I seem to be reading a lot of fiction lately that is autobiographical in nature. First Dawn Powell's Dance Night and now William Maxwell's The Folded Leaf. I loved the Powell for it's gritty feel and its look inside the lives of small-town residents in 1920s America who dreamed big yet often had such small lives. While the Powell was suffused with dance hall music, factory whistles and the blare of trains leaving Lamptown for bigger and better places, The Folded Leaf is a much quieter though no less thoughtful story of the deep friendship between two young men.
William Maxwell might be best known for his years as fiction editor for The New Yorker from 1936-1975, but he also wrote six novels and countless short stories, essays and book reviews. Dawn Powell and William Maxwell share a few similarities. Another Midwestern writer, he was born in Lincoln, Illinois in 1908. When Maxwell's mother died of the Spanish Influenza in 1918 he was devastated and never recovered from his loss. He was very much his mother's child which didn't bode well in the masculine environment which he lived, and he often fought with his elder brother. His father remarried and the family moved to Chicago. Maxwell always felt a certain resentment towards his stepmother. He was a bookish young man who didn't excel in sports and was encouraged by his teachers to study literature. He would later go on to a distinguished literary career. Many of these themes would find their way into Maxwell's fiction.
I found it hard not to get wrapped up in the lives and friendship of Lymie Peters and Spud Latham, two distinctly different young men who find in each other something they lack in themselves. The novel is set once again in 1920s America, this time in Illinois. Lymie and Spud first meet in high school where Spud essentially rescues Lymie from drowning in an overly exuberant game in the pool. He forgets to let go of a ball and is sucked under the water until Spud yanks him back to the top. It's never really spoken of but somehow the boys click and are constantly in each other's company. Lymie is as thin and frail as Spud is strong and athletic and he prefers solitude and intellectual pursuits to Spud's more garrulous manner.
The young men do share some things in common, if not physically, then emotionally. They both feel a certain loneliness and alienation from those around them, particularly their families. Lymie has fond recollections of his mother, but after her death he and his father live in a series of squalid boarding houses. Lymie mostly takes care of himself, as you get the feeling that his father is off taking part in no doubt dubious activities. Spud's family unit is whole and complete, but he feels anger at having had to leave Wisconsin and now the family lives in far more straitened circumstances in Chicago. Spud channels his anger through his fists and eventually will become an amateur boxer. Lymie feels an affection for Spud's family and their tight-knit little home, an atmosphere so different than his own, a feeling that's reciprocated by the Lathams. It's not uncommon for Lymie to sit down at the dinner table as part of the family.
Lymie and Spud's relationship is deep and intense, as most young people's are, so much so that it seems neither quite understands it or can articulate exactly what it means to himself or each other. Whatever emptiness each young man feels is filled by the other--there's love but there's envy as well for whatever is lacking physically or mentally. There's a certain ambiguity to Maxwell' storytelling, he's a very subtle writer, but it's extremely effective in this case. When the young men go off to college together their friendship, with the introduction of a young woman, will begin to falter. Sally Forbes is friends with Lymie, but becomes something more to Spud. He becomes intensely jealous when he miscontrues Lymie's behavior towards Sally. For Lymie Spud is everything and when Spud closes down on him emotionally and blocks him off the story takes a tragic turn.
This is a moving story that's intense in its simplicity yet it's heart-wrenching as well. In a sense it's about first love that's in many ways fulfilling but also misunderstood. Some passages are so beautiful but at the same time they break your heart. Although not meant as sequels, Maxwell's earlier They Came Like Swallows and his later The Chateau can almost be seen as extensions of the same character mimicking Maxwell's own life. I'll be reading both books at some point.