Ticknor

Publishers Weekly

The rancorous, interminable friendship between a Great Man and his envious, self-pitying biographer drives this cleverly coiled narrative by Canadian author Heti (The Middle Stories). As Heti notes, she has based this slender, first-person work on American George Ticknor's mid-19th-century biography of historian William Hickling Prescott, but the lonely, querulous voice of her invented George is all her own. The book opens as George steps out on a rainy Boston night to answer a rare, longed for invitation to dinner at the illustrious Prescotts of Beacon Street; he and William Prescott were childhood friends. The loss of an eye during a boyhood frolic galvanized William, who resolved to always overcome adversity-and cheerfully so. He has subsequently gained fame and admiration from his historiography and sunny nature. George, by contrast, is poor, morose and covetous. What he does possess is a terrible guilt, never expressed to William, about his possible role in the mishap that changed William's life. Heti's narrative is as deliciously intimate and clue-riddled as a Poe story. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In 19th-century Boston, George Ticknor trudges through the pouring rain, pie in hand, to attend a dinner party at the home of his longtime friend William H. Prescott, author of The History of the Conquest of Mexico and other works. While Prescott's life represents a triumph over adversity-he is sickly and partially blind-Ticknor has magnified minor personal setbacks into mammoth grudges. Canadian wunderkind Heti's fictional biography takes huge liberties with the facts of Ticknor's life. This very short text (a dense 128 pages) is not really a novel at all but rather an extended prose poem conveying a mood of overwhelming envy and sour grapes. As such, Ticknor will appeal mainly to writers and critics interested in literary experimentation, rather than general readers looking for a satisfying yarn. On the other hand, Heti's book is not entirely sui generis but clearly belongs to a tradition of surreal biographical fantasy that includes Tommaso Landolfi's collection Gogol's Wife and Other Stories (1963), Alberto Savinio's Operatic Lives (1988), and Max Apple's The Oranging of America (1976). Recommended for collections of cutting-edge literature.-Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A difficult novella that's a riff on literature's outsiders and insiders; it's the second experimental work from this young Canadian author, following her collection The Middle Stories (2001, not reviewed). "There were no books when I was a boy . . . other boys had books . . . no, the whole country lacked books." So goes the opening as the narrator, Ticknor, revises and contradicts himself, sorting through his memories of early-19th-century New England. Slowly, a contrast emerges. There is privation (Ticknor's experience) and there is plenty, enjoyed by his childhood friend Prescott. (The latter was a respected American historian; Ticknor, a Harvard professor, was his biographer.) As they mature, the contrast sharpens. The world of 19th-century Boston is Prescott's oyster. His work receives "a great roar from the national press," while Ticknor has been working ten years on one article, and cannot even get Prescott's opinion of it. Prescott bests him with women, too. He is happily married to the ample Claire; Ticknor, a bachelor, lusts after her, to Claire's disgust. Yet they stay in touch, inviting Ticknor to supper; the fussbudget endlessly deliberates his preparations for the occasion. Prescott's life is not all peaches and cream. As a schoolboy, he had received a bread roll smack in the eye and suffered recurring vision problems. Did Ticknor inadvertently launch the offending roll, and then refuse to apologize? And does it really matter? Heti's work is kin to Nabokov's Pale Fire in its portrayal of a problematic relationship between two writers, strung with tripwires, fueled by obsession. Ticknor will outlive Prescott, and he will mourn "the extinguishing of a flame that had burned sobrightly"; we are left guessing whether that is a sincere tribute or bitter irony. With this austere one-note monologue, Heti offers a plate of sour grapes. Ultimately, her work is not daring or terribly experimental.