The late L. J. Davis is best known as a journalist but, early in his career, published four novels, all of which are very funny, utterly unsentimental depictions of New York in the 60s and early 70s, through the eyes of similar, nebbishy protagonists who, it seems safe to say, bore more than a passing resemblance to Davis. MEANINGFUL LIFE is probably his best and certainly his most autobiographical novel, about a young couple who move from the SF Bay Area to Manhattan, then to Brooklyn where they buy and refurbish an apartment building (kicking out the deadbeat tenants in the process). COWBOYS DON'T CRY is a more bizarre work, worthy of the overused term Kafkaesque, about a native New Yorker who comes home, with disastrous results, after having a fight with his wife in California. In WHENCE ALL BUT HE HAD FLED the main character moves to Manhattan from Queens, and in WALKING SMALL he moves from Maine to Manhattan (where he's told "You don't need ID to drink in New York, it's 18!" Those WERE the days.) This 1971 novel about a man who tries to make his life more meaningful by renovating a slummed-up Brooklyn house was reissued in 2009. It made me think of the Dutch author Voskuil and his Bureau-cycle: nagging wife, a job that is perceived as dull and meaningless (he is the managing editor of a 'second-rate plumbing-trade weekly') and understated humour. Must be even better for New-Yorkers: I'm afraid that as an outsider I missed some of the allusions and jokes. Still highly enjoyable, though.
What do You think about A Meaningful Life (1971)?
This book hit a little too close to home, with me buying an older home recently. Pretty trippy.
—quadrofenix
