The Murderer by Roy Heath

For the first time it occurred to Galton that he might be mentally ill. Not, indeed, because he had killed Gemma. He was convinced that any self-respecting man would have done so. Rather, his lack of success at achieving any goal he had set himself and his inability to face up to a situation that had taken him by surprise implanted in his mind the idea that he was progressively losing his grip. The following day, he told himself, he would be in a better position to assess the facts. One gain he had certainly made: he had achieved what he had always longed for, an area that belonged to him alone and from which others could be excluded at will.

Here is another book from Guyana, but how different it is from Beryl Gilroy's warm and lyrical Frangipani House. Roy Heath's murderer is Galton Flood (great name): a man from a middle-class Guyanese family who grows up under the shadow of his better-adjusted brother, Selwyn. Galton is moody, mercurial, unable to build the human relationships his brother does; instead of pursuing his studies he takes menial jobs in the Guyanese "bush," then as a night watchman. Somehow, Gemma, the bookish and thoughtful daughter of a man from whom Galton rents a room, falls for him. He flees her, but the letters she writes him are some of the book's greatest moments, filled with provocations and ironic recriminations. She calls him her "torturer," and perhaps this is the only language that can reach Galton, who turns away from sentimentalism with disgust. Eventually, she induces him to marry, but his jealousy and resentment are too powerful, and one night, he strikes her dead with a plank of wood and disposes of her body in the harbor.

The Murderer has Dostoyevsky's fingerprints all over it. Galton is, in a way, a Raskolnikov that is stupid. Like Raskolnikov, he rationalizes and justifies his deed so that he might ignore the deeper urges within that drive him to it. And like Raskolnikov, Galton's murder is an attempt to control the larger world, and thus detach oneself from it; though he yearns for Gemma, marriage for him is a torture, because it requires submission, entanglement with another. This need is inseparable from good old-fashioned male jealousy: it tortures Galton to think that his wife has had other lovers, and does not live for him alone (though he can't see that she's the only person who could ever come close to doing anything like this).

The Murderer is bisected by Galton's deed: about half the book comes before, and half the book comes after. The second half of the book deals with the consequences of Galton's deed. Some are practical--he takes up with another girl, but her father refuses to allow her to see Galton because he is still technically married, having lied and said that Gemma emigrated to Venezuela. Others are psychological: Galton travels from place to place, from the tenement to a boarding house to his brother's house, never staying in any one location for long because, like Gemma, other people make demands on his time and his self. Eventually, Gemma's father, accompanied by an old friend of Gemma's, comes to understand what Galton has done, but the police don't care; there's no arrest or punishment forthcoming. Instead, Galton is forced to live the rest of his small life bearing the consequences of being himself.

Frangipani House by Beryl Gilroy

Even as she lay suspended, between being lost and the coming of her destiny, Mama saw Death and Life, both children of the same father, both legitimate. Death, dominant and conclusive. Life, uncertain and accidental, friable as dry earth, malleable as clay, and finally fragile as gossamer in the hands of death.

Mama King is getting on in years. Most her family has moved away from Guyana to the United States, and she is, in a sense, alone. Her daughters arrange for her to move into Frangipani House, a nursing home where she will be taken care of. But Mama King feels the loss of her independence keenly, and Frangipani House is ruled with an iron fist by the cruelties of the proud Matron, who resents Mama King's attempts to free herself. There are friends and allies among the other residents, but they don't stick around for long--Frangipani House reeks of death and decay. Perhaps that, really, is the reason that Mama King escapes to live among Indian beggars, who welcome her into their lifestyle with eagerness.

One thing I liked about Frangipani House is the way it explores what it means to be old and close to death, and to face a state of mental deterioration. Though it embodies a fundamental truth, I think we don't have enough novels that focus on this state of life, partially because people who enter into it are rarely up to writing novels, and partly because I think we are afraid to look to closely at life's last stages. For Mama King, it means living with a foot in two worlds: one in the present of Frangipani House and another in the past, where her husband, a no-good roustabout named Danny, gives her two children and then suddenly disappears in the jungle. (As a matter of fact, Mama King's close friends know a shocking truth about Danny's story that, it seems, can only unfold now, when Mama King is busy trying to wrap up the threads of her life.) But Frangipani House, perhaps, is no place for an old woman, because it treats Mama King like a child, when really she is something quite different.

Mama King's escape brings her daughters and their children back to Guyana to track her down. Longed-for independence turns out to be dangerous for Mama King--with the beggars, she finds herself in a violent exchange with a policeman that sends her to the hospital--but by bringing her family back home, it gives her a chance to endure the last stage of her life with the next generations that she fears had abandoned her. She is lucky, perhaps; not all the residents of Frangipani House get this. And though it's touching, it's not sentimental or too easy; in fact, I found this book extremely rich and complex for its briefness. Mama King is interesting, but so is the insecure, heavy-handed Matron, and so are Mama King's children and grandchildren who have taken part in the 20th century's mass movement away from the Caribbean. They are searching for a better life, but Frangipani House is, at least in part, about what they must leave behind in order to do so. (One character remarks that Frangipani House is a "Caucasian" institution, and what is needed is to go back to African methods.) And I was really fascinated by the book's rich and colorful Guyanese dialect, which combines fascinatingly with Gilroy's erudition.

With the addition of Guyana, my "Countries Read" list is up to 88!