Authors: David Gilbert
T
HE BOOK WAS CALLED
The Propagators
, though I have changed the title as well as the story and the name of the author—let’s call him Christopher Denslow—who grew up in New York and attended Collegiate and then Williams—or those equivalents—and graduated with a five-hundred-page manuscript under one arm and under the other a half-dozen short stories written during a summer internship studying the western lowland gorilla. Physical anthropology was his true major and his absolute passion, or so he told
The New York Times
in an arts section profile. Young Mr. Denslow was photographed in front of the Congo Forest display at the Bronx Zoo, with Zuri, a twenty-six-year-old silverback, squatting behind the glass. The article was titled “Savage Beast, Meet Your Music,” and it appeared soon after
The New Yorker
published one of his short stories—“Land Minds”—and
Harper’s
published another—“The King Is Gong”—and Farrar, Straus and Giroux had won the bidding war for a two-book deal, a novel and a collection of stories, the price rumored to be in the high sixes, maybe even peeking into the magical seven realm. “I’m still in shock,” he told the reporter, though Christopher Denslow was too young to properly convey shock, only good fortune as reasonable fate.
“I don’t even consider myself a real writer,” he said, shaking his head as if hearing the collective groan from a thousand MFA students. “I’m just glad people are responding to the work, but I’ll be even gladder—see, that’s not even a proper word—but I’ll be happier when I’m back in Gabon studying the possible causes of fibrosing cardiomyopathy in these great apes.”
All of this happened a year earlier (and
gladder
is in fact a proper word), and now a fresh batch of publicity cooled the racks as
The Propagators
was hitting bookstores in less than a week. The early reviews read like a coronation.
From
Publishers Weekly:
Starred Review
.
After all the buzz generated by twenty-four-year-old Denslow’s literary splash, finally we have a book to judge
—The Propagators—
not so much a book but a ripple that grows into a wave. The novel tells the story of Ana, a bonobo born in captivity and raised by Dr. Maurice Quine, a professor of behavioral psychology at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Quine and his wife, Clarissa, treat Ana like a human child, teaching her how to eat with silverware; how to dress; how to act as just another member of the Quine family alongside the couple’s two other children, Peg and Billy. Ana also learns sign language—she is a gifted student—and the mixology behind a perfect martini. But as she grows older, she becomes difficult to handle, uncertain of her place in this nuclear tree, and in one horrifying but heartbreaking scene, sexually aware. By fifteen she is no longer manageable and is sent back to the Congo for “rehabilitation.” Denslow tells the story in alternating voices, from Quine to Clarissa to Peg and Billy, as well as Lucy Steers, the graduate student in primatology who takes on the task of reintroducing the chimp into the wild. All of this works as both a satire on postwar America and a thoughtful meditation on misplaced dreams, the pitfalls of conformity, of colonialism, the rise and fall of feminism. It is the human condition as seen through an ape. Every character is a wonder of creation, but what makes this book sing are the chapters devoted to Ana. Here Denslow limits her vocabulary to only a thousand words with basic grammar, but he wields those words and that grammar with a poetry that is a miracle to behold. We are Ana as she watches a college football game; as she befriends a stray cat; as she huddles in the jungle, clutching an umbrella leaf like a blankie. One thinks of
Frankenstein,
of
Born Free,
of
Ozzie and Harriet,
of
Civilization and Its Discontents,
but
The Propagators
is uniquely its own rare breed, a great book by a young writer
.
Magazines as varied as
Vogue
and
New York
and the
American Journal of Primatology
featured profiles of this writer with his moody good looks, his mouth a riff of late-night guitar, his nose a favorite line of W. S. Merwin, his eyes an old movie you stay up late watching, and always there was that shrug in his demeanor as if the camera were a game of chess and he was eight moves ahead. Christopher Denslow was the real deal. And if that wasn’t enough, he was also rich. His father, L. F. Denslow, was the father of quant trading, which he helped develop as a faculty member at Columbia and then incorporated into an eponymous hedge fund started long before hedge funds became de rigueur for the ambitious. Fifteen billion under management, never a down year, even during the Great Collapse and its myriad aftershocks. All of this preamble is to say that Christopher Denslow’s book party was not your normal book party, not in the era of book parties dwindling to a get-together in a friend’s gallery, or a friend’s loft, like resigned protesters protesting the death penalty, the cause bigger than any sad individual story. But tonight was different. Tonight
The Propagators
was getting its glass raised at the Frick, where the senior Denslow happened to be chairman of the board.
