As a Friend, by Forrest Gander
A D Jameson | Review of Contemporary Fiction
As a Friend is the short first novel by poet, translator, and essayist Forrest Gander; its four sections, intriguingly, read like chapters from four different books. The first section describes the central character Les’s birth in the hyperbolic style of a Southern gothic, while the third (and most sweetly powerful) records his girlfriend Sarah’s fragmented reflections on their relationship. The second and longest section sketches out the novel’s simple story, being a sequence of prose anecdotes narrated by Clay, a young man whose unrequited love for Les sets in motion the book’s culminating but oblique tragedy. Clay, true to his name, tells us that he’s imitating Les, remolding himself into the obscure object of his desire, though his mimicry exceeds his grasp: whereas Les slips easily through a lyrically romantic world of insects, birds, and flowers, Clay, sweating heavily, remains swarmed by gnats and ticks. (Read More)
