About book Whatever Happened To Gloomy Gus Of The Chicago Bears? (1989)
A great little book that exceeded my expectations. Why this isn't regarded as one of Coover's standouts, I don't know. Perhaps because, unlike a lot of go-to Coover, this one isn't about postmodernist tricks and surrealist surprises; it's just a highly enjoyable bit of comic realism with great characters. It reminded me of Bellow in that regard. Another thing: it's not really about sports as the title suggests. Yes, Gloomy Gus was a star halfback but the novel takes place long after he's left his sports career behind and has fallen in with a bunch of bohemian leftist activists in depression-Era Chicago. Gus is definitely the focus here, but he's already dead when the book begins. We only learn Gus's story through the recollection and investigation of a narrator that only briefly knew him. And Gus isn't really all that knowable anyway, although he's certainly memorable. He's an absurd savant, hilarious and tragic, who says he can believe in the American dream because he's lived it. But all of that goes sour, of course, and Gus is so off-balance (and offsides) that he ends up taking one the other team, a group of Marxists likely being watched by the government. The narrator, a metal-sculptor that (barely) works for the WPA, is sympathetic to both sides but can't reconcile himself to what's happened and that plays into his inner conflict of where to take his art. So yeah, it's a little book, but there's a lot going on. And as Coover reveals all this, he slowly strings us along, brilliantly evoking the keyed-up tenor of the times as he lets us in on Gus's bizarre history while crafting some genius sentences. I'm quite glad I picked up a used copy on a whim.
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