“I bet there’s a list,” Andy said, nervous.
He was lingering outside with Emmett, Andy smoking, Emmett taking in the architecture as if the masonry had a beat. The modest entrance appeared almost academic, like a door to a private school, and every few minutes adultlike people sprung up the steps with enviable confidence. Andy tried cribbing answers from over their shoulders.
“And I bet there’s a cute girl checking the list, not like model cute but like interesting cute, unexpected cute, like a blond Italian, short hair, long neck, squinting like there’s no way you’re on the list but nice try, poppy.”
“Poppy?” Emmett made a face.
“Whatever. Bottom line, there’s a list.”
“And we’re on the list.”
“I think we’re on the list. I mean that’s what she told me.”
“Then we’re on the list.”
“That’s my assumption. She’s in charge of getting all the names, the who’s coming, the who’s not coming, the finalizing, the printing, the
collating, the distribution, all the general list duties. Jeanie practically insisted I come. This Denslow guy has the same agent as my dad.”
“We’re definitely on the list then.”
“I fucking hate lists. Nothing good has ever come from a list.”
“Don’t be so uptight, uncle.”
Andy stiffened at the implication. “Am I being uptight? Shit. Maybe I am uptight. Under certain situations. Situationally uptight. Maybe this is a sign of my future uptightness, my total uptightness. Or I could just be easily nervous. Socially anxious. Does insecure equal uptight? Am I being uptight about the definition of uptight?” Andy rocked with near-autistic focus. “Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“No problem,” said Emmett. “It’s almost entertaining.”
“That’s because you’re from California, dude.”
Five twenty-somethings rolled down 70th like they had rehearsed every step, two women bookended by three men, all of them assured in their right to whoop away reality and triumph over doubt. They were like the new robber barons, entitlement their steel.
Andy lit up another cigarette. “Look at these assholes.”
They walked into the Frick like a collective high-five.
“And look at you,” Andy said to Emmett.
“Huh?”
“I mean compared to me. This suit I’m wearing is fucking ridiculous. I should have just gone the button-down and khaki route. Maybe a jacket. But this is like I’m auditioning for Nathan Detroit.”
Emmett smiled. “I played Sky Masterson in our high school production.”
“Of course you did. I was the one who painted the backdrops.”
“Should I sing a little ‘Luck Be a Lady’?”
“Don’t you dare.” Andy turned to his apartment across the street. “I could quickly go up and change. It’ll only take a few minutes. We could smoke some pot.”
“You look fine.”
“I think you’re closer to six two, by the way. And how big are your feet?”
“Size thirteen.”
“Holy crap. That was probably a picture of your penis I sent to Jeanie.” Andy had a final drag and—“Okay, let’s go”—flicked the cigarette, a weak flick, more of a spastic twitch of pinstripes and dated lapels, possible bad breath, sweat like popcorn popping against his shirt, a zit sighted on his forehead with the steady intent of an assassin who any second could pull the trigger and eliminate this example of un-glamorous youth, the only virgin within a three-block radius, this, this, this—“Andrew Dyer?” he said to the as-expected lovely girl manning the list, her finger falling down the page, lips muttering “Dire, Dire, Dire,” until landing on “Dyer +1” and giving his name a purple check. The upstroke hit him like a defibrillating jolt.
Emmett patted his back. “We’re in.”
“Okay, okay,” Andy said, newly invigorated with fresh anxieties, like he was an undercover agent in danger of being compromised by a wrong word, his superiors listening to his every move from an unassuming van—
Vito’s Plumbing
—parked in one of the dark alleys in his head. Andy wanted to lift his arm and whisper into his cuff, What’s my mission again?
“Quite a place,” Emmett said.
“If you want to sound smart say it’s your favorite museum in New York.”
“Got it.”
“Every painting is a masterpiece, that’s what you say.”
“Got it.”
“Amazing the extravagance of the Gilded Age, that’s what you say.”
