This Side of Jordan

by Monte Schulz

This Side of Jordan , Monte Schulz's literary prose novel, is told in the voice of a lost generation hurtling toward the Great Depression. In the spring of 1929, 19-year-old consumptive farm boy Alvin Pendergast finds an invitation for a late-night slice of pie is too seductive to pass up and before he knows it, he crosses the Mississippi River and finds himself working for a slick con artist named Chester Burke, formerly a gangster out of Chicago. With Alvin in tow, Chester embarks on a series of bank robberies and senseless murders through the small towns of America's middle border, peopled with vivid, outsized literary characters. Fortunately, Alvin finds another companion on his journey, a lonely, eccentric, and grandiloquent dwarf named Rascal. At first too ill to flee, too morally weak to object, Alvin must make a decision: stick with Chester, who would surely kill him at the slightest hint of betrayal, or muster the courage to stake his life on Rascal's clever plan (which includes a circus) to save them both. What Alvin discovers about the meaning of home offers a solution to escape and freedom.

394 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Michael]

Monte, son of Charles Schulz, wrote his second novel, and apparently due to his family's relationship with Fantagraphics, he got hooked up with them as a publisher (this will be Fanta's second prose novel when it ships in a few months). They call it Southern Gothic in style, and I guess it is. It's 1920s, and Alvin's a young man living on a farm in Missouri. He's dissatisfied and bitter, and seems to be having a relapse of consumption, so he elects to run away with a guy he meets in town. The guy, Chester, is a former gangster and rum-runner, thief, con-man and occasional killer. They rob a bank, with the unexpected aid of a dwarf nicknamed Rascal, and the trio take to the road.

It's not a bad novel. It's a little long - Schulz devotes too many pages to sidetracks that exist to show Alvin the range of humanity, but ramble on longer than necessary. It's never entirely clear why Chester seems to like Alvin and decides to bring him along, other than Alvin's indifferent and fairly terrified of Chester and will do what he's told to do. And the ending allows Alvin to get away without ever making an actual decision about the direction of his life - he simply gets to walk away and settle down to normality due to Rascal's cunning rather than due to any growth of his own.

Still, Schulz writes good dialogue, and the scenes that don't ramble (it's 284 pages, and could've been around 220) are usually pretty good. Chester's convincingly suave with a hint of menace, and Alvin's confusion and irritation at the world comes across clearly without making Alvin himself unlikeable. Rascal's dialogue is always fun, and he really carries huge sections of the book while Alvin's busy sulking.

Overall, This Side of Jordan is a solid book, but not a great one.

[Trishnyc]

I acquired this book about a year ago and every time I would start to read it, I found that I could not continue. I finally forced myself to finish it and though I am glad I did, it is probably not my kind of book. Schultz's description of depression era America is beautiful, his imagery accurate and his recreation of the period is excellent. His research into this era definitely paid off as he was able to capture the voice and sentiment of an age past with great aplomb. But while I believe the author worked very hard at this book, the unfolding story proved too slow and mostly meandering for me. The wordiness of the book, its inability to formulate an idea and keep it interesting eventually made me realize that this book would not be one I revisit. Alvin Pendergrast's escape from the drudgery and sickness of his current life into the promised excitement and adventure with Chester Burke never quite lived up to its promised potential. Chester as the villain of this piece lacked a certain nuance that would maybe have made him a bit more believable/enjoyable outside a Dickensian tale. He was evil and violent and he does not deviate much from that. I wish this character had more depth, even if it was all bad but at least gave me an insight into his other facets.

I think that my inability to fully appreciate this book may be more a matter of taste than any deficiencies on the author's part. The synopsis of the book drew me in but was unable to sustain my interest. But I do believe that fans of this genre will love it for its ability to elegantly capture a by gone era with amazing accuracy.

**Review copy provided by Amazon.com's Vine Program.

[Jason]

Bank robberies, murder, a midget all set into the nostalgia of the 20s. Very well written.