Boys and Girls Together, William Goldman (1964)

Some time in the 1970s, when my older sister was in high school, she went through a phase where she read several books by William Goldman. Goldman was a popular author who wrote both novels and screenplays. Today he's probably best known for The Princess Bride (which at that time was just a book and not yet a movie), but he also wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Marathon Man and The Stepford Wives (but not Lord of the Flies, which is by William Golding).

If the preface to The Princess Bride is to be trusted (which it probably isn't), of all Goldman's novels the one most savaged by the critics was Boys and Girls Together. It's also the one that I happened to pick up from my sister's collection to read. I think the paperback I have in front of me is the same copy we read 25 years ago. (Not the same cover as in the picture here.) I read it once then, maybe once or twice since, and then not for a long time. I'm not sure what made me pick it up again last year. I guess I just saw it on the shelf and thought, "Oh, I remember that book. Sort of."

Boys and Girls Together tells the stories of several individuals who range from neurotic to totally fucked up. Their separate individual stories are traced from childhood to the present, jumping from one to another, until they all come together in a big climax at the end. (Hence the title.)

No one comes out of it well. On average, a lead character's life is ruined, with a few coming out merely traumatized and a few others being utterly destroyed. It's a pretty fucked up story. I'm not sure why, but I enjoy reading that sort of thing. It's a mini-genre of movies I like, too: the story of totally messed up people trying to get themselves together and mostly failing. I wouldn't say this is a great book, nor do I want to reread it every two years, but I do sort of like it.

The era falls uncomfortably between contemporary and not-contemporary. When a book is set in the past, it's easy enough to adapt to the idea. This one is set in the present ("bold, shocking novel of our times!" the cover exclaims), but it was published in 1964, the year before I was born. The main characters are coming into adulthood right about then, which means their childhoods are in the 1940s and 1950s. There's also quite a bit about some characters from the previous generation who would thus be my grandparents' age.

The result is that though it has a contemporary feel, a lot of the cultural background is dated. Gender roles, in particular, feel wrong. They're less distant that in, say, Jane Austen, but somehow because it's "modern" the difference is more noticeable. Some of the characters are homosexual, and there's quite a bit about the struggle of hiding that, first from oneself and then from others. If any of my readers are old enough to remember what it was like to be gay in 1950s and happen to have read this book, I'd be curious to hear your opinion on how accurate it feels.

My notes on this book are sparse. Mostly they just flag some peculiarities of usage. For example, Goldman writes, "Aaron lighted a cigarette." Was that normal usage then? Today I would expect to read that he lit a cigarette.

Another usage question delightfully pops up in the middle of an otherwise unrelated conversation. Charley, who is the least fucked up of the main characters, works as an editor in a publishing house. His co-worker, Archie, is an "honest lecher", a handsome married man who cheats at every opportunity.

As it turns out, Charley is scoring with her, and he is the last one Archie would suspect. He seems so unlike the cheating kind, which is part of what makes their affair so difficult. She is Jenny, his secretary. Neither of them intended to have an affair, but it sort of happened, as an indirect result of her rejecting Archie when he hit on her.

Charley is the strong, silent type. Not what you'd normally expect for a word guy. Yet he also has wit. In a later episode — they end their affair several times but somehow it always comes back — she kisses him and he says, aloud, "Jenny kiss'd me."

Except with the unexpected apostrophe, Goldman doesn't tell you, but this alludes to another bit of English verse I love. This time it's Leigh Hunt:

I don't know what to make of this next passage. As in many books, sections are set off with a double-space between paragraphs. This section is very short, just two sentences, set off on either side. Today, the language is a bit shocking. Was it shocking in 1964? I don't know.

But she does live there. New York is where Jenny had the affair with Charley. She gave him an ultimatum, he refused to leave his wife, so she quit her job and went back to Minnesota. Now she's coming back to get her things. And she ends up staying again.

Jenny and Charley aren't the main characters, by the way. Their story is just one of several strands woven together. It just happens to be the one I keep quoting today. In another strand, two lovers — their relationship is so dysfunctional I'm not sure they even qualify for the word — have a fight:

Assy? Elsewhere someone else is called "sort of whory".

One more word note, and then we're done. Relating a past experience, Walt says, "I was pretty squiffed." Squiffed? Turns out that's one of the many many synonyms for intoxicated. New to me.

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