“But I think this is post–Gilded Age,” Emmett said.
“What?”
“I read somewhere it was built in the nineteen-teens.”
“Isn’t that Gilded Age?”
“Technically no.”
“Shit.” Andy’s nerve took a hit. He heard
Abort! Abort!
in his ear.
A cute woman seemed happy to see them, her hands offering a tray of Chablis.
They both took glasses.
“Cheers,” Andy said. Holding a drink helped. It opened a small orbit
of belonging, like the glass was his personal moon. Having Emmett here helped as well. When Andy picked him up outside the Carlyle, a tremendous feeling of relief hit him, like a long-forgotten thing suddenly remembered, the thing no longer important but the remembering a wonder.
“Where’s this girl of yours?” Emmett asked.
“Don’t know.”
Most of the crowd was gathered in the Garden Court, with its vaulted glass ceiling and pleasing greenery, its purling fountain—a cool, tranquil spot advertised in guidebooks as a cool, tranquil spot. But its main pull this evening was the full bar. That was the sun to this solar system. Shoulders jostled for their own drinkable moons, people circling in various paths, some spinning into outer galleries, the Diet Cokes and Perriers, while Dewar’s and Bombay never ventured far beyond the home star. Four distinct bodies seemed to travel around this party and we might as well continue with this planetary theme and start our stargazing with those who most resembled Venus. These were the people who worked in publishing: the editors, the publicists, the marketers, the agents, all of whom arrived on time if almost early, not just because this was a work event, but because this promised to be a rare work event that reminded them of when their industry burned bright in the New York sky, a place of true atmosphere instead of greenhouse gases. The excellent catering was also a draw. Dinner tonight came in a dozen bites. These people generally clustered in small groups, mainly so they could gorge without embarrassment—oh my God, the artichoke hearts with veal and ricotta is not of this world—but also so they could rain down sulfur on the contemptible around them, right out of Trollope or Balzac, they might mutter, gesturing with herbed cheese straws. For the most part they were the only ones who took in the art. It was such a treat to see these paintings without the, well, without the crowds, which was a kinder term than the actual humanity that amassed in their head. If they had to vote on a favorite, Duccio’s
The Temptation of Christ on the Mountain
would probably win, even though they stood in front of the Vermeers longer. All of them had gone to nifty schools; all of them had chosen the love of books over straight commerce; and
all of them realized, as every year their horizon grew shorter, not the mistake they had made, no—yes please to the sliced fillet on French bread with triple-grain mustard—but the miscalculation in terms of their place within the transit of passing times. Publishing would survive, they all agreed. It’s not as if people were going to stop reading books. But then a stumped silence would follow as though they had been handed two pieces of wood and told to make fire. Better to shrug and grab the last scallop ceviche served in a delightful faux ice-cream cone.
Towering over Venus were those on Jupiter, also known as the friends of Laurence and Kitty Denslow, the proud parents, who could not help themselves and had to invite everyone, they were just so thrilled with their son. Laurence beamed as his hand reached out again and again, a Semper Fi squeeze followed by a gesture toward the table pyramided with books and a suggestion of buying a copy, or maybe three, “We need a bestseller to pay for this party!” while nearby Kitty laughed just like her serve in tennis, flat but precise, “Imagine what I’ll do when poor Christopher gets married!” Most of their friends were rich, it just happened that way, like a baseball game attracts baseball fans. Wealth was the rocky core and provided a heat warmer than the sun. These people spun together in rapid rotation, the names other people dropped, wearing their ever-present satellites—the Hamptons, St. Barth’s, Palm Beach, Aspen—like jewels on a necklace. The Frick, while grand, was within their realm of real estate and sometimes it seemed they browsed as if shopping. They were all happy to see one another even if they saw one another all the time, but their company confirmed in them a sense of depth, a surface without surface, that they were the good rich, the proper rich, the responsible rich, unlike the crassness this city now attracted. These people were hospital wings and museum courts. But enough of this tacky talk. They were here to celebrate Christopher. What a tremendous young man, they told Laurence, who towered over the crowd even if he was only five foot seven while Kitty boomed her good cheer down the line and mentioned how her father wrote a bit of poetry in his day.