Mr. Schmitz, meanwhile, is slowly losing touch with the world around him, or more precisely, the two people through which he experiences the world: his wife, who grows ever more distant, and Rutherford, an energetic old war-buddy whose unending charisma belies the grim reality of his age. Although Schmitz too makes the momentous trip to Trieste and beyond, his considered narrative is a rather more sobering affair than Eugene's headlong voyage; always touching and at times utterly heartbreaking, Schmitz's gradual descent into himself makes for a fine counterpoint, and as the filters which define his existence crumble away, the brilliantly realised environments around him come into focus.
Rich handles both narratives with a deft touch -- his prose a poem and his characters fully-fledged from almost the moment of conception -- but resists the usual means of drawing such stories together. The respective paths of the characters, who alternate chapters throughout, do not cross; and they need not. In itself, their lack of connection is symbolic: in New York, Eugene and Schmitz are stranded without language, wordless and powerless. Without such roots to anchor themselves to the earth, to sustain them, their growth is stunted, and in the Carso, where Eakins is said to live still, they rediscover what it means to communicate; the very language that isolated them comes to bring them together. Alvaro's manuscript allows Eugene to express himself at last, and Schmitz has a uncharacteristically quiet Rutherford to coax back to the land of their shared youth.
In the titular Mayor, the empowering potential of language is given form. The Mayor is a storyteller become a story whose creations haunt an ethereal village in the heart of the Trieste countryside. The novel's central conceit is seductive, if perhaps a little too well signposted; its explication, in the end, is not so unexpected, but Rich renders the road there one well worth travelling. And although the first few fits and starts of The Mayor's Tongue are amusing enough to demand your attention, their concerns prove to be somewhat inconsequential. Nevertheless, the author finds his purpose soon enough, and when Eugene and Schmitz are whisked away from New York, the narrative and its pace swell in anticipation of a finale that proves as satisfying as the very best of what has gone before. The postmodern leanings of the novel will discourage some readers, and widespread recognition may prove rather elusive for its gifted young author, but at the least, The Mayor's Tongue has cult classic written all over it. The thing of it is: Rich's brilliant debut deserves better.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Boston.com. Nice work!