Tom Drury: The End of Vandalism

[vamp_reads]

American literature isn’t really my strength. Sure, I know my way around the big names, but I’m only now starting to dig a little deeper to find the authors that are flying a bit under the radar or might not really be known across the pond (where I live). Maybe my experience with Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove is to blame for that. I had never heard of the author or the novel (despite him winning the Pulitzer for this), but was totally blown away by this brick of a western. So naturally I wanted more of the same: More authors that are unknown to me but whose stories I end up loving.

I stumbled upon Tom Drury and his debut novel The End of Vandalism in a YouTube video and was instantly hooked. Drury, born in 1956, gets compared to really big names on his Wikipedia page. He’s right up there with Franzen, Foster Wallace and Eggers (no idea how Eggers made that list, but whatever). However, the thing with Drury is the fact that he’s been flying under the radar ever since his first novel came out. He seems to get prizes and glowing reviews, but he never had his big break-through. Granted, that sounded right up my alley, but after reading The End of Vandalism I must say: I’ll continue to stick to Franzen and Foster Wallace.

This novel should have been a winner. The reviews sounded both like this was objectively good literature and a book I would like. The End of Vandalism is set in fictitious Grouse County, which is actually supposed to be the Iowa Drury grew up in. It’s an episodic novel about small towns, rural areas and simple people. Everyone says this is full of dry humour. The problem with humour is, of course, that it’s very subjective. On an objective level I can see how this book might work for readers, but it’s just not my kind of humour. The fun and fascination comes from the characters and their dialogue, it almost never comes from the plot (since the books doesn’t have much in the way of plot). And I admit, I know people like the ones Drury describes here - even though I’m not from the Midwest, I’m not even American. Still, you probably have this sort of folk everywhere. But for me, I find people like these most entertaining from a distance. And that distance includes that I can’t hear them talk. Basically, these 10 hours about people yapping about nothing simply was too much for me.

Apparently, this was published in the New Yorker before it came out as a novel and I can see this working (for readers other than me) in smaller doses. If you like rural settings and an author who is very good at emulating the way people there speak, act and think you might want to put this on your night stand and read a vignette every night before bed. I think in this fashion and in smaller doses his narration has more opportunity to impact.

As I said, this doesn’t have much in the way of plot. It circles very losely around sheriff Dan. He meets a woman, they marry, she gets pregnant (this actually is the strongest part of the novel) and in between Dan drives around and meets people and they talk. That’s mostly it. I can’t say that I found this boring, but it didn’t do much for me. If I want something with small town vibes and a good portrait of the people living in such areas, I’ll stick to Castle Freeman who is doing something similar (for a different rural area, though, Freeman is from Vermont). I enjoy his characters and their dialogues much more than I did Drury’s.

In the end, an interesting experience, but ultimately not for me. I can see this finding its fans, though.

Read if you like:

• fiction taking place in rural areas
• episodic fiction you can dip in and out off
  
• fiction low on plot, but high on dialogue/character interaction