The Fictionist Thomas Mannarino
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2003 The Fictionist Thomas Mannarino Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES THE FICTIONIST By THOMAS MANNARINO A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Award: Summer Semester, 2003 The members of the Committee approve the dissertation of Thomas Mannarino defended on Monday, April 28, 2003. Mark Winegardner Professor Directing Dissertation Neil Jumonville Outside Committee Member Janet Burroway Committee Member Robert Olen Butler Committee Member Anne Rowe Committee Member Approved: Hunt Hawkins, Chair, Department of English Donald Foss, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract...........................................................................................................................................v CHAPTER ONE .............................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER TWO ............................................................................................................................7 CHAPTER THREE ........................................................................................................................14 CHAPTER FOUR...........................................................................................................................18 CHAPTER FIVE ............................................................................................................................27 CHAPTER SIX...............................................................................................................................37 CHAPTER SEVEN ........................................................................................................................46 CHAPTER EIGHT .........................................................................................................................56 CHAPTER NINE............................................................................................................................61 CHAPTER TEN..............................................................................................................................70 CHAPTER ELEVEN......................................................................................................................78 CHAPTER TWELVE.....................................................................................................................84 CHAPTER THIRTEEN..................................................................................................................87 CHAPTER FOURTEEN ................................................................................................................93 CHAPTER FIFTEEN .....................................................................................................................97 CHAPTER SIXTEEN.....................................................................................................................100 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ..............................................................................................................105 iii CHAPTER EIGHTEEN..................................................................................................................108 CHAPTER NINETEEN..................................................................................................................115 CHAPTER TWENTY.....................................................................................................................122 CHAPTER TWENTY ONE ...........................................................................................................130 CHAPTER TWENTY TWO ..........................................................................................................134 CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.......................................................................................................137 CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.........................................................................................................144 CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE...........................................................................................................149 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ..........................................................................................................150 iv ABSTRACT Set in Maddley, Connecticut, The Fictionist tells the story of Henry Riordan, a young man unable to come to terms with loss. As Henry pursues a series of unattainable dreams in order to recover an unalterable past, he learns that love, hope, and life reside in the present. The Fictionist is a story of memory, imagination, and myth. v CHAPTER ONE The first time you ever heard the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk, that fable of the witless but goodhearted boy who is duped into swapping the family cow for a fistful of magic beans, who then surprises everyone by climbing to the sky, slaying a giant, and bringing home the golden goose, you were in the second grade. Your teacher Miss Rubini — a gravel-voiced, gypsy-haired beauty up from Brooklyn — was suffering from the flu the day she read aloud and instead of beanstalk you heard Meads’ dog. You had neighbors named the Meads, a suspicious, foul-tempered elderly couple that lived in a decrepit stucco bungalow and hated children of all sorts. They owned a fox terrier. And for a long time after, years in fact, you thought Jack rode a vicious, teeth-baring canine to the sky. What a feat! Forget the giant; you had seen the Mead’s dog chew through corded nylon rope to get at the paperboy. Your misunderstanding had its price. You were taunted on the playground, jeered at, bullied, forced to look at illustrations from the text that clearly showed Jack climbing a bean stalk. But you held to your version of the facts. If good Jack could skip across the clouds, fell an ogre, and pocket a priceless duck, why not tame the snarling cur that lunged at you from the shrubbery every morning as you waited for the bus. In the end you withstood spitballs, headlocks, and the nickname Rubberhead Riordan defending a story that did not exist. But you never looked at the Meads’ dog in quite the same way again. You fed him baloney slices each morning before school. Eventually you named him Buddy. This is the story that returns as you stand beneath the rust-washed marquee of the Starlite Drive-in Theatre on a bright blue morning in October. It is either a Tuesday or Wednesday. Things are little hazy at the edges. Tyler shields his eyes from the sun and squints up at theatre’s crooked billing. AIRPORT ‘77 1 COMING SOON ! A fat crow lands with a squawk on the marquee’s neon comet. “My point is,”’ you say. “You can believe one thing to be true and discover — much later — you’re entirely wrong. It doesn’t mean you won’t make friends with a dog.” Tyler looks around the deserted lot, the weedy gravel, the ruined concession stand, the derelict screen like a huge white flag hung in desultory surrender. “I don’t get it,” he says. “What don’t you get?” “This place is closed,” he says. “Exactly my point.” Tyler stood in the throbbing purple lights at Melville’s last night, a vulpine magnet. Someone new in town, a fresh-faced stranger, a fox-haired Connecticut farm boy down from Gales Ferry. A freshman at Maddley Community College, an engineering major? Aviation? Metal shop? Something. You drank. You told each other your stories. You finished up two years ago at Maddley Community, an AA in psychology and theatre arts. You sell books now. Correction: you untangle register tape and mollify legions of Maddley, Connecticut’s impatient crones. Tyler nodded with great sympathy and concern, Molson Golden tipped up against his open mouth. With only three years separating you a gulf opened up, fathomless and steep. You had lost sight of the game plan a while ago you confessed, stalled somewhere between who you were and who you wanted to become. And what precisely was it anyway? A dancing therapist? An improvisational analyst? You suddenly couldn’t remember in the dim of the bar. On the dance floor two men danced to an old Nat King Cole song. They laughed then wept. You and Tyler watched them go round and round under the sparkly lights. “Look at those guys,” you said. “I bet they go to the movies all the time.” “It happens.” “It does.” Tyler swallowed his drink. “Boyfriend?” “Out of town.” “Mine too,” Tyler said. “Class in the morning though. I can’t be late.” The crow plunges off the comet. The sky is exceptionally blue, deeper at the center and growing lighter as it fans out toward the bay. Tyler looks around, his hands in his pockets. His 2 brow twisted in question. He has followed you up here this morning, seven miles out of his way, on the expectation of seeing something great, grand, really, immensely cool. This was the promise you made. The concession stand’s door bangs open and shut in the wind. Empty beer cans clatter through the gravel. “I gotta go,” says Tyler. “But you haven’t seen the best part yet!” “Maybe some other time, Harry. I’m late for class.” “Henry,” you say. “My name is Henry.” Tyler looks at you in the shadow of the marquee. There are soft violet shadows under his eyes. In bed he had been glib and distracted,