(Added June 2023)
…
“All along they’d known. They’d known right from the beginning what they wanted and what they were going to force him to do. Guy was an inconvenience to his father now, so he was passing him back to his mother. The way she’d passed Guy to his father years ago when he was little. Like he was nothing.
“‘I won’t go,’ he said.”
…
Concluding our mini-series on runaways, meet Guy Lenny, an everyday, “real world” youngster who runs away from home for everyday, real-world reasons. Guy runs because “His father and mother were playing ping-pong and he was the ball” [Chapter 13]. Guy runs because he feels hurt and betrayed. He runs because he is overwhelmed. He runs because his needs exceed his abilities.
We always intended to end this unofficial mini-series with Guy Lenny, which School Library Journal (via ERIC link) calls “The well-handled complexity of people who struggle with conflicting loves for children and spouses; a broken marriage; and the transformation of a reasonably content boy into an alienated young man.” We (this reviewer; me, myself, and I) would call this novel a “pound cake,” a pound of eggs in this cake, the richness and sheer weight of it evident even in its miniature slice. We would call it “brilliant.”
Twelve-year-old Guy lives in 1971 Syracuse, New York State, USA, in the shadow of the “Kinney Iron Works” and the historic Oil City industrial complex. He is as close to puberty as he can get without being in it. He fears that his larger, stronger friends will leave him behind. Guy’s parents are divorced. His mother left them so that she could marry an Army major. Guy has not seen his mother in seven years. But in the space of one volatile September month, Guy’s parents will reverse their custody arrangement so that it is his father he won’t be seeing again.
In construction, the novel is spare in language (especially few adjectives and adverbs) but intricate in metaphor and imagery. In terms of setting and plot, the novel is set in a specific place and time; but places change from day to day whereas relationship problems are timeless. The reader who is not informed of the specific date probably would not guess it from the storyline. In terms of weaving the narrative, we find multiple lines of foreshadowing, mirroring, and/or parallels. Essentially, the minor characters and minor trials introduce “beta test” exercises for Guy Lenny to pass or fail before he must confront the major trials created by the major characters.
The storyline features five major characters and a negotiable number of minor characters. Regarding the major characters, let us start with an actual Major. (You know he would have it no other way.) To be precise, Major Charles Beamon of the USA Army, “an expert in heavy armaments” and newly posted to Washington, D.C. [Chapter 3]. Al Lenny calls him “the General. Oh, don’t give me that. He loves it” [Chapter 15]. The Kirkus Review calls him “insensitive.” Major Charles Beamon can brag and can be incapable of “reading the room.” He is also Guy Lenny’s legal stepfather.
Beamon’s sister-in-law Aunt Sylvia tells young Guy, “Charles just wasn’t used to children, especially small children” [Chapter 3]. (Before we condemn him, let us remember that it would be worse if he hid this attitude until after he had been saddled with an unwanted child.)
Normally Charles and Guy never would meet in life, not without the connection through Jean. She finally has convinced her husband to let her son live with them. Now she campaigns to convince Guy that his stepfather is “a real boy’s man” [Chapter 8]. Twice [Chapter 12]. This is a peculiar sales pitch. Firstly, Jean seems to imply that a boy is not a child. Secondly, it implies that all boys are identical. Thirdly, it implies that a “real” man will mold said identical boys into identical men.
(In our personal headcanon, we predict an awkward discussion about Guy’s career, if and when. What do “real boys” and “real boy’s men” do? Doctor? Violinist? Clergy? “Absolutely—as long as it’s an Army doctor. If you must—as long as it’s in the Army Strings or Orchestra. Never thought about it, but yes—as long as it’s an Army chaplain. But all of these men will need officers to tell them what to do, which is just as important.”)
These characters met once, seven years ago, and that was over a kindergartener’s ice cream cone. (Was that an audition?) Yet the Major declares, “I know the kind of boy you are. Fishing’s all right, but put a gun in your hand and you’ll never let it go” [Chapter 12]. Major Beamon does not want a child. He doesn’t even want a son. He wants an apprentice. In the very opposite of heart-warming, Jean proposes recruiting Guy to serve in that capacity.
As a storyteller the Major might be entertaining from a safe distance. He takes two fortune cookies because one is insufficient. (The second fortune, “The superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions,” is particularly comical.) When he is told that Guy likes fishing, the Major reminisces about deep-sea fishing and his struggle to catch a Great Blue Marlin. (“It took all day!”) If the Major had listened, Guy could have told him about the “modest,” contemplative nature of family fishing: of “broil[ing] the fish over the coals. Maybe a steak too … set up the tent … then they’d sit and watch the fire, look for shooting stars, and maybe talk a little” [Chapter 1]. It’s also supposed to be restorative for veterans with PTSD. But the Major dismisses little fishing as not “real.”
Is there any sympathetic quality in Major Beamon? Well, he probably will insist that his wife is treated with the utmost respect.
Also, there are ways to understand him. Consider a fictional Army officer from the television series Home Improvement. In that format a Colonel Patterson muses, “I had ten thousand troops who worshipped the ground I walked on. Now I sit at home all day with one woman who vacuums the ground I walk on.” In a family argument, the Colonel complains that “My soldiers were under control! Then I’d come home to your mother and you five girls, and I never knew what the [swearing] was going on!” A comparison between a television colonel and this novel’s Major Beamon makes plain that family is not necessarily incompatible with service. Still, Major Beamon has been married for seven years. If he had changed his mind about children, he would have had them by now.
Having said the above, this human contradiction, this sophisticated clod, is not fashioned as a commentary on either his military or the Vietnam War in which said military was then-engaged. Let the Gentle Browser know that author Harry Mazer served in the US Army Air Force during World War II, was shot down over Czechoslovakia, and received a Purple Heart and an Air Medal with four bronze oak leaf clusters. Mazer also edited the short story collection Twelve Shots: Outstanding Stories About Guns (© 1997). So if we raise an eyebrow at Major Beamon’s overwhelming personality, it is not because Beamon is in the Army. Beamon is an overwhelming personality who happens to be in the Army.
