Today we’re flooded with commentary and speculation on the possibility of a fascist regime in the U.S., penned by workaday journalists, bloggers, academics, talking heads, and even those of us who have dutifully kept up with it all may struggle to recall the details of any single take; each is convincing enough in the moment, but forgotten soon after the closure of its browser tab. Many of the memorable qualities, both compelling and frustrating, of Brodkey’s piece owe to his being a fiction writer, and more than that, a fiction writer who tirelessly, even obsessively dedicated himself to exploring his own perception of amorphous, ambiguous circumstances in medias res.
“When I was working on my dissertation at the University of Chicago, I was often asked by fellow graduate students how my ‘research’ was going. The question always made me laugh.”
His father’s library becomes the narrator’s “Arcanum,” a sanctuary where he can find God in writing outside the Bible. Finding photo albums and copies of Motherdying in this sanctuary, however, also draws the narrator into the novel’s other—and more moving—primary strand: the Freudian odyssey into family and identity that he must undertake if he is to find salvation.
Since it was founded in 2009, The Point has remained faithful to the Socratic idea that philosophy is not just a rarefied activity for scholars and academics but an ongoing conversation that helps us all live more examined lives. We rely on reader support to continue publishing.
