's rejection drove the pregnant Tilly to the brink of suicide--at which point Tilly ""felt the presence of her other self. . . confident, pragmatic, hard as agate, and angry, wonderfully angry,"" the self which had spoken to her years ago in the guise of her doll ""Tanya."" Are Tilly and Tanya one and the same, then? So it seems--as the narrative fills in Tilly's last years: in 1950s New York she settled for the ""dense purity"" of Edward; but a hint of incest sent her traveling westward, to death (?)--while Tanya lived on, pragmatically marrying a shockingly ugly ""Frog Prince."" And it is back in New York in 1978 that Tanya, scoured to emptiness, suffers the lack of Tilly--and her lost heart. Elliott's themes twirl upon implausibilities; though Tilly and Tanya are believable separately, their split and reunion is not. Still, this is an inventive, occasionally even mesmerizing venture into the chimeras of a conflicted, divided psyche: clinically unconvincing but with a measure of metaphorical impact.

Pub Date: April 1, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Watts

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1984

Categories: FICTION