One can see why such a man married Jean. She delights in being stationed “all over the world. Japan, the Philippines, Hawaii, Taiwan, Saigon, Washington D.C.” [Chapters 3, 5, 12]. She approves of his ambition. “Charles graduated from a military academy. He wasn’t from a rich family. He’s worked very hard to get where he is. But it was worth it” [Chapter 8]. Also, “she’s pretty. She doesn’t look like other mothers” [Chapter 12]. She looks good on his arm.
Winston Churchill once said, “The reason for having diplomatic relations is not to confer a compliment to but secure a convenience.” Certainly Jean Lenny Beamon plays the diplomat. Note that this is not the same as “diplomatic.” The Kirkus Review calls her “full of phony sweetness.” It is tempting to suggest that Guy calls his mother a “phony sweet” [Chapter 7] because Guy has been conditioned to parrot his father regarding said ex-wife. That doesn’t explain Jean’s actions.
Jean will compliment Emily on her “delicious” cooking and then not eat it [Chapter 15]. She will be Guy’s attentive, even adoring listener [Chapter 12], and then report it to her ex-husband [Chapter 13]. She can be a chameleon: she disparages a thrift-store painting that she herself purchased [Chapter 15]—and in doing so dismisses as unimportant the fact that Guy likes it. And she will tell “soft” lies. “I truly didn’t think it would be fair to you or Al to separate you. You were always your daddy’s boy” [Chapter 8]. Just because this is true does not mean that it is not also a lie. The Major said No. Even Aunt Sylvia, ever protective of her sister, refused to lie about that one.
Jean Lenny Beamon has seen an opportunity and she is seizing it. If she has to massage the message, she will do it. If Guy may have problems adjusting to his egocentric stepfather, she may pretend there is no such problem. As mentioned, she spends most of the book trying to convince both her husband and her son that said son is not a child but rather a tiny man who shares the Major’s interests. (Guy is not, and does not.)
Beverly Haley, one of the original reviewers [LANGUAGE ARTS, Volume 52, Number 8, November/December 1975], argues that Jean “feels limited and smothered by life with Guy’s father, who is content to have everything always remain the same.” Jean may have felt trapped in her first marriage; but is not her second marriage also a net to snare her? Perhaps that was her definition of freedom: to choose her own limitations.
Jean probably does love her son as much as she claims. She loved her life with Charles more. She gave up not only her firstborn but also any other children she might have had. It is a successful partnership; but it not an equal one.
That is a lesson that Emily would do well to study. Guy speaks of Emily unsympathetically, as if “Emily Her Again” is her real name. In a different story—what TV Tropes.org calls the “Kids Play Matchmaker” trope—Emily is exactly the woman that Guy would have chosen for his father. She loves fishing and the outdoors. All three of them prefer a “simple” meat-and-potato diet. Emily already performs some of Guy’s household chores for him. She shares Al’s blue-collar work ethic and his economic background. (Her success as an overhead crane operator is even more impressive considering the 1971 setting. See also: children’s book ©2023 Crane Jane! written by Andrea Griffing Zimmerman; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino.) No doubt their “meet-cute” would be at the IABSOR Iron Works Union (Local 60), their eyes meeting across a crowded fish-fry dining hall. Guy and Emily even look alike, both of them being wiry but strong.
Instead, Emily finds herself in the “Kids Play Match Breaker trope” storyline. “Guy had carried on a subterranean war with Emily. He didn’t like her, and he didn’t want to like her. He considered her an intrusion into their lives, and he was just waiting for the day that Pop got fed up with her” [Chapter 1]. Emily has endured this behavior for six months.
The result is that in the first chapter the reader meets her, she does something appalling. When Guy’s petulance causes Al to cancel their holiday camping trip, Emily waits until the father is out of earshot and then hisses, “Little jackass! See how you ruin things for everybody!” [Chapter 1]. (Can you imagine the contemporaneous Carol Brady spouting such expletives? Of course not. Even in the 21st Century this is inexcusable.)
Later, after Guy Lenny runs away, Emily snarks that “oh, he knows how to take care of himself, all right” [Chapter 17]. By this, she means that he will advance his own interests.
Yet if we remove these quotes from the narrative, Emily becomes sympathetic. She really tried with this kid. This edited Emily’s weakness is that she takes the bait. “Eating, again. After the big supper I made for you. I’m insulted” [Chapter 13]. Yes, Guy is being passive-aggressive, again. Still, Guy eats in twelve chapters. Maureen does an entire monologue on “the Guy Lenny Food Lecture” [Chapter 8]. In a different novel Emily would exclaim, “You know, I just realized that you’re a growing boy. Let me reheat some leftovers,” and a different Guy would happily eat them. But those are not the characters in this story.
It is convenient to blame Emily for Guy’s exile to Washington. “Try to understand. Emily and I wanted [sic] to get married, and the plain fact is you don’t get along with her. It wouldn’t be fair to her—you see what I mean?” [Chapter 13]. It also is tempting to suggest that Emily issued some off-screen ultimatum. After all, the Major did it and it worked. But what is unfair to Emily is the way that both father and son have treated her.
After the return of Jean Lenny Beamon, Guy is reluctant to visit his mother. He doesn’t know her. He asks his father why he must visit. “Are you going back with her?” / “Going back where with who?” / With her—my mother. She was your wife.” / “Come on, Guy. Grow up. That’s all over with” [Chapter 8]. It makes Guy look foolish that he asks the question; Guy does not even want his parents to be reunited. But the question itself is valid. Frankly, if Guy did not ask it, perhaps Emily should have done.
Think about this from Emily’s point of view. Her future husband did not end his first marriage. He was left, abandoned, dumped. The very furniture testifies to unresolved issues of the divorce. Al has had seven years to discard his ex-wife’s possessions. He refused.
(To be fair, Emily’s place also could be furnished with cast-off items from parents, et cetera. To clean up a line by George Carlin, have you ever noticed that other people’s stuff is scrap and your scrap is stuff? Nevertheless the relics of an ex-love have a unique significance that would justify a new wife’s concerns.)
