The Life I Lead

I do not know if Mr Banner's novel will eventually emerge as one of the finest works of fiction in the late 20th century. But it should. Its delights are in its details: no writer I know wields such an incredibly perceptive eye over American culture; Mr Banner shows an extraordinary, almost scary knowledge of all the wonderful and sad little things that make up the average American's everyday life. The Life I Lead is a great painting that's never been painted; a perfect film that's never been shot; a poem not yet set down. It captures so much that has yet to be properly articulated in American art, I can only hope that it someday receives the recognition it deserves.

Was it Flannery O'Conner who said "nothing human is alien to me?" In seeking to demystify (yet not forgive) pedophilia, Banner beautifully fulfills this most challenging of the fiction writer's credo. It took no small about of courage to write this novel. I applaud the writer and the publisher and find myself perhaps a bit sadder but also richer for having read Keith Banner's dramatic exploration.

Switching back and forth between 1998 and 1972, and between multiple points of view, Keith Banner constructs a quest for salvation through love that is utterly original. The plot twists, flashbacks, and variations on the themes of love, memory, guilt, and redemption are tours de force. But the characters are what burrow into your brain--Indiana trailer trash who are fully human, and whose perversions induce sympathy, not revulsion. Who'd a thunk this could be done to such a tee, especially with langauge that is unassuming but poetic at the same time? Bravo, Banner!

Uncompromising, powerful, humane. (And surprisingly funny too!

Unlike most other novels about down-n-out types, Keith Banner's The Life I Lead does not rely on gritty, hard-edged prose to brag about its working class depictions. The prose is simple, with an everyday modesty, and yet the cumulative effect is a stunning poetry. I'm already reading this book a second time to try to figure out how Banner creates such sympathetic characters with such few words, and without pulling any punches about their weaknesses. The reader aches in sympathy for the pedophilic main character. It's easy to create reader outrage (A.M. Homes, B.E. Ellis, for example). Trying NOT to shock or outrage might be this novel's biggest accomplisment. In some ways, in its unwavering insight but lack of mockery, the novel reminds me of Robert Duvall's similar accomplishment in The Apostle.