Morris Lurie (1938–2014)

Morris Lurie (1938–2014) was a much-loved author of comic novels, short stories, essays, plays, and children’s books, and he was amazingly versatile. Many years ago I enjoyed reading The Twenty-Seventh Annual African Hippopotamus Race (1969) with The Offspring, but more recently I discovered his writing for adults: the tragic-comic novel Hergesheimer in the Present Tense (2014) focussing on the travails of a middle-aged man (see my review); and the poignant To Light Attained (2008), an autobiographical novel following his daughter’s suicide, described by Liam Davidson in his review “as a searing account of heartbreaking loss” (see my review). So I was interested to come across some of his early work, just recently re-issued by Melbourne publishers Hybrid.

This is part of the blurb from their website:

This ebook brings together two of Lurie’s novels, the comic Rappaport, [1966] which focuses on a day in the life of a young Melbourne antique dealer and his immature friend, Friedlander, and Rappaport’s Revenge [1973] where the characters, transplanted to London, are further chronicled. These are followed by several short stories: “Rappaport Lays an Egg”, “The Death of Rappaport”, “Dirty Friends”, “Rappaport Dragged Over the Coals,” “Rappaport Takes Lunch”, and “Rappaport and Friedlander Meet in Heaven”.

Lurie has been compared with acclaimed American Jewish writers such as Philip Roth, Saul Bellow and Woody Allen. Morris Lurie died on 8 October 2014. His unique voice will be sorely missed.

Rappaport brings us the world of St Kilda in the days before high-rise and trendy bars as it chronicles one day in the life of Rappaport, a middle-aged man who runs an ‘antique’-and-collectibles shop that’s a jumble of clutter and junk. He’s a hoarder:

The morning tastes bitterly of vanilla slices and jam and flaky pastry as Rappaport gets out of his car. His face is red on this morning in early Spring, at a few minutes past ten, full of breathing. ‘Good morning, Joe.’ It is Mrs Williams at her front door, as it is every morning. ‘Morning, Mrs W, how’s the wooden leg?’ Rappaport says. He says it mechanically and automatically, without thinking, but oh Mrs Williams is so obviously delighted, she seems to shine, that the weight of the morning lifts from Rappaport’s heart. ‘Oh, you are a one, Joe,’ she says, as Rappaport comes round to give her his usual smile and wink and two-fingered salute, and as he does so he drops his ring of twenty-eight keys in a rattling clump onto the footpath, cupboard keys, front-door keys, back-door keys, suitcase keys, the key to a typewriter which he long ago sold, the key to a house he no longer lives in, toy keys, car keys, duplicates, keys for locks long lost but close to his heart, others, with the trams rattling past in the street.

Lurie, Morris. Rappaport Compleat (Kindle Locations 36-45). Hybrid Publishers. Kindle Edition.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/08/04/rappaport-by-morris-lurie/… (meer)