If Al fretted about looking like a cad, he need only have picked up a telephone, hired a moving van, and directed them to deposit Jean’s property at her sister’s doorstep. Let Sylvia sort the pile for heirlooms, for charity, and for trash. (What is this you say, Aunt Sylvia? It should have gone directly to the trash? Then you do it, dear. You be the bad guy.)
Al did not make changes even if it would have increased his happiness. Al and Guy could have replaced Jean’s bookshelves with a sawdust table and a model train set. (Very popular, back in the day. All the more so, with two uncles in the railroad business.) And when the time came to make room for Emily’s belongings, Al’s belongings could double up. The console television would have fit beneath the table; no wasted footprint. Emily probably would have let them keep it, probably would have joined them.
Instead, the apartment is a shrine to the lost-long Jean Lenny. Could it be that Al still has feelings for his first wife?
As it happens, no. Further character development shows that Al is a creature of inertia and that Emily need not worry about divided loyalties. Well, maybe. Al is loyal to himself first. When it proved to be relatively easy to get rid of Jean’s child, he did it without hesitation.
Obviously Jean’s stuff is going away now, to make room for Emily’s belongings. Maybe it’s going to charity, maybe it’s going to live with God, but it’s going away. And Emily looks like the bad guy for being forced to clean up a mess that Al should have handled.
Before Emily marries Al, she might want to make a list. Firstly, to ask if they should move. (“So it will be our home, right from the start.”) No ghosts of lovely queens in emerald thrones. (The green chair is where Jean used to rock the baby.) On the plus side, a new apartment could be impervious to the three Washingtonians’ “buyer’s remorse.” (“Um, sorry, we just have the one bedroom now. I’m afraid we don’t have room for Guy, very sorry.”) On the minus side, before Emily makes the suggestion, she should consider whether Al would hold a grudge that she asked.
Secondly, Emily should ask herself if she wants to have children. If yes, does she want to have children with Al Lenny. Any children born to Al and Emily will be born with their “finger on the button.” Someday those children may ask, “If I do something wrong, will you get rid of me like you got rid of my brother?” What could their parents possibly say?
Thirdly, Emily should refuse to marry Al for at least another six months. Al says that “we wanted to get married” [Chapter 13]. The past tense suggests that the couple already passed a deadline, or at least a milestone.
Now it makes sense that the sooner their happiness together begins, the longer it will last. It also makes sense that Emily ought not to wait for too long—that they should wed before Al rationalizes that he already has the sex and the housekeeping, so why should he remarry? (Guy never did question how Emily got into the apartment when no one was awake to let her in.) But if Al and Emily get married too quickly, Emily might regret that choice as well.
If Emily is smart enough to stay out of the final argument between father and son, she probably is smart enough to wonder why Al wants Guy gone so quickly. It could be to take advantage of the Beamons’ “impulse purchase.” And of course it could be sheer guilt.
Or it could be burnout, exhaustion. Even Guy cites two pieces of evidence. One: “But lately he felt his father was going out of his way not to be alone with him. Almost as if he didn’t want to talk to Guy at all” [Chapter 1]. And two: “Sometimes Aunt Sylvia would invite [Guy] to stay with them for a weekend, but he didn’t like leaving his father alone” [Chapter 3]. Which came first: Guy’s clinginess or Al’s withdrawal? Chicken and egg. No one knows.
When was the last time that Guy and his Pop had a real talk? No data. When was the last time that Al Lenny spent 24 hours completely by himself? No work? No kid? No girlfriend? No idea.
Who are Al and Emily without Guy? To some extent that requires answering the question: who is Al without Guy? Emily would be taking a risk to marry Al before she knows who he is.
Guy has been named as an obstacle and a distraction. The couple Al and Emily need to find out who they are without obstacles, without distractions—who they are without excuses.
Unless something changes, Emily is marrying a man who rarely stands up for her. Al made very little effort to fix the “subterranean war” problem in-house. And when he did come up with a solution, it was the nuclear option: to permanently remove a child from the home and to lie about it.
“Just think of all the fun you’re going to have! Your mother could do things for you that I never could, working in the shop. You ought to jump at a chance like that. To travel and really see things! You’re a smart kid. You can understand how, with your mother wanting you, it all works out. But no one’s going to force you. It’s just a suggestion. I want you to think everything over. You think about it, Guy, the decision is yours” [Chapter 13].
Al Lenny’s schmooze campaign is designed to protect him from the consequences of this custody swap. Al tries to bribe Guy with “fun.” Al appeals to Guy’s sense of fairness. (Al deliberately ignores the fact that if Guy were to treat Emily with fairness, it would be for the first time.) Al tries to flatter Guy by calling him “smart” and insisting that Guy “can understand” the decision as well as any grown-up.
As a bonus, Al reminds his son that Jean and Charles enjoy a more affluent lifestyle. It is possible that yes, Guy could have a good time as a teenaged adventurer and scholar. Then again, Guy never would have been placed in the home of Charles and Jean if these perfect strangers had no legal claim on him, no matter how much money they had.
By appealing to economic motives, Al hopes to benefit from Impulse Purchase and to escape from any resulting Buyer’s Remorse. As an ironworker Al knows that he must work swiftly to shape the metal before it cools. Would Jean’s antiquated experience as the parent of a kindergartener be enough to sustain all three Washingtonians through the shock of total immersion? To Al, that’s their problem. If Guy, especially, makes the choice to go and then regrets it, Al could refuse to take him back. (“You made your bed; now lie in it,” so to speak.)
In the process, Al puts the responsibility upon a child to solve a grown-up problem. Some grown-ups have to go to court to solve the problems presented in this book.
Perhaps if Al had worked that hard to instruct his son and to correct him when he misbehaved, they would still be together. Example:
Emily will be my wife. These are my rules, my expectations, the rewards (if any), the consequences, and the deadline. Because no one disrespects another man’s wife. No one disrespects a wife. No one disrespects my wife. Never. Not ever ever.
Done properly, one such visit to Never-Ever-Land ought to do it.
(One might make allowance for distracted lapses and petty regressions. Al and Guy have seven years of bad habits to unlearn. But the message can be delivered in a day.)
