The Blood of the Lamb

Writers--like artists of other mediums--often say that no novel or short story is really ever finished until it's read. As an old novelist friend of mine used to say, great fiction is always a C, never an O--that is, it leaves some open space for readers, space for us to bring our own lives and experience into the work and make it real or whole or alive. I finished Peter De Vries's Blood of the Lamb last night, for the second time. I read it initially sometime in the Sixties, four or five years after it was published, at a time in my life when I loved the irreverence he wields at his tribe--the Dutch Reformed people into which he and I were both born. De Vries mocked us but good, for our silliness and the sometime idiocy of our piety. Peter De Vries was, in his time, among the most well read and beloved of American humorists, his novels--most of them at least--knee-slapping satires of American life. Google him sometime and read a few of his finest quotes; he can be absolutely hilarious. There is humor in Blood of the Lamb too, Don Wanderhope and his father, aboard their garbage truck, slowly sinking like the Titanic into the primordial ooze of some Chicago-land refuse pit. Scared to death, they break out with--what else?--the doxology. But far and away, Blood of the Lamb is not a funny novel--not at all, even though forty years ago, when I first read it, I thought it was a hoot. But then, I was a kid, a rebel chafing under the strictures of De Vries's own ethnic and religious heritage, a heritage in process of cataclysmic change. It was the Sixties, after all, and little, if any of our lives were left untouched by the seismic cultural shifts of the era. At twenty, I read Peter De Vries's Blood of the Lamb and laughed. Forty years later, I almost cried. I'm a different person today--not nearly so headstrong, far less sure of my opinions and will. Forty years later, I've got scars, even open wounds, from the fisticuffs me and the Lord have come to. Forty years later, I read an almost entirely different book. The novel didn't change of course. Certainly, I did. Peter De Vries died in 1993, but I wonder if he ever guessed that of all his books, Blood of the Lamb would be the one that just won't go away. My guess is, he did. He wrote it just a year after the death of his daughter, who died at age 11 of leukemia; and much of the book, that which gives it its immense emotional heft, is the near recitation of the prolonged agony that child faced before eventually, finally, succumbing.* This novel's great lines don't come from his wit, but from his soul. Honestly, that whole story I had nearly forgotten because that theological fight simply didn't hit me at twenty. I think it was William Hazlett who said something to the effect of no young man thinks he shall ever die; count me among 'em. But at sixty years old, Blood of the Lamb nearly took out the knees in my soul. The story of Carol Wanderhope's agonizing death is the big story of the nov

Peter DeVries was a very popular writer who contributed many stories to the New Yorker in the fifties and sixties and who wrote several very funny novels. This autobiographical novel describes the growth to maturity of Don Wanderhope, member of a strickly Calvinist Dutch Reform family, whose brother becomes a heretic, whose father becomes addicted to drink and goes insane, and whose wife commits suicide after giving him a child whom he loves deeply. At age eleven, his daughter contracts leukemia, initially does quite well, but then succumbs to a staph infection in the hospital. Wanderhope - I suspect the name is no accidental choice - in grief stricken anger rails against God and man. "I made a tentative conclusion. It seemed from all of this that uppermost among human joys is the negative one of restoration. Not going to the stars, but learning that one may stay where one is. It was shortly after the evening in question that I had a taste of that truth on a scale that enabled me to put my finger on it." The happiest moment of his life comes when the doctor lets him know that his daughter will be all right - a mistake as it turns out. "The fairy would not become a gnome. We could break bread in peace again, my child and I. The greatest experience open to man then, is the recovery of the commonplace." The book has many humorous moments and profound insights, as Wanderhope struggles with religion as he tries to deal with the death of his only child. "I believe that man must learn to live without those consolations called religious, which his own intelligence must by now have told him belong to the childhood of the race. Philosophy really can give us nothing permanent to believe in either. It is too rich in answers; each canceling out the rest.. The quest for meaning is foredoomed. Human life means nothing. But that is not to say that it is not worth living. What does a Debussy arabesque mean, or a rainbow, or a rose? A man delights in all of these knowing himself to be no more. A wisp of music and haze of dreams dissolving against the sun. Man has only his own two feet to stand on his own human trinity to see him through: reason, courage and grace and the first plus the second equals the third."

The book is moving, witty, involving, and wise. It is hard to believe that this was published way back in 1961. This book sits now on my most beloved shelf. There is wit and sex and social commentary here, but the book rises above that. It is ultimately a book with a message, about stoic courage and grace, although not everyone is ready for the wisdom here. The book's ultimate message is that we should appreciate the moment and cherish those whom we love while we can. That, as Marcus Aurelius said, life is just loaned to us and, we ought to be ready, at any time, to gratefully say, "Here, I return that which has been loaned to me."

Peter De Vries's *Blood of the Lamb* is a novel of singular depth and humanity. De Vries was America's greatest humorist in the fifties and sixties, but in this work, he deals, from autobiographical experience, with his young daughter's struggle against leukemia. Overflowing with love, wit, fury, energy, and human grace, this book goes to the core of things. It ranks with the greatest works of 20th-century American literature, and it will surprise you. De Vries is best known for his great work for *The New Yorker* and for comedic novels (many made into films) rich in puns, the anatomy of absurdity, and the depredations and joys of libido....but *Blood of the Lamb* is his transcendent work. It's out of print now, and used copies are often hard to come by. It's an exceptional and humanizing experience. It is a moving sublimation of irredeemable tragedy.

Like all of De Vries work, this is a very funny book devoted to a very serious subject. The serious subject is loss of faith, in this case elicited by the serious illness and eventual death of a young child. Based apparently on events within De Vries' own family, Blood of the Lamb has all the hallmarks of De Vries best work; superb humor, exceptionally witty word play, and great emotional power. The conclusion is remarkably moving. I have recommended this book to physicians in training to convey the incredible suffering experienced by families with ill children.