| August 25 - August 31, 1999 The Story of His Life Ronald Sukenick Builds a Mosaic of Autobiographical Fiction By Frank Diller Ronald Sukenick is a marginalized author, a fringe character, and an acquired taste. By fusing autobiography with imagination, he follows in the tradition of such writers as Philip Roth and Stephen Dixon, but Sukenick pushes the limits of the form by incorporating news articles, pop-culture icons, and shifting points of view into his work. He's an innovator in an experimental field. From his critically acclaimed 1968 debut, Up (reissued last year to commemorate its 30th anniversary), through his 11th and most recent book, Mosaic Man , Sukenick grounds his writing style in a method of trial and error that either entrances readers or frustrates them. The hit-or-miss Mosaic Man represents the extremes in Sukenick's work. There are a number of brilliant episodes throughout the story as Sukenick addresses the death of his father, the way anti-Semitism can lead to self-loathing, and the role Judaism plays in the late 20th century. (The term "Mosaic" refers to both Sukenick's vignettes contributing to a larger narrative scheme and to Moses himself.) In one heartbreaking and humorous episode, a 13-year-old version of Ron (the main character's name in both Up and Mosaic Man Other parts of the book, however, including Ron's pilgrimage to Jerusalem and some of his misogynistic adventures in Paris, fail to maintain the energy of his best writing. | |
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