If Al Lenny never learned how to do this, then why didn’t he talk to someone? Well, not everybody believes in family therapy. Others cannot afford it. Certainly Al may be too hurt or embarrassed by the loss of his first marriage to talk to relatives who witnessed it, such as Jean’s sister Sylvia, or Al’s uncles Ed and Tom. But even in 1971 there were options that were largely successful and private and free. Why not try premarital counseling at their house of worship? In fact some houses of worship insist upon it. (If they had one.) Why not talk to the school counselor? (They do more than just supervise detention; it’s a degree.) What about Parents Without Partners (established 1957)?
(For families with severe problems, there’s also Parents Anonymous, established 1967.)
As an ironworker Al knows that even a bridge or a ship needs maintenance. If Al needed a reasonable rest break, why not ask? Who would deny it to him?
Instead Al loses self-control and screams at a child:
“Listen to me! Listen to me! I’ve got a life of my own to live. You think I’ve got motherhood in my bones? I’m a normal man and I’ve done everything I could for you. Damn it, now it’s my turn. I’ve got to have my own life” [Chapter 15].
We could have a field day shredding this speech. Who asked him to be a mother? (Not Guy. Did he?) Is Al saying that he does not have fatherhood in his bones? Um, he will be a father for the rest of his life. Al wants his own life? Um, he has a child: that is his life. He meant that he has a chance for a new life? Too bad: he has old responsibilities. Al claims it is “normal” for a man to quit tending a child with six years to go? Well, it’s probably normal to wish to quit. But the world has some opinions on parents who actually quit.
But that is an impulsive rant or response to an impulsive rant or response. Let’s look at a professional’s carefully researched response.
In the excellent but sadly necessary book Divorce Poison by Dr(s). Warshak we find similar, albeit extreme examples of family disputes. (Note: some editions of the book are credited as “by Dr. Richard A. Warshak.” Others are credited as “by Dr. Richard A. Warshak and Dr. Sandra Warshak.” We are using the 2010 edition, ISBN 9780061863264.)
The nonfiction book Divorce Poison stresses that there are multiple forms of identification, favoritism, and rejection between parents and children. These include forms such as alignment, alienation, and “divorce poison.”
“Alignment” can occur even in happy families. The child may feel more comfortable with the parent who shares their temperament or their interests, and vice versa. Consider that a macho dad may feel less comfortable with a scholarly son, or a homemaker mom may feel less comfortable with her aggressive career-woman daughter.
“Alienation” is a drifting away. Contact may fade if a parent moves far away. Sometimes a child withdraws physically and emotionally from a person whom they feel is unreliable; say, from an alcoholic parent.
“Divorce poison” is the hatred. The cruelty. The war. The darkness.
In our opinion there is no obvious “divorce poison” in the novel Guy Lenny. This novel is mostly about alienation. (In our amateur opinion. And unless we missed something; the Gentle Browser is welcome to double-check.)
Jean purports alignment as the reason she did not take her son with her. Recall her claim that it would be unfair to father and son to separate them [Chapter 8]. In time, this separation of mother and son worsened to become alienation.
“I hated leaving you. I explained everything. Maybe you were too young. Have you hated me all these years? You never answered my letters.” [Chapter 8].
Divorce Poison opens with these questions:
1. Prior to the rejection, was there a normal and loving relationship between the child and the parent?
2. If there was a prior history of a better relationship, has the rejected parent’s behavior toward the child deteriorated in a significant manner; as might occur, for example, in the case of a parent who has suffered a head injury, or one who becomes addicted to drugs?
3. Would the reasons the child gives for the newly-developed negative attitudes be sufficient to rupture the relationship without the favored parent’s contribution to the problem? [—Warshak, no chapter: “A Note to the Reader.”]
To these questions, we might answer: [One], yes. [Two], no. [Three], um, Al Lenny has contributed to the problem.
For starters, Al insists upon calling Guy’s mother “Jean.” Never mind that “Mother” is Jean’s customary title and legal title and Biblical title—Al refuses to use it. Warshak contends, “The way we address people reflects something about the type of relationship we have with them, or at least would like to have.” When one parent encourages a child to refer to the other parent by a personal name, the child can become confused:
1. Firstly, this practice suggests to the children that, in Dad’s mind, their mother no longer has the status of a parent … In essence the message is, “Since my relationship with Mom has changed, so must yours.”
2. Secondly, the father is also encouraging a change in the children’s relationship with him. He is attempting to obscure the normal psychological boundaries between a parent and a child. He talks to them about their mother as he would talk to an adult friend. The implication is that they are his peers when it comes to discussing his ex-wife. Though his children might enjoy such camaraderie and the implied elevation of their status, they pay a heavy price for this promotion.
3. Thirdly, addressing Mom by her first name implies she no longer commands the respect implicit in the title “Mommy.” With this loss of respect comes a loss of authority. Somehow it is easier to talk back to Amy than to Mom. [—Warshak, Chapter 6: “The Corruption of Reality: On a First-name Basis.”]
Even after Al Lenny has decided to send Guy to live with his mother, he corrects Guy not to use the title “Mother.” “Your mother called? Jean called you, you mean” [Chapter 7].
After years of “camaraderie” as Al’s “peer,” Guy is about to pay the price. Guy’s behavior toward Emily is passive-aggressive and rude, but these are the tools and training that his father gave him. Somehow it is easier to talk back to Emily. “More than once [Guy] had tried to set her straight. ‘Pop and me have everything figured out’ … What he meant was: we don’t need you” [Chapter 1].
It is because of the “camaraderie” of “peers” that Guy pings on the moment his father contradicts himself.
“‘Your mother and I both care about you’ …. Guy punched his pillow. ‘Your mother and I,’ his father said. Like they were partners in a joint venture. Guy didn’t get that. He thought his parents’ partnership had dissolved years ago. Seven years ago, when she left him and his father for Charles. His father and he were the partners—that was the way things were supposed to be” [Chapter 9].
Jean also speaks of her son’s father as if Guy and his mother are peers.
