The Green Suit

With his two novels, Allen is up there with the wonderful Nancy Clark ("Hills at Home") in his depiction of the complicated, verging-on-the-dysfunctional American family. These connected stories do meander along, but they mean something, finally... Allen is in no hurry and neither was this reader. I was sorry the story ended. Allen is a true master of language. His imagery is highly imaginative and his English as good as I have encountered in a long time. What a joy that I am discovering these fabulous authors! How can the country that produces its current unspeakable leaders nurture such imagination and talent? Well, that's America, I guess.

Former New Yorker staff member Dwight Allen makes his novelistic debut with a nuanced, likable series of interconnected stories, The Green Suit. These vignettes revolve around the Sackriders, an apple pie American family consisting of father, mother, daughter and son. They're a cosseted Kentucky foursome tended to by Willie who is "short and wide, a formidable squarish shape, like something not easily knocked over." She smokes Salems, cooks, cleans, and when she launders removes a joint from son Peter's shirt pocket. Father Sackrider is a judge who enjoys taking his ease by fishing. He's a man "who secretly believed that catching a fish could make your blood rush and your soul expand all at once." Mother Sackrider listens to classical music, gains strength from a murky health drink, and is constantly piqued by a neighborhood dog's desecration of her garden. Daughter Alex, affectionately called "Moony Tooth," has been to college in Philadelphia where she fell in love with Ed, "a sallow-skinned, lank-haired boy whose chief interest in life was the effects of hallucinogens on the neurochemistry of white rats." Ed's defection causes Alex to become temporarily unbalanced, and she tries to take her own life. She is then sent for therapy to Queen of Peace, "a columned and porticoed institution that sat on a hill about a mile from the new county zoo." But this book is primarily about Peter. It's about Peter's pursuit of girls - Lizzie, Mary Lee, Petra, a friend's "barely legal girlfriend," well, you get the picture. It's also about Peter's desire to be a writer or an editor; he's not quite sure. He has trouble, you see, with decisions and commitment as becomes evident when he eventually marries. At 23 Peter deems himself ready for New York. He'd been out of college for a year, so he "could read, conjugate Latin verbs........and handle a mop and a bucket." Once in the City he finds employment with a venerable, laid back publishing house. His venerable, laid back boss "gave off a scent that was a mix of talcum powder, butterscotch candy, and decrepitude." It is also in New York that the title story, The Green Suit," takes place. We meet Elvin, a building superintendent, clad in a "lizardy green" suit. "The trousers were flared and the jacket lapels were as big as wings........The suit glowed in the sulphurous glow of the street lights, but it would have glowed in pitch dark, too." Elvin is a man who has accepted his lot. He'd rather be the Sultan of Swing than a building superintendent, but as he says, "....you got to deal with the cards that get dealt to you." Peter might well have benefitted from a dose of this wisdom as he seems to stumble and bumble his way through the years. Nonetheless, in the deft hands of this author Peter's journey is a pleasant one for the reader, filled with comic characters, laughable fixes, and poignant moments, The Green Suit is a