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T A B L E+T A L K

"Confess now," says Salon reader Milton Rosenberg. "Mortification of the literary ego may well prove redemptive." From Proust to Pynchon, share your shame over the great books you've never read in Table Talk.

F E A T U R E

Alienated
The Salon Interview:
Caleb Carr
The author discusses serial killers, murderous moms and growing up terrorized by the Beats (10/06/97)

R E C E N T L Y

Gorilla Suit
By Bob Paris
Nonfiction
(10/03/97)

Jesus Saves
By Darcy Steinke
Fiction
(10/02/97)

Hand to Mouth
A Chronicle of Early Failure
By Paul Auster
Nonfiction
(10/01/97)

Great Apes
By Will Self
Fiction
(09/30/97)

The Hitler of History
By John Lukacs
Nonfiction
(09/29/97)

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The tetherballs of bougainville

BY MARK LEYNER

HARMONY BOOKS

FICTION

224 PAGES

BY BEN MARCUS | it's surprising to discover that Mark Leyner's new novel doesn't come equipped with an incisive review of itself, or perhaps several a book review editor might choose from: the unqualified rave, the cautiously descriptive review that surmises a potential readership without ascribing value, the viciously elitist pan that dumps the burden of literary history onto Leyner and decides he can't carry it, or the academically muddled but terribly smart article about Leyner's wicked, anti-Christian way with language. So thoroughly does Leyner master, and mock, public (and not so public) forms of speech, that you can only feel trepidation before entering into any attempt at evaluation for fear that the book will chew up and spit out whatever reasoning tries to contain it.

Don't look to "The Tetherballs of Bougainville," Leyner's new novel, for characters you might care about, a story you can pretend is happening to you or quiet evocations of nature: Only scorching satire will be found. The novel is about a seventh-grader named Mark Leyner who makes a shirtless appearance at his father's execution, only to suffer an erection before the lethal injection is administered. When the drugs make his father feel "shitty" instead of killing him, Mr. Leyner is released, but the state of New Jersey can exercise the option to kill him at any time. Father and son say goodbye, Mark copulates with the Warden, they ingest a time-collapsing drug called "gravy" and a screenplay takes over the book, in which we learn, among other things, that Mark masturbates to abstract art.

Leyner avoids fiction's archetypal concerns and instead turns his wizardry to aping what the culture does automatically: assign names and features to its products, thoughts and landmarks. Here are junior high electives in ayurvedic health, tattoos of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, writers sponsored by Marlboro and Zoloft and the invitation to actually wear the author's body while reading his book. By omitting any "authentic" inner life for his characters, Leyner allows his amoral imagination to produce hilarious, torqued variants of the shared experience of living in the present day, creating brilliant histories behind seemingly empty artifacts. What Leyner does is amplify the life of things deadened by too much notice, as with a character called Len Gutman, a "signage copywriter" responsible for some of the slogans that dictate the basic movements of the population: Use Other Door, Visitors Must Sign In and Push to Start.

"The Tetherballs of Bougainville" is an immense pleasure to read, even though writing that tweaks pop culture usually puts me to sleep. Leyner goes so deeply in the subversion of everything he touches that the typical labels identifying writers as belonging to a specific genre have no effect on him at all. Possibly the only readers likely to be irritated by this book are certain smart writers, who will have a very good excuse: They will be crippled with envy by Leyner's surpassing ability to coax vibrant new worlds out of the scraps and refuse that litter our own.
SALON | Oct. 6, 1997

Ben Marcus is the author of "The Age of Wire and String," (Knopf) a book of fiction.