“‘Well, about school I think Al is wrong,’ his mother said. ‘I give Al a lot of credit. You’re a fine boy, but I’m afraid that’s one area where he’s letting you down. Because Al didn’t go to college, I know he thinks school isn’t all that important. But I don’t want you to feel that way’ … Guy wished his mother wouldn’t talk about his father. She talked too much” [Chapter 8].
(It doesn’t help that Jean implies that opportunities will present themselves only if Guy lives with her—as if Syracuse, New York would not have quality schools and colleges. The author Harry Mazer graduated from Syracuse University. Also, someone should step through a time portal and present Jean the former bookworm with a copy of Matthew Crawford’s Shop Class as Soul Craft. She would dislike half of it.)
Next, where are Guy Lenny’s toys? Warshak observes that “Isolation achieves physical separation. But brainwashing also involves breaking symbolic and emotional connections … [snip]… By his attitude he lets his children know that [whether] talk about Mom is welcome around him. They are not [are] made to feel that they have to park their thoughts about her at the door before entering Dad’s home.” [—Warshak, Chapter 5: “The Alienating Environment: Stripping.”]
“Regularly, she had sent Guy packages from different countries … in the packages there were tiny replicas of cars, planes, and tanks, as well as toy soldiers in the uniforms of the various countries. Guy played with them when he was little. Then when he was ten [i.e., the year 1969], he piled all the cars, soldiers, and planes into a cardboard box and gave them to Paulie Belco, one of Danny’s kid brothers. He didn’t like that war stuff and killing anymore, even if it was just make-believe” [Chapter 3].
That is the official explanation, the approved explanation. Certainly the Vietnam War achieved some infamous milestones in the year 1969: the Battle of Hamburger Hill; the exposure of My Lai. (My Lai occurred in 1968, but it took three whistle-blowers over a year to breach the information blackout.) Even young Guy Lenny, paperboy and avid television watcher, would have heard the war news.
But Guy lets slip another reason he gave away his mother’s gifts: he wanted to please his father.
“She used to send me presents when I was little. You were real glad when I gave them all away. You said she was buying off her guilty conscience” [Chapter 9].
This suggests a third strike. (As in, three strikes and you’re out.) Guy parrots his father’s slur. When Al first said those words, years ago, was Guy old enough to understand them? Because if he did not understand them, then how could he agree with them?
Consider the following Warshak court case. In the example below, a Family Court session discovered that a five-year-old was being trained to choose one parent, to the detriment of her relationship with the other parent:
The court-appointed psychiatrist … concluded that [Little Girl] avoided her father because of subtle pressure from her mother, combined with a wish to please her mother and avoid her anger. Like many alienated children, [Little Girl] insisted that it was her own choice to avoid her father and that her mother had nothing to do with it. In fact, her mother wanted her to see her dad. The following conversation exposed the flimsy rationalization:
DOCTOR: “What does Mommy do when you don’t want to take your bath?”
[LITTLE GIRL]: “She makes me.”
DOCTOR: “What does Mommy do when you don’t want to go to bed?”
[LITTLE GIRL]: “She makes me.”
DOCTOR: “What does Mommy do when you don’t want to see your father?”
[LITTLE GIRL]: “She says I don’t have to if I don’t want to and Daddy should respect my feelings.”
During cross-examination, the [father’s] lawyer accused [the mother] of actively inducing the alienation. [She] was indignant … [The mother] failed to consider that she was asking the judge to give her custody of a child she admitted she was unable to control. If the judge were to believe her testimony, he could conclude that [the mother] was a weak parent who lacked appropriate authority over a five-year-old girl.
[snip]
Before [a different divorce], when [“An Older, Different Girl”] protested going somewhere with her mother, the father insisted that she do as she was told. But now, after months of programming, when [Older, Different Girl] resists spending a weekend with her mother, her choice is elevated to the status of a sacred precept not, under any circumstances, to be violated.
[snip]
Most children know that if one parent really wanted them to see the other parent, they would insist on it and back it up with the threat of punishment. Exposing this rationalization provides a relatively strong demonstration of how a parent can indirectly influence a child, and it paves the way for other efforts to reverse alienation.
(—Warshak, Chapter 6: “The Corruption of Reality: Rationalization.”)
Recall that Jean Lenny Beamon said:
“I explained everything. Maybe you were too young. Have you hated me all these years? You never answered my letters” [Chapter 8].
So Jean received no letters … no thank-you notes for her gifts … no birthday cards or Mother’s Day cards … no school report cards … no school pictures. Nothing at all.
If the book Divorce Poison could be summed up in one sentence, it would be this:
“If I were still happily married to my spouse, and I wanted to protect our children’s relationship with him or her, how would I handle the situation?” [—Warshak, Chapter 1: “The Delicate Balance: How to Distinguish Between Helpful and Harmful Criticism: The Warshak Test.”]
If Al Lenny had wanted to protect his son’s relationship with a traveling mother, Al would have made Guy write those letters and cards and thank-you notes. During the years that Guy was too little to write, Al would have jotted down little Guy’s greetings and mailed it for him. Al would have praised little Guy’s handmade, portable gifts for Mommy and then shipped them. Al would have ensured that photographs were sent and received. If at all possible—to be fair, it might not have been possible— Al could have scheduled regular telephone appointments. Also if possible, Al might have arranged for Guy and Jean to share at least one weekend per year at Aunt Sylvia’s house i.e., relatively neutral ground. And Guy would not be telling Maureen now, “She’s been gone so long I wouldn’t even know her if I passed her on the street” [Chapter 5].
For the most part Al Lenny did not set out to poison his ex-wife’s relationship with their son. He did say one thing that was unconscionable. “Where’s Mommy?” / “She doesn’t want us. She wants somebody else” [Chapter 3]. Divorce is between adults. It is not supposed to be between parents and children. (See also: Kids Are Nondivorceable by Dr. Sara Bonkowski.)
Aside from this moment of revenge, Al mostly let it die of neglect. Now after seven years in the metaphorical desert Al expects the dry husk to bloom in three drops of water like the real-world “resurrection plant.” After seven years out of practice, Al expects his son’s mind, emotions, and comfort level to metaphorically pivot with the twinkle-toed agility of their favorite football player. But three 30-minute contacts in one September month are not enough. Guy simply cannot do it.
