On page 49 of Tom Fitzgerald’s notable work of historical fiction, we get down to the business of the book with the court clerk’s opening barrage: “Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! The Supreme Celestial Court of Petitions in now in session. Petition of B. Franklin, 17 January 1706 unto 17 April 1790, to be considered. Petitioners, here present, kindly state your case, or forever hold your peace.”

Poor Richard’s Lament is not a book for wimps — let me be perfectly honest from the outset. Michael W. Zuckerman’s comprehensive Foreword makes this declaration all too clear. But good Ben Franklin was no wimp himself—as Tom Fitzgerald’s exhaustive “Milestones in the Life of Benjamin Franklin” makes equally clear. To those same milestones, William Strahan, Peter Collinson and Bishop Shipley initially lend an oratorical flourish before the bench of Examiners (viz., Messrs. Wedderburn, Adams and Smith), and always under the ever-watchful eye and protective hand of Franklin’s Intermediaries, Bartholomew and Clarence.

And so, let the clang of Caveat Lector! ring loud and clear — as you, dear reader, are about to embark upon a monumental challenge: to follow the genius of Tom Fitzgerald as he steers you and Ben Franklin’s time capsule through the Scylla of the two centuries-past: i.e., through his first examination and the Charybdis of the present one in an unforgettable (some might say “unfathomable”) mystical journey. Like an authorial Houdini, we read as Fitzgerald transmutes the thirteen cardinal virtues enumerated by Franklin in his Autobiography (and in others of his works) into the names of tycoons and evil-doers of a more recent — in some cases, even present-day—history.

But we also read how each of his three Examiners constructs a careful argument to indict Franklin on the facts of his own family record, the particulars of which he’s very much at pains to deny. This is an interesting — if at times distressing — look at the mere ‘feet of clay’ of both the man and the noble moral philosopher; and Fitzgerald’s verbal skill in constructing the indictment is nothing less than mind-bogglingly ingenious.

The next chapter (as did an earlier Chapter 2) jumps immediately to the present. Political corruption and intrigue — here, in NYC; while in Chapter 2, in The White House — are as much part and parcel of the process as is comb to honey. A quick glance at the next chapter (and a return to the Supreme Celestial Court of Petitions) suggests, even without dipping into that chapter, that Fitzgerald is taking us somewhere on parallel paths — both of which may well converge at some later point in his novel.

The truth is, the plot of Poor Richard’s Lament twists and turns at so many corners, one could fill a second book—an exegetical work, if you will — with nothing more than signposts to the reader to help out with directions. Up, down, sideways, back and forth over time…one feels the need of a map—or at least of a compass. Simple annotations, unfortunately, won’t do.

And the language? Have I mentioned the language? Each time we enter Fitzgerald’s Supreme Court of Petitions, he reconstructs the language of Ben Franklin’s day in a manner worthy of a Swift or a Fielding. When he jumps back into the 20th (or sometimes the 21st) century, however, we’re once again safely ‘at home’ with the shorthand, telegraphic style of contemporary politicians, drug dealers, derelicts, and other assorted miscreants. The transition is sometimes jarring to a reader’s nerves, but never contrived or hackneyed. No, Fitzgerald is a master of both worlds—but woe to the reader who slips into the roiling waters of this writer’s perfervid imagination if he or she can’t swim (or at least tread) the distance!

For what it’s worth — and it was worth a lot to me! — Fitzgerald alludes at several points along the way to a childhood hero of mine: viz., to Rear Admiral John Paul Jones. I cite here one brief exchange on p. 136, which, I think, rather characterizes how Ben Franklin, himself, must have felt about the Father of the American Navy.

(This, from Reverend Smith): “Are you able to continue, sir, or do you require a respite with which to restore yourself?”

Ben stiffened. “As Captain Jones required no respite whilst his Bonhomme was being condemned unto the deep, nor shall I as regards mine.”

Smith lifted a little his chin, and projecting an arm overhead, looked to the assembly. “He has not yet begun to fight!”

I frankly couldn’t suppress a smile of warm recollection when I read this passage — and yet, it’s been almost fifty years since I first (and last) read the original of this exchange between Jean Paul Jones and his opponent in combat, a certain Captain Richard Pearson, of the Royal Navy ship HMS Serapsis. Such is the power of Fitzgerald’s prose that that memorable scene came screaming back to me — even if Fitzgerald’s intent here was cloaked in irony.

Is Fitzgerald a stylist of the first rank? I cite, from page 233, this fulmination of the good Examiner Adams by way of an unrelenting condemnation of Ben Franklin’s comportment over the years vis-à-vis his own family — in this particular case, towards his ailing wife. To wit:

“Or do we attempt to weave unto whole cloth here too much by way of warp, too little by way of weft?”

