The Catfish Man: A Conjured Life (1980) by Jerome Charyn

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Catfish Man: A Conjured Life (1980)

by Jerome Charyn

New York: 33/105

The Bronx: 4/7

      I can't remember this ever happening before, but I could not find a single review of this novel on the internet.  I used Google Books and found a reference to a review that appeared in Kirkus Reviews but that review is not online.  The New York Times reviewed plenty of his books, and he wrote reviews for The New York Times, but they did not review this book, which is today what we would call a work of "auto-fiction." 

   Jerome Charyn is one of those authors who will be revisited when he passes away but appears to be done with publishing books.  While he published, he was incredibly prolific, with over 50 titles to his name, including a run of 12 detective novels about a Jewish detective in New York City, several graphic novels, works of non-fiction about Quentin Tarantino and Ping-Pong and a grip of fictionalized biographies of historical figures- his book about Emily Dickinson caused a minor uproar when he put it out in 2010.  

   The Catfish Man is an example of his auto-fiction.  Apparently he wrote more than one auto fictional book but I can't figure out which they are among his oeuvre.   The first fifty pages, describing his childhood in the Bronx and attending an arts magnet high school in Manhattan are interesting- particularly his participation in a nascent weight-lifting culture in the Bronx in the 1950's.  He attends Columbia University and finds work ghosting adventure stories for the uncle of a classmate under a pseudonym.  Up to this point, The Catfish Man is a pretty typical NYC bildungsroman.  After graduation however, the author-protagonist relocates to New Orleans in pursuit of a story about a New Orleans based 19th century chess master who met an early death.

   Here, The Catfish Man goes badly off the rails, as the protagonist loses his mind-quite literally- and is institutionalized outside of New Orleans.  He escapes, goes back to NY, then back to the South, landing outside of Texas, where he takes over a gang of latino child bandits.   Here, The Catfish Man lurches into incoherence.  I can't remember reading a book where mental illness is treated so casually and unsatisfactorily.  I couldn't tell you the nature of the mental illness at play or why it manifests itself. It makes the last two hundred pages of the book remarkably tedious to read.