An expertly plotted story of the eccentric descendant of an obsessive Egyptologist and the female academic who insinuates herself into their lives. A splendidly entertaining dark comedy.

Six-word review: Oddly gentle, artfully persuasive horror story.

Extended review:

In 1971 I read a gripping and stupidly titled novel called It Happened in Boston? and promptly put it on my "favorites" bookshelf. From this distance I remember that it contained some stunning imagery and a plot that enthralled me, but I've forgotten the specifics. I never read it again, and, more strangely, for me, I never once looked for other works by the same author, Russell H. Greenan.

A week ago I read a review on LT of that novel (here), and it sent me to check my oldest bookcase: yes, the book is still there, several moves and four and a half decades later. I recall that it caught me right from the first line and pulled me in. I also have a recollection of reading a portion of it while sitting in a small, nondescript restaurant in Boston and suddenly feeling very nervous about doing that.

The author apparently has amassed a respectable list of credits since that first novel, but they don't seem to have been widely read. The only one my local library has, besides the one I own, is The Secret Life of Algernon Pendleton. I brought it home and read it in two days. Now I'm going to go looking for the rest.

It's no spoiler to remark that the narrator and title character occupies a reality that's markedly different from that of most of us (not that anyone actually has any idea what reality is). Early on we can see that his actions are guided by a thought process that entitles him to his own personal mental health diagnosis. This does not prevent us from becoming caught up in his vision of the world, not even when it sounds like this:

The house plants on the window sill began to whisper excitedly, though I wasn't able to distinguish what they said. (page 92)

Did it cause me to cast a wary glance toward my houseplants? I hope not, but it might have.

It's just that easy to be drawn into Algernon's head space and begin to take a sympathetic view of his actions. By the time I reached the end--a marvelously deft conclusion--I didn't know how to answer whether Algernon really did what he said he did, but I think I believe him.

I believe him about the murders, the mistakes, and the memories. And the madness. Especially the madness.

By his skillful handling of plot and character details, Greenan both prepares us for the revelations that will unfold and yet still surprises us by them. Could Algernon really have done this? Yes, he could; after all, before this he did that. I don't mind having my perceptions and reactions managed in this way, especially in a psychological novel of this caliber. That's what an author does. The more he lets us into the mind of his character, the more sense the character's actions seem to make--even as we (and he) realize that he is holding two contradictory notions in mind at the same time. Someone defined a first-rate intelligence that way. It's also a kind of insanity.

The allure and mystique of ancient Egypt cast a shadow over this story in much the same way as they do in Arthur Phillips's similarly Boston-based novel The Egyptologist, both with spectacularly unreliable narrators. (Had Phillips read the Greenan novel? I can't help thinking so.) Greenan also owes something to Poe, Lovecraft, and other classic writers of the creepy-horror genre, as well as (in my opinion) the Existentialists and the Russians. But this is not to call him derivative, except insofar as all literate authors reflect something of their literary heritage.

The writing itself is exceptional. Like Dostoevsky, Greenan has the knack of showing us things through the narrator's eyes while at the same time revealing to the reader things that the speaker can't see.

The book is short and the language succinct, but I would not call it a spare prose style; it has lyricism, ornamentation, rumination, and texture. However, there are no false words, no padding, no hesitant strokes. In a way, it's like a piano sonata beautifully executed, with all the notes exposed, no cover from the orchestra, no waste, and a direction and resolution that are honest but not predictable.

At the end--a shiver and a satisfied sigh. ( )

1973. This is a good, creepy book. It deals with a lot of egyptian antiquities, pharoah's tombs and whatnot. The anti-hero is crazy or the universe works very differently than I thought it did. He can talk to inanimate objects and plants. He believes this is real. There are some murders, but it is not a who-done-it, more of a thriller. The thrill is in Greenan's writing and black humour. Also features Brookline and Boston occasionally. Especially Hall's Pond in Brookline, a favorite spot of mine. A quote:

"At Kenmore Square I slowed my pace, the better to appraise and appreciate the many young college girls who stand about there, wiggling and giggling. Each summer I've noticed they wear less clothing. It makes one wish for a long life.

"As sure as a parsnip is not a persimmon
So it is certain, old men crave young women"

That's from Engenar's 'Leonidas the King.' Engenar was sagacious." ( )

Simply put, The Secret Life of Algernon Pendleton is a small masterpiece. It left me a little frightened ! Why? Why, I'll tell you.

Mr. Pendleton (imagine the voice of Rod Serling intoning here) "is an aging white male, of independent but dwindling means, living alone, near Boston, in the gothic family homestead. His principal source of pin money is the occasional sale of an Egyptian antiquity from a collection amassed decades ago by his long deceased "great grampy", a semi-famous tomb raider cut from the Sir Richard Burton mold."

"Algernon had the honor to serve his country in WWII, in the South Pacific, for which he received in recompense a concussion with lingering effects. This accounts, perhaps, for his bickering relationship with Eulalia, his intimate, sole companion and prized china pitcher. Aural hallucinations, you say? Don't press the point with Algernon."

"Our action begins when an old war buddy shows up one day with a suitcase full of cash and a tale of marital failure. Throw confused compassion, a shrewd immigrant Arab antiques dealer, and a voluptuous treasure hunting Egyptologist into this mix, and you have the elements of ...the twilight zone."

What sets this novel apart is the delicious first person narrative. Algernon is pensive, philosophical, randy, henpecked, bold at times then timid, corny, a genius, and charmingly silly. And able to kill at the blink of an eye. You get the same sense of unease, as you come to know him, that the late comedian Andy Kaufman and present day Sacha Baron Cohen are famous for invoking. What's next you wonder... an offer of a plate of cookies...a challenge to a nude wrestling match?

At the last, I ended by cringing a bit - mon semblable, mon frere - at just how closely Algernon resembled...well, your humble reviewer! And therein lies the mastery. Like Henry James "The Turn of The Screw", or a moebius strip, at the end of the novel, you're back again assessing a really strange character: the phantom in the mirror, that voice in your head, you, y'all. You! ( )

Pfalling in love with a vase, what sort of nonsense will I get up to next. ( )