John William Barry and Neil Countryman, though just fictional characters in David Guterson’s newest novel, The Other
First, we all three graduated in 1974 from high school. We “were of the generation that was slightly late for the zeal of the sixties and slightly early for disco. The most popular song, I think, in ‘74 was ‘Takin’ Care of Business’ by Bachman-Turner Overdrive, though the Doobie Brothers were also esteemed. . . . We were seven when JFK was killed, twelve when King was killed, and fourteen when four students were killed at Kent State, but by the time we were old enough to fathom ‘the Zeitgeist’ (a term getting play in ‘74), there was detente, H-bomb drills were quaint, and there was no more draft. . . . Gerald Ford became president in ‘74 and began hitting people with golf balls . . . .”
Second, we all three ran the 880 in high school track. Again, in Countryman’s (Guterson’s) voice: “Ask any track coach. The half-mile is a race for unadulterated masochists. Neither a sprint nor a distance event, it has the worst qualities of both. It’s not a glorious race, either. A lot of people can name a sprinter or two — Carl Lewis, for example — or a famous miler like Roger Bannister, but can very many name even a single half-miler? No athletic romance attaches to the half-mile. It’s not a legendary or even notable feat to beat other runners over 880 yards. At track meets, the half-mile contest is somehow lost between more compelling competitions, an event that unfolds while fans thumb their programs or use the bathroom. Into this gap of a race, this sideshow, step runners in search of a deeper agony than they can find elsewhere. They want to do battle with suffering itself. It’s the trauma they want, the anguished ordeal. It’s the approximately two minutes of self-mortification or private crucifixion. All half-milers have a similar love of pain. So this race is an intimation and an opening. In two minutes’ time, you get a glimpse.”
Guterson’s novel is about a wealthy, tortured young man, John William Barry, who takes up a primitive existence in the wilderness (Think: “Into the Wild,” if you’ve read Jon Krakauer’s book or seen Sean Penn’s movie) to escape all the lies and hypocrisies he sees all around him.
But even more it’s about the devoted friendship of Countryman. The more strange his friend becomes — when it’s clear he’s more of an obsessed, self-focused survivalist than a wilderness hobbyist — the more he thinks about putting the friendship behind him.
I thought these words were powerful: “I left in the morning, and for a month I didn’t go to the cave anymore, or to the trailer on the Hoh, preferring my own life, preferring it unencumbered by any duty to my friend, or by the necessity I’d felt, for three and a half years now, to put up with him. Walking from building to building on campus, or reading at the library on a rainy afternoon, I thought I’d finally let John William slip into the past. Most friendships end with a whimper, not a bang, and I considered letting ours end that way, but this, as it turned out, was a fantasy with no force behind it. There was this loyalty I felt, however strange.”
That’s what moved me as I read this novel. The loyalty. Toward a friend — even as the friend proved to be difficult and strange.
I’ve been blessed with such friends. I’ve been carried and nourished by their loyalty.
What a great blessing!