This — I hasten to add — is merely one of hundreds of skillful stylistic fusillades Fitzgerald launches at Franklin out of the mouths of his Examiners, the smoke and roar of whose oratorical cannons would seem to fill the small chamber of the Supreme Celestial Court of Petitions with enough histrionic fire and brimstone to cause asphyxiation — at least for you, the reader. Fitzgerald is never better than when he pours forth on the page the sarcasm of Franklin’s detractors in a form at times craftily witty, at other times downright acerbic, at all times, however, crushing to the spirit, demeanor, and even posture of this man of great historical moment and reputation that is and was Benjamin Franklin.

And so, a few pages further (namely, on pp. 240-241), we read the following exchange between the always relentless Adams and the increasingly remorseful Franklin:

“Casting himself unto the feet of Adams, Ben looked upward unto a countenance made the more hideous by the severity of the angle. ‘Let her hear me! I beg of you! Let her hear!’

‘And by what manner of magic would you have it so, sir? By rant of Mather? By wand of Mesmer? By bolt of Franklin?’”


If masterful prose can be defined as exhibiting a combination of ‘economy and grace’ (not to mention ‘drama’), count me among those who’d happily suggest that the above aptly demonstrates Fitzgerald’s mastery of them all.

I know I’ve already mentioned “irony” as a device the author of Poor Richard’s Lament uses to brilliant effect. But Fitzgerald is equally at home with yet another literary device — namely, anachronism. If you can let your mind take leave of its literal senses for an hour or two and wrap itself around the chapter titled “One Milk Street, Boston, MA” (pp. 273-381), you’re in for one helluva rollercoaster ride as Ben Franklin, in 18th century garb and mindset, finds himself wandering around contemporary downtown Boston. It’s a rollicking roam, but also a tragically accurate look at what we’ve become as a society — and Fitzgerald, with the visual acuity of a lichenologist no less than that of an entomologist, leaves no stone unturned in his efforts to show us its seedy, vermin-infested underbelly.

But of course, a reader “has to give a shit” (p. 340) to begin with, and not “first be led to the privy” (ibid.) in order to appreciate Fitzgerald’s sleight of hand with both irony and anachronism.

“Consider the alternative, sir — the living cat dead to all curiosity” (p. 346).

If I might find fault with anything in this particular chapter — and in several others — it’s that Fitzgerald would appear to have forgotten that his narrative voice need not also be a source of anachronistic folly. Franklin speaks (appropriately) as would an enlightened intellectual of the 18th century; those he encounters in present-day Boston speak as would present-day Bostonians (and each, according to his or her socio-economic circumstances); but the narrative voice — Fitzgerald’s own — or so, at least, it seems to me — would need to speak in a contemporary voice. That narrative voice does not; it cleaves (I think mistakenly) to Franklin’s.

Following a chapter titled “West Philadelphia” (pp. 383-93) in which Fitzgerald paints as vivid a picture of urban squalor and trans-generational desperation as one might ever want to read, he once again demonstrates his inimitable skill with the use of anachronism in describing the NYC Subway System to the uninitiated — this time, together with an apt illustration of the meaning of the word “empathy” that happily draws on the dictum “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked in his shoes.” (While it may seem odd that I would spend so many words on a couple of anecdotal points in a book of 600 pages, I suspect that these literary asides are precisely the kind of thing that will stay lodged in one’s memory banks long after many other parts of the novel — and most other examples of contemporary fiction in their entirety — will have dropped out. These anecdotes are like those tasty tidbits one may’ve once enjoyed in a tapas bar in Madrid or Seville, and which occur to a tongue fond of reminiscing years after most multi-course dinners have faded from memory.)

By way of conclusion to this review, I feel compelled to confess that I was finally able, just over a year ago (owing to circumstances more of penury than of opportunity), to read Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s Don Quixote. The likeness of Fitzgerald’s Ben Franklin to the ‘Knight of the Mournful Countenance’ had already occurred to me on numerous occasions while reading Poor Richard’s Lament — both in character and in circumstance. Consequently, when I read Fitzgerald’s apt analogy (on p. 521)—to wit: “the specter of an eighteenth-century knight charging about on a twenty-first century Rocinante,” I happily realized that my instincts were not entirely at odds with those of the author. The preeminence of Tom Fitzgerald’s opus comes perhaps closest of anything I’ve read in the past fifty years to the grandeur of Cervantes’ opus — and I believe Don Quixote, still considered to be the first novel ever written, also to be the greatest novel ever written. I don’t know that I could pay any greater compliment to Tom Fitzgerald’s Poor Richard’s Lament.

RRB

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