Consider the message this sends to a boy. In Al’s own words, Guy feels his father doesn’t want him; Pop wants somebody else. Guy feels that his father’s love and care has stopped being a given. On top of that, Guy feels he is being turned out of the only home he has ever known. Even when Jean left, Guy didn’t suffer that added ordeal.
Guy also is hopelessly outgunned. Four times Al requires Guy to “give me your reasons” [Chapter 15]. To Al, a broken heart is not a real reason. (Apparently no one told Guy in advance to join the school Debate Club and practice for a custody-case debate.)
Guy wonders if his father ever wanted him at all. (“Guy [was] punching, sobbing, hating his father for betraying him, for making a lie of their lives together” [Chapter 15].)
One of the themes of the book is communication. Everyone says something they should not say; and everyone does not say something that perhaps they should. Moreover, the two parents are both smooth-talkers. Guy daily agonizes whether they say what they mean or mean what they say. The two step-parents have the intimidating virtue that when they talk, Guy doesn’t have any trouble understanding them.
Caught in between these four pieces of work is Guy Lenny, an ordinary North American Rust Belt twelve-year-old kid. Paperboy, boy fisherman, star-gazer, pesky little brother-surrogate to Maureen, rough-and-tumble seventh-grader feeling a connection with his first Creative Writing class, and collector of imaginary friends. A helpless victim of the self-absorbed adults in his life. True?
Not completely.
We mentioned that this novel weaves a tapestry of foreshadowing, mirroring, and/or parallels. Guy’s beta-test history already taught him something he needed to know. Guy has a job; therefore he has a boss. Guy goes to school; therefore he interacts with at least five teachers. Both of these environments are teaching the child the social skill of cooperation with the reasonable authority of adults, not just his dad. Above all, the beta test in question is Guy’s relationship to the widow Troop.
Guy may have been “motherless,” but he has been tended by a mother. Since the Lenny divorce seven years ago, Al Lenny has paid Mrs. Troop to provide latch-key babysitting and meals for Guy when Al is working. Obviously Guy is not fully integrated into the Troop family; he does not live there. But in Guy’s words, Guy and the Troops are used to each other to the point that he and Maureen are “like brother and sister” [Chapter 5]. Indeed Guy is a better behaved child to Mrs. Troop than is her own child. Guy is not just Maureen’s little brother but the pesky little brother: the one who has to be threatened not to tattle, the one who reminds Maureen of the rules of the house.
So Guy does know how to co-exist with his father’s ladyfriend / fiancée / wife. Guy has demonstrated that he can honor a grown woman’s authority in her own home. No one asked Guy to love Mrs. Troop, or even to like her, only to respect and obey her. And Guy does it.
If Guy Lenny had treated Emily with the respect he showed to Mrs. Troop, Al Lenny might not have sent him away. (The newlyweds might discuss joint custody, or “invite” him to leave for a long honeymoon—say, all summer—but that’s entirely different.)
Instead, Guy perceives his peril too late. He now knows that Labor Day was too late (i.e., the opening chapter). The clue was the math: how long it took to send the postal mail. Al already had begun negotiations with Jean at least a month before the holiday. Trapped, frantic, in physical pain, and afraid, Guy runs away into the night.
So why a cemetery? In the midst of life we are in death. Guy has been brooding about death from the beginning. He dreamt there is a ghost in the living room. He twice mentions his soldier toys, how they stopped being fun and started feeling like killing and death. The moment he felt he might die in that swimming pool. Mrs. Troop’s misery without her husband. Guy’s choice of Count Dracula as an imaginary friend. The caged starlings, waiting to be exterminated. Bolo’s mother. The mashed-potato battlefield. The death of trust. Now the overgrown cemetery where Guy and his friend Danny used to play. The death of memory—a place where the tabernacle of the body had been laid to rest in honor and dignity, now overgrown and vandalized. The death of love. On some subconscious level Guy Lenny has always known that something beautiful is dying.
In the chill and pitiless night, Guy sees the desecration of the cemetery for what it is. Headstones tilted and sunken. A marble angel’s face half shot away. A crypt smashed open, with just enough space for Guy to slink into the moldy shelter of the vault and sob himself to exhaustion.
Two centuries ago, these forgotten names on cold stones belonged to living people, with love and goals and dreams. Now their earthly remains are regarded even by their supporters as a nuisance. The community stopped a developer from turning the cemetery site into a supermarket, but the city otherwise pays no attention. The cemetery is discussed, but is not cherished or tended. It exists, but does not endure. It is simultaneously irreplaceable and in the way. Inconvenient. And someday, the “inconvenient” Guy will be as forgotten as they.
De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine. Guy’s father once told him that there is no life after death. Guy imagines dying, fading, and spreading, “like smoke drifting from a cold, empty house” into a glorious and indifferent universe. “In all that vastness, his spirit would wander, in a drift of whiteness—a dot, a speck, then nothing at all. And that would be the end of Guy Lenny” [Chapter 16].
The thought terrifies him. He cries out at the universe. “I’m here. Me. Guy Lenny is here. Guy Lenny is here!”
The universe does not answer.
Guy Lenny is beaten. Cold, miserable, in a dejectedly Ecclesiastes frame of mind, he retraces his footsteps to his father’s apartment. (We drove slowly back to Birtwick Park; but it was not our home now.)
Silently Guy endures the three-way crossfire of Al’s lecturing, Emily’s acerbic commentary, and Jean’s genteel hovering. Al tells Guy not to be “emotional” [Chapter 17]. For once, Guy is ahead of him. Guy starts turning off his feelings.
Guy retains one flicker of emotion. For a moment, he remembers a grain silo that he fancied for a play fort. It was abandoned and far from home; no one knew it was there. “It was no use to anyone, but still standing: too strong to fall … The sense of his own strength and separateness was a new feeling, a little strange, even scary, but good, as if he were the tower” [Chapter 17].
(From the nonfiction Divorce Poison: “Some children may appear to overcome their alienation, when in fact they may be hopelessly resigned to a situation beyond their control: burying, rather than resolving” [—Warshak, Chapter 8: “Getting Professional Help: Placing the Child with the Rejected Parent”].)
Guy takes his first small steps toward learning not to beg for “more” from those who truly do not have “more” to give. But this education remains somewhat cynical. Guy’s tower is no more durable than the gravestones, just more hidden from prying eyes and hard hands. The tower metaphor could be construed to say that Guy’s heart can become a strong and safe place as long as no one knows where to find it—as long as he lets no one in.
As mouths open and close and make words like “mature nature” to do what is “sensible and best for everyone,” Guy pretends to listen. They can make him go, and any words beyond that are wasting all their time. The adults need to talk more than Guy needs to hear. “Guy nodded and drank his milk” [Chapter 17].
This reviewer’s plan always was to end our unofficial “runaway” mini-series with the novel Guy Lenny and its eponymous character as the “traditional” runaway: the one who bolts from sheer impulse and it just makes things worse. Hence the Chapter 19 quick-march through the airport: to make certain he boarded the airplane.
So let the Gentle Browser imagine our surprise, when one after another we acquired two physical copies in which Guy never left for the airport! Both gently-used copies ended with Chapter 17 and The Drinking Of The Milk.
This is a bold ending. It’s just not the ending we remembered.
If we were to access BooksGoogle™ in this year 2023—never having read the novel in dead-tree form (a.k.a. “a book”)—then our puzzlement over a nineteen-chapter edition might have been no more than a pause and a shrug. Perhaps the Year 2023 first-time reader had stumbled upon a fan-fiction which BooksGoogle’s “Preview Page” had mindlessly incorporated. (BooksGoogle, not being a real person, is sometimes not very bright. Then again, our personal Google-fu was insufficient to wrest the nineteen-chapter copy out of BooksGoogle’s argumentative little grasp.)
Yet we remembered. We remember the specific library building. The specific floor. The specific location of the Young Adult collection. (The north-east corner.) The “Good books you may have missed” display. The time interval (sometime after 1988 and before September 1992). There’s just something about touching a real book in a real place in a real time that can anchor an experience in human memory, even almost forty years later.
And we remembered That Line: that astonishing, exasperating, eyebrow-raising specific line. Our ancient view of that ancient copy of Guy Lenny included a precise line of dialogue in the airport scene. Guy Lenny had been burbling, He was lucky to have so many people in his life who loved him so much. We distinctly remember the cognitive dissonance of this closing remark. Granted, even then we were an adult somewhat past the novel’s intended age of audience; but shouldn’t literature make sense at any age?
“Lucky?” we asked ourselves. How is this character lucky? Is the author forcing the character to say these words (and to believe them!) so that young readers will Learn The Moral Of The Story? No, we said, no! The novel cannot finish until we are convinced that he is lucky. But it did finish. (That took guts.)
Therefore we recently reached out to author Anne Mazer. The family found it equally puzzling. Could the differing number of chapters be a misprint? Could a previous customer have altered the book? Could it be an editorial decision? As of this writing, we have not found an answer. All that could be determined is that some Delacorte copies and Dell copies contain seventeen chapters, and that some Laurel-Leaf copies contain nineteen chapters.
(This has happened with another novel in our “runaway mini-series” list. There are at least three versions of Elaine Lobl Konigsburg’s From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Obviously there is an original version. Secondly, there is an edition which includes the three-page skit which Konigsburg distributed as an exclusive souvenir for attendees at an award ceremony. Thirdly, there is an edition for the 35th anniversary of publication; it contains a chapter-length Afterword. The ©2009 audiobook is published under the terms of this third edition. However these changes are both deliberate and advertised.)
As of the year 2023, the novel Guy Lenny was published 52 years ago. Which version of the novel was the author’s intended vision? Why was the modified edition not advertised as such? Why two different publishers? To date, we do not know. It may be that the only answer is to live with the mystery.
We would like to thank Anne Mazer and the Harry and Norma Fox Mazer family for personally providing us with a copy of the extended-edition chapters [Chapters 18 and 19]. For your research and generosity, we are deeply grateful.
So what do these two chapters add to the tale? They continue the creative tension. They give Guy (and the reader) a chance to say a proper farewell to the two people he knew best.
Guy likes to choose other people’s friends for them. Al and Maureen believe that they are old enough to choose their own friends. In the seventeen-chapter edition, Guy failed to split up Al and Emily but succeeded in splitting up Maureen and Freddy. In the extended edition, Guy is given a hint how these characters will make their choices without his participation.
Chapter 18 features Guy’s good-bye to Maureen. Their initial dialogue recaps the light-hearted teasing of pesky little brother and cranky older sister. Maureen offers to purchase a going-away present, “something to remember me by,” just as long as it’s extremely cheap. They list two gifts that are age-inappropriate (a nudie magazine; a kiddie coloring book). Maureen rejects a neutral third selection (a chocolate bar) because a little boy “would eat it too fast and get a bellyache”. Maureen is surprised that the Guy she thought she knew requests the bland and practical gift of chewing gum (to pop his ears on the airplane).
Their conversation turns to serious matters. Guy reiterates that his fears are irrelevant, and so are his wishes. (“He was going to do what he was going to do whether he wanted to or not.”) The deliberate ambiguity can apply either to the obedience of a child or to the grudging duty of a young man.
In a callback to the kissing lesson (when Maureen practiced on Guy before meeting Freddy), Maureen now kisses Guy good-bye. When Guy returns the kiss, Maureen pulls away in delighted laughter, asking “Wow! Who have you been practicing with?”
But their parting contains a bleak note of failure. Maureen gloats that Freddy “Creepy” Cannon called her on the telephone with a fake apology and an excuse that “[Guy] got him mixed up”. Freddy did it. Guy caught him. What was there to mix up? When Guy asks why Maureen didn’t hang up on Freddy, Maureen replies “stop lecturing me.” Guy departs with the dour insight that Maureen may return to Freddy—that Guy did it for nothing.
In Chapter 19, it is Emily who burbles (that Guy will visit them for Christmas). Guy receives the aforementioned quick-march through the airport, firmly escorted at almost every step. They leave Emily at the ticket counter; Al gets as far as the gate. Jean and Charles await Guy on the other side. There is no escape; but Guy doesn’t try.
