He has enough to go on, or at least enough to start with. So at home, alone in his room, he begins:
I was born on November 29, 1968, to Cynthia Bonjorni and Arthur “Doc” Morel Senior. I lived on Greene Street and West Broadway in New York City. In this vein he writes several pages. A few hours later, though, he stops, frustrated. Even though the facts are right, none of the sentences feels authentic. The costume does not fit. This much is clear, and no amount of aping around in it will help him accomplish what he has set out to do. And besides, he can’t see his father while he’s walking around inside his suit. He needs to be able to see the man.
So. Forget the first-person father. He tries again, like this:
The earliest memory I have of my father is from the age of four. He has me by the hand and we are heading up the front walk of our apartment building in Queens. But soon enough, Will finds himself deep into the woods of his own life, his father lost somewhere along the trail.
On a blank index card, in felt pen, Will writes, Who is Arthur Morel? and tacks it onto the corkboard above his writing desk, next to the picture Henry brought over earlier that week: lush Vietnamese foliage, crowded village in the background. A recent photo, Henry explained, of a place that had been razed in the late sixties by Agent Orange. “Given time,” Henry said, “even scorched earth recovers.”
Will takes a step back. He spends the rest of the evening cleaning his room. He organizes his books on the small homemade bookshelf by his closet. With a notepad and pen at his side, he sits up in bed listening through earphones to the interview with his former babysitter, transcribing a few of the more salient moments. Then he turns off the light and goes to bed.
The next morning, with a fresh cup of coffee, he begins again. Henry is right. The mornings are much better for thinking. His head feels like a clear autumn day. He looks through his notes from the night before. Most of it is in shorthand, barely legible, but among the scrawl is a sentence that calls out to him:
The editor I was to fire worked out of his one bedroom in Herald Square. Promising, he thinks, more promising at least than last night’s efforts.
Will fires up his laptop and types out the line into a blank document, and when he does this, a window opens. There is something about the point of view, through the eyes of the man whose life has run parallel to his father’s, eliding at key moments. Who talked about his father with great admiration, the first man to ever describe his father to him in fatherly terms, as courageous, protective. This is who should tell the story: his father’s only friend.
Maybe, just maybe, he can show Will the way.
Acknowledgments
A heartfelt thanks to Bob Dolan, first and foremost, for penning The Dead Guy’s Son and for the ensuing adventures in filmmaking that it inspired.
Thanks to Mark Doten, whose sharp eye and editorial telepathy transformed this manuscript into the novel I’d been hoping for.
And Bronwen Hruska, along with the rest of the Soho team for their outright enthusiasm, and for taking a chance on this book.
Thanks to Douglas Stewart, whose faith in my abilities is a bottomless well.
To John Bean, for helping me figure it all out.
Good friends Leigh Anderson, Zoe Finkel, Jason Grunebaum, and Melissa Kirsch: Thank you for your valuable feedback on a messy first draft. And thanks to other readers along the way for their time and kind words: Jami Attenberg, David Gordon, T Cooper, Margarita Shalina, Michael Seidenberg and Cale Hand.
Thank you to Columbia University mentors Victoria Redel and Binnie Kirshenbaum for their support and generous public praise. Also to Sigrid Nunez, Thomas Beller, Sam Lipsyte, and Jessica Hagedorn, other mentors whose teaching has been invaluable.
To the Owen Summer Residence Fellowship, for providing me with an environment perfectly suited to writing a book.
And, of course, a round of thanks to the Tracys: Catherine, Arnold, Claudia, Sam, Dee, Peter, Alec, Alexandra, and Aunt Joan Carvo. I couldn’t ask for a more supportive and encouraging group of in-laws.