Books: Umbilicus Cut: The Adventures of a Wandering Phallus, by my dad

If you like the sound of this book, too bad—you won't be able to go buy it or check it out of the library or read it online. It's an unedited manuscript—roughly 350 pages—existing only as two paper copies (one of which is on my desk, recently photocopied from a garage-aged first edition) and, perhaps by now, one electronic scan encrypted into a Bay Area PC. Attempts were made, I understand, to publish it in the early 1980s (it having been written in that time, or perhaps the very late 70s), but these attempts failed, and since that time, I've only known of it by rumor—something of a suburban legend in our household. When I was very young, it was just "Dad's book," (usually spoken of by my mom, not without some derision). When I was old enough (18? 20?) it was given a name, or at least a summary of content (again by my mom, and again dismissively)—"The Tale of [his] Wandering Penis." I've made a joke of it countless times, using it as an example when explaining to friends the level of conversational intimacy into which my mother invites me regularly. But now, by the collision of two curiosities (mine and my father's), I have a boxed photocopy of the manuscript, which I've read, highlighted, and scrawled across.

Because the book is, in part, a (semi-?) factual, memoirish account of the few years preceding my birth—because the book contains "confessions" (often of a sexual nature, but not always) by my father, and descriptions of friends and family members (and his relationship (or non-relationship)) with she would become my mother, I wonder whether I should write here about it in a strictly literary way, as if they author were a person completely unknown to me (it seems that would be most. . . judicious), or whether I should engage with it on a personal level, as a means of entry into my father's personality, history, desires. (In a way it's impossible not to, and I can't imagine he would give me the manuscript for any other reason). I was surprisingly impressed with portions of his narration; this will likely come off as condescending and cold, but I am that—particularly when speaking of or with him: I never realized he was this smart. (I will backpedal in a moment—sit tight.) It is because of this. . . surprise? confusion? that his narrator, so transparently his own self, is so distant from the actuality of the man I know today and identify as Dad.

The book opens very strongly, and continues, despite its confused trajectory and disorganization, to show flashes of utter brilliance (hence, I never realized he was that smart). Most of the brilliant things include Pynchonesque ditties, DeLillo-like lists of products (mind you, UC precedes White Noise by roughly five years), and Rushdien magical realism (radio-wave receiving nose, meet talking penis). The usually weaker portions include Bukowsian beat chronicles of days spent in San Francisco's bars, talking to women, going to parties, smoking grass. The beat narration isn't at all completely unsalvageable—there's a vivid flashback chapter set in South America and strong, evocative descriptions of the crumbling Chinatown rattrap—a residential hotel—where he lived while he wrote. These sections aren't far from the spirit of Fante in their excitement and their frustration and their struggle; my mother had pegged my father's book as a rip-off Henry Miller, but his discussions of sex acts are far too tame, and he lacks the self-aggrandizing tone by which Miller is identifiable. The most explicit description, in fact, that he includes of a sex act (in the "straight" beat sections, that is) makes use of himself and a male feline (it's rather short and rather well done, believe it or not).

The book, again, is poorly organized. Two plots (maybe more, but there are only, at least, two distinct styles of narration, and two "worlds"—one in which penises talk and one in which they do no such thing; one in which Beebis (the penis) abandons Zeke (the man, now a woman, with a writerly comfort with intersexuality not otherwise found until Middlesex), and one in which Al fumbles around the Bay Area looking for women and work) don't exactly intertwine so much as intersect, skittishly. They parallel each other enough that I wonder whether his intention wasn't to do something akin to the treatment in The Grapes of Wrath, in which the chapters toggle between a metaphoric tortoise's struggle across a dusty road and the protagonist's family's struggle across the depression-era country. The result, whatever the intention, is more of a Lynchian intersection, in which characters are doubled, but not precisely, where events repeat themselves, but not in the same way, where deja vu persists, but nothing fits when you go back; there is no code book because there is no code. Although I am plenty impressed by parts of this book, I'm not impressed enough to imagine that my father is presaging Lynch. Presaging Eugenides, sure; DeLillo, maybe; but not Lynch. (I will, though, have to give him assigned movies; he might rather like the crazy bastard.)

There are, of course, more and more and more specificities; I could easily describe scenes in the magical realist section, like one in which Beebis, the happily disembodied penis, is treated to a luxurious "meal," in which his current concubine sits on a cushion at a table covered with small bowls containing myriad sauces, and she dips him into each one, and licks him clean—the list of flavors and textures is one of the high points (and the mental image is inspiring enough that some renegade cartoonist might want to make this into an animated feature for adult audiences). Rather than list the prime blocs here, I would rather refine the manuscript (beginning with great cuts; more toward the end than the beginning, where it just peters out with a whimper rather than tying itself up properly) and then reassess its viability. My father told me that he'd love to have it published. Maybe it will make it onto LuLu one of these days.