In a final nod to the micro-aggressions of the divorce disguising themselves as good intentions, Guy’s father asks his son to send him the postcards, pictures, and letters that Guy never sent to Jean, back in the day. Guy silently assents. (Granted, if Guy refused to send them now, it would not undo his previous failure to send them to Jean.)
The extended version softens Guy’s aversion for his mother Jean. Back in Chapter 8, Guy asks why he must visit his mother; are Al and Jean getting back together? Al curtly tells his son to “grow up.” Since Guy doesn’t even want his parents to be reunited, he is not trying to irritate his father. Guy only asks so that he will know.
Now in Chapter 19, we are told that his mother’s return made him “imagine the three of them together again”. Guy also admits that “when he was little he used to pray sometimes that his mother would come home and the three of them would be together again”. Note the identical wording. The Chapter 8 text could have been interpreted to mean that Guy might vote for Jean if it meant the same as voting against Emily. The extended version suggests more love and longing than appeared in the original text. It’s also the only time we read that Guy ever prayed.
Three times Guy tries to dismiss his father early—not to run, but to avoid feeling his feelings. To the first attempt, Al replies, “You’re not getting rid of me that easy.” (An ironic statement, given the circumstances.)
To the second attempt, Al insists on carrying Guy’s bag, telling him to “enjoy it while you can. Charles isn’t going to carry your bags for you.”
And to the third attempt, when Guy tries to shake his father’s hand good-bye, his father pulls the hand into a bear hug. “Guy didn’t want it. His head told him to get away. Get clear. But his arms—they had a life of their own—went around his father.” Guy’s body betrays his true feelings.
By allowing Guy and Al to hug and cry, the extended edition gives the characters a bittersweet ending. Guy wanted to turn off his feelings in part because they caused him pain. Emotions aren’t necessarily bad just because they’re painful. Some emotions help us to process loss. (See also: Pixar film Inside Out.)
It was in this Chapter 19 that we were convinced we had read the line: He was lucky to have so many people in his life who loved him so much. As it happens, no.
Instead, Chapter 17 contains the line: “His mother asked him to remember that they all wanted the best for him, they all loved him, he knew that, didn’t he? Nobody wanted to hurt him.” Here in Chapter 19, the text contains the line: “His father had taken care of him for a long time. Now it was his mother’s turn. In a way he was lucky he had two parents. Some kids didn’t even have that.” We had conflated the two quotes. (Proof that there is no substitute for going back to the source.)
It still rankles. Guy would be luckier if he had at least one parent who would both stand up to him when he needed it and also stand up for him when he needed it. But as Guy observes, some kids don’t have his “luck.” The line becomes ambiguous.
And yet, and yet. In the cemetery Guy recalls an incongruous line that “Emily believed in things like spirits and reincarnation, and if he pulled a leaf off a bush she got mad” [Chapter 16]. Yes, this is the same Emily who eats fish and eats hamburger. But then, this is the same Guy who pitied the caged birds at the city dump and now sees flocks of birds inside the airport terminal. Does he believe they are the same birds, come back to life to fly free? Can he ever truly know? Guy is flying away, and the next time someone out of the past sees him, they may not recognize him. Yet perhaps an echo of the person they knew is in there, somewhere.
To this day no one knows why there are two versions of the novel Guy Lenny. As the old adage says, Always leave them wanting more. Perhaps the author Harry Mazer felt that tug. In his case he was in the happy position to be able to do something about it.
In 1971 divorce was a subject that was almost never tackled in USA children’s fiction. At that, when it did emerge in fiction it wasn’t often portrayed with this honesty and balance. All of the five major players do at least one thing a tad villainous, but none of them consider themselves to be the villain; and several of these also play the victim card. But the novel does not unilaterally support Guy either, instead showing how this love and marriage and parenthood stuff is a lot harder than it looked in the sales brochure.
It’s easy for a reader to proclaim that the characters should have done this or that, should have communicated thus and so. But this novel is realistic. It shows that families are not appliances: that humans come with faults, not with guarantees. Life is messy. The novel portrays the characters sometimes doing the best they could with what they knew. The novel also lays bare the parts the characters play in contributing to their own problems.
The novel also is ground-breaking in the sense that, in 1950s-1970s fiction especially, single parents often remarried at the behest of their children. Like we said, “Kids Play Matchmaker” trope. But the novel Guy Lenny had the courage to tell its young character (and audience) that no, Al and Jean are never getting back together.
The novel dares to use stream of consciousness. It shows confidence in Guy’s potential as a complex human spirit to experience stream of consciousness, while admitting he won’t always understand what he sees. (Example: the starlings at the town dump disgust him … they make a mess of things and are ugly and in the way … but he doesn’t want them killed … the contempt of a buddy that sparing the birds is not practical … a nursery rhyme about four-and-twenty-blackbirds … another nursery rhyme sung by Guy’s mother … the mother in her green chair … a queen in her green throne. And Guy feeling himself to be at the mercy of both cold-eyed people and of high, beautiful people, all of whom tower over him and who think he is in their way.)
Moreover, the character Guy Lenny behaves and speaks and thinks like a real boy; indeed like a boy of his time. He is a child of deep feeling, but feelings weren’t encouraged in boys in those days. Instead we see the mind-body connection: if he won’t use his words, his body will express the problem for him. Emotions become sublimated into physiological responses: i.e., changes in the visceral motor (autonomic) system. Instead of Guy felt a feeling, the narrative says, “his back itched” [Chapter 3]. Or “his neck tingled. His head felt as if it were an empty balloon, bobbing up and down” [Chapter 7]. Or, “He was getting this sizzling feeling under his ribs” [Chapter 13].
These manifestations are distinct from “body language,” which is also well-played. Examples: “Guy moved his water glass around and around on the table, making rings within rings” or “Guy shifted in his seat so his back was turned almost completely to Charles” [Chapter 12].
In still more revolutionary thinking, the novel dares to challenge a typical plight of a boy of his time. Guy boasts that