The Tale Maker

A wittily ironic look at the academic world concerns the fortunes of Rimrose, a disaster-prone yet brilliant would-be author, and his enemy, the lamentable voyeur Kakapick, who always beats Rimrose in the bureaucratic rat race of The University. National ad/promo.

Novels about writers are relatively rare, no doubt because writing lacks the obvious drama of police work for instance, or of the law. Novels about writers in which the drama turns on the act of writing--as opposed to, say, a fan's revenge, as in King's Misery -- are rarer still. In his absorbing but flawed new novel (after Speed ), Harris goes far toward creating such a true rarity, only to bail out into strained satire and melodrama. The "tale maker" is Rimrose, whose story begins when he enters college. There, he meets a slew of memorable characters, most notably Kakapick, a geeky loner who shadows Rimrose, resenting his way with words and women even as he tries to bask in a reflected glory. In passages rich with author Harris's love and understanding of his craft, Rimrose learns to fashion short stories, some great; meanwhile, Kakapick aims to quantify and level the art through statistical analysis. Years pass, and while artist Rimrose achieves fame but no fortune, critic Kakapick rises to academic celebrity, chairing the English Department at their alma mater and offering Rimrose a post. A natural teacher, Rimrose is happy; but Kakapick remains an outcast from creativity and life, a stalker rather than a doer, until he gets his just deserts. Throughout, Rimrose's struggles to forge art from life fascinate, but Kakapick is too easy a target, and the novel finally sinks under Harris's heavyhanded contrast of creators vs. critics.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A plot that carries no spare parts and a ``gentle reader'' style of address combine with Dickensian characters to give the feel of a classic to Harris's (Bang the Drum Slowly, 1956, etc.) small tale of a short story writer's struggle with an adversarial critic. Rimrose's career begins in 1963 at the college newspaper in University City where, following in his father's footsteps, he distinguishes himself with feisty reporting and parlous editorials and eventually earns a promotion to editor-in-chief. On discovering in his junior year that he is a short story writer at heart, Rimrose disappoints his practical dad by scrapping his budding journalism career for art. After graduation he marries classmate Lucy, and the two toil as writer and agent/editor, respectively, while hungry children amass as quickly as bills. Rimrose's critical successes--like being heralded by Esquire as a bright new talent and having his old college stories turned into a book--are not matched by financial ones. His fame is monitored and envied by Kakapick, the black-toothed, friendless hallmate of his college years whose confusion between truth and fiction cause him to stalk Lucy and whose quasi-Fascist plan to set standards for American literature is unwittingly facilitated by Rimrose. Kakapick's menace increases as his power does: He becomes chair of the English department at The University and hires Rimrose, who needs the steady salary. A struggle between the two mounts as the critic employs academic mind-police strategies to keep the writer's fame and output under his thumb. The novel abounds in satirical insights into the natures of the creative mind, writing, editing, publishing, and criticism. A wry, self-referential story that exalts the writer, trounces the critic, and avows that both are liars. Sic semper Mark Harris. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Harris' fable about writers and critics has a fascinating antagonist, a quirky college student named Kakapick, who is fascinated with the life of journalism major Rimrose (neither is ever referred to by first name.) Unfortunately, about halfway through the book, Kakapick disappears from the story, and Rimrose, who by now is writing and selling short stories to magazines, takes center stage. Rimrose has a wife, a carload of kids, and financial difficulties and is afraid of being sentenced to return to his hometown to edit his editor father's newspaper. Harris, author of the classic baseball novel Bang the Drum Slowly, has been compared to Saul Bellow and John Irving. The problem is, Harris is more fascinated by the painfully normal Rimrose, whose stories are based on mundane incidents in his life, than by the black-toothed, socially inept Kakapick, who is by far more interesting. Nonetheless, a compelling novel sure to get attention because of the author's name. Joe Collins

Every major author seems compelled to write one story about his craft. This is Harris's, and a wonderful story it is. The Tale Maker spans 25 years in the lives of Rimrose, tale maker extraordinaire, and his nemesis Kakapick, who establish a relationship during their college years that endures like a bad marriage until they are parted by death. Based on need, guilt, jealousy, and fear, the relationship brings out the worst in each. Ironically, neither Rimrose as creative writer nor Kakapick as critic ever captures the essential truth of the other, although each spends a major portion of his life trying. The competition provides opportunity to celebrate the writer's craft while exposing and mildly satirizing publishers' selection policies, literary criticism, academia, and the hoards of nonreaders who make quality writing futile at best. Given its subject, this work probably won't enjoy the success of Harris's baseball stories (It Looked Like Forever, Bang the Drum Slowly, etc.), but it should. It is quality fiction with staying power. A real keeper for most libraries.
Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib, Carbondale
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.