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"The nightmare of American manhood, being
acted out in the public sphere by warmakers and politicians, is
clearly and persuasively traced back to its lethal, chthonic sources
in the solitary heart. This is brave, eloquent writing." — Globe
and Mail
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John Dupre, a junior at West Virginia University,
is an English major on the Dean’s List dressed up as a Beatnik
cowboy, the folk-singing “resident outsider” before nonconformity
became a youth uniform.
Morgantown is a masterful ensemble piece
centring around John and peopled by his unforgettable friends in
the “out crowd”: Bill Cohen, the sharpshooting, knife-throwing
Zen Buddhist Harvard scholar; Marge Levine, the political radical
with the Nefertiti eyes; and William Revington, the scion of old
money who has the world on a platter and can’t think of a single
thing to do with it. And by his girl-friends and sexual obsessions:
Carol Rabinowitz, the Wyatt scholar and Jewish American Princess;
Natalie, the folk-singing boy-girl with the mind of a scientist;
Cassandra Markapolous, whom John loves but is not allowed to be
in love with.
And then there’s the Alice in the photograph,
the boy dressed up as a girl dressed up as another girl, on and
on endlessly reflecting: a hall of mirrors that threatens to draw
John into its vortex.
"One of the greatest strengths of [Difficulty
at the Beginning] is the wide variety of feisty, clever women
in John's life and his complicated respect for them."
—Calgary Herald
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