Beach Reading

--Catherine Krantz--

"Who would've thought such an ugly little paperback could be so clever and mean and meanly clever."

The Instrument
by John O'Hara

The back cover says, "A woman's best friend is not Yank Lucas". Hah-that got me, I laughed out loud. Must be some trashy romance novel, I thought, not something I'd read in a million years (at least not in public). The kind of book you read behind closed doors huddled away from the windows where no one can see you. The front cover did little to dispel my suspicions, kissing couple circa 1968 and an author's name I did not recognize--John O'Hara, author of 25 books and plays at the time of this publication. He could be a best selling novelist, I'd never know. I took one look at this sad looking, dog eared, brown and weathered paperback and said, "No way." Ten minutes later its still there, on the coffee table, giving me the eye. And well, let's be honest, its hard to find books in English here. If we didn't bring a box load of our own, we beg, borrow and scrounge. Our tastes become less choosy by the day. I'm a junkie-I'll admit it, can't sit next to a book for more than 5 minutes without picking it up, flipping through, reading a few pages. Ten pages later I'm hooked, and once you start you gotta finish, no matter what.

Who would've thought such an ugly little paperback could be so clever and mean and meanly clever. Not a romance novel by any means. Unless your idea of romance is a horribly cynical, perversely perfect, razor sharp and brutal dissertation on the futility of such petty things as love, life, ambition and sex. A la Fountainhead, who would've thought it?

Books are funny that way, sometimes you stumble by something totally random, pick it up and its like God speaking to you, "See, see, this is what's wrong with you!" (or him or her or them or whoever...). If you believe in such superstitions, you could believe it possible from an old scraggly looking paperback of unknown origins. I don't really believe in secret passageways, that God or Fate or Destiny offers up symbolism in everyday life. I just believe you find things cause you're looking for them and the harder you look the more likely you'll find. Find great engrossing wisdom in a weathered, beaten up paper back from some writer you've never even heard of, snatched out of a jumbled book swap in a little beach town, carelessly dropped on your coffee table by the inconsiderate co-dependant whose always trying to feed your book addiction. "Read this, read this...", you know the kind, damn those book lovers.

Oh well, scour the book swaps around town, most hotels have them, ask around, everyone has their favorite book hunting grounds. You just might find some dog eared gem to rescue from obscurity. Who cares if no one else can see its brilliance-it just might be the thing. It just might be your own personal sign from God, or it just might be some trashy crime novel - here you don't have to hide behind closed doors to read it.

February 2000

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