This story appears to have multiple levels; the author has created a narrator who speaks about events he wasn’t always witness to. The question is whether this particular screen is one that was employed to help the author establish discrepancies and doubt and incertitude or whether it was employed for the purpose of having a particular voice that better suited the characters and their story. And whose story is it, the narrator’s or the people about whom he’s writing? The narrator, Rolfe Whitehouse, calls himself a survivor or sorts, one who’s escaped the fate of his protagonist, his brother whose final days in Lawford, NH, are chronicled in great detail. Much of this detail has been gathered, the narrator says, after the fact, through research and interviews that was done within six months of the incidents described. Much time was spent in thinking about why the story was told as it was, especially when the narrator chose to shift his voice and focus with first-person and different degrees of third-person, sometimes limited and sometimes omniscient. However, the apparent story is not at all complicated and deals with Wade Whitehouse’s disintegration, as one thing after another bears more and more weight on him till it all reaches a critical mass. The affliction which most weighs on Wade Whitehouse are in his origins. As a denizen of a small dead-end town and as the son of an alcoholic father prone to violence, Wade is immediately freighted with two strikes against him, and it’s merely a matter of time before all the little things that compose the third strike take him out. As part-time sheriff, well-digger, and snow-plower, Wade barely carves out enough money and time for himself, and for the child support he owes his ex-wife.Wade has only inchoate and inarticulate dreams of being better off and a better person (as a father in particular), but he is prone to anger when nettled, and he is frequently nettled, and the anger is usually a thrashing about that doesn’t help and simply alienates those who might have sided with him. A three-week series of up and down events (mostly down) and some obsessive thinking—all played against his head’s constant thrumming from a worsening toothache—lead to his final actions, beginning with his daughter’s refusal to spend time with him on Halloween, then continuing with an incongruous fatal hunting accident that sets his mind spinning, his mother’s death, his loss of jobs (as well-digger, inventory man, and sheriff), and renewed tensions with his father. The final kicker is the abandonment of the women in his life, witnessed by his sneering, skulking drunk father. Wade’s fiancé flees from him, taking his daughter away to safety, after he has clumsily, unmindfully hit the girl and bloodied her nose. Whether in dream or reality at this point, Wade is clubbed by his father, and in retaliation he rises and kills the old man, burning him in a pyre. One final act of violence follows, one which makes sense only in terms of the obsessed vision he has of town-damaging malfeasance that has connections with Mafia money and local corrupt councilmen. Wade stalks his erstwhile colleague and friend, 22-year-old David Hewitt, whom he believes had killed a union official in a phony hunting “accident”, and shoots him dead. Wade had become obsessed with Hewitt, judging Hewitt for his part in the murder conspiracy of the union official. The personal nature of the obsession was fueled in part by Hewitt’s becoming sheriff when Wade lost the position, and also by Wade’s seduction of Hewitt’s live-in girlfriend. Wade’s violence towards his father seems just, but his violence towards Hewitt seemed out of proportion, misguided, another misdirected thrashing about.There are many well-drawn scenes in the book. The first chapter, in particular does a wonderful job of setting the scene, with a moving camera presentation of events transpiring on Halloween evening. Other evocative scenes were those with Wade driving alone in the grader, the discovery of his ex-wife’s affair, his scenes with the well-drawn fiancé Margie Fogg (whose thoughts Rolfe can conjure), his mother’s funeral, his frustrations with his daughter (three separate scenes), his crazy chase of Hewitt (which ends with his pick-up sinking through a lake’s icy surface), his father’s death and pyre. It’s a well-told story, but after it’s all done, it seems a naturalistic story, not a modernistic one, ie, the narrative “strategy” is itself a naturalistic (ie, realistic) cobbling of recollection, speculation, and facts gathered after the fact, as if, indeed, one brother wanted to ruminate on the actions and events leading up to his brother’s patricide and murder of a former friend.
I half-expected something like "Mystic River"; a manly tale of complex relationships against a gritty scenery. This book, however, is different in the way it goes deep into Wade, the main character. Although the landscape is rough and bleak, the way Russell Banks explores Wade's psyche is anything but virile. "Affliction" is a sensitive and uncompromising character study; I can see why Paul Schrader, the man who wrote "Taxi Driver", adapted this book into a movie. The atmosphere is pessimistic. Even when an occasional bright color beams its way in, such as the presence of Wade's joyful girlfriend Margie or that of a Halloween party, the tone and the rhythm of the language is always quite dour. Self-pity is in my opinion the main venom that causes Wade's misfortunes. Throughout most of the book he tries to ignore an ongoing toothache. I think this pain symbolizes the sort-of "macho" modesty Wade is afflicted with. I think there's a Walt Whitman element in this book, in the way Banks treats nothing as obvious or trivial. In other words, he "gets" into details; techniques of snow plowing, histories of statues, sudden brief biographies of minor characters. These passages add to the atmosphere but aren't strictly related to the storyline. The novel "Stoner" by John Williams is a great example of how to incorporate, or "sneak in" indirect details without distracting or overwhelming the reader. Glenn Whitehouse, Wade's father, is a fantastic character. The violent, drunk dad is a cliché, but during the flashbacks describing Glenn's physical abuse Banks writes with clarity, with a Hemmingway-like visual style that is hypnotic. Along with Wade, Glenn is the most complete character in the book. Most of the supporting cast, such as Wade's younger brother (and the narrator), Lillian – his ex-wife, Jack – his workmate, etc., aren't really round characters despite being heavily featured. Glenn, on the other hand, hardly utters five sentences in the book (and maybe a dozen or so muttered curses and raging snarls), but leaves the biggest impression. Needless to say, this is an imperfect yet powerful book. If it were a piece of music – maybe "Nebraska" by Bruce Springsteen or a great Neil Young song comes to mind. Something that is recorded with a rough, ragged sound but nevertheless has undeniable emotional energy. A dusty gem. Joey Gold
What do You think about Affliction (1990)?
I wanted to review a Russell Banks book, because he is one of if not my favorite authors post the 1970s or so. I've read most of his books and I wont get into Affliction so much as to make this a review of the author, who to me stands in contrast to all the twee cutesy crap that everyone seems to wet themselves over these days. The characters are real people who have to live in the real world (not the real world of college professors or the idle rich) Events outside of their control collide with their internal natures and they deal with them or don't. Things don't get tied up neatly at the end. He doesn't eschew politics as vulgar or passe, but doesn't launch into polemics. Politics is the order that underlies all aspects of life and Banks realizes that simply by writing realistic accounts there will inevitably be a political undercurrent to the story. Stylistically I've always felt that Banks writes in a sort of sweet spot that other authors are rarely able to locate. The prose isn't so sparse or so flowery as to seem dull. The dialog is effortlessly realistic and the characters are about as complex as they get, even most of the minor ones and the ones that are from groups that Banks is not included in himself (women, African Americans, immigrants). He's a master of setting as well, and the books always seem to move at a brisk pace, even when "not much happens" in the plot. I guess if you like a lot of humor you might be disappointed and some of his books are more successful than others, but in my opinion he is way ahead of all the fashionable 2000s writers who seem to get a free ride if the identity politics in their novels is PC enough, or if they use enough postmodern parlor tricks. But anyway...The enraged Marxist has vented for the night.
—Cyrus
Affliction is magisterial, heartbreaking, deeply intelligent, compassionate, and often a nailbiter. Banks writes beautiful sentences and amazing physical descriptions. That said, the book is at least 50 (single-spaced) pages too long due to repetitious and near-constant over-explaining of the protagonist's confusions, as well as some narrative elements that needn't get the amount of space they are provided, and excessive backstory. But I still had to give it 5 stars because a year out I think about wade et al almost every day.
—Michael Shilling
I had a hard time reviewing this novel, mostly because it hit me so hard, and personally, that I wasnt expecting it at all. Affliction is about a man named Wade Whitehouse, about his successes and failures, mostly failures, but ultimately about the rage that threatens to consume him, and where it came from. Having battled demons of my own over the years, and to this day, I can utterly relate.The characters in this book are brilliantly realized shades of grey. No one is quite innocent, but no one is completely terrible. Every person seems like they could have come from real life americana. Recommended for anyone that would like to look honestly at the male psyche (and isnt afraid to)
—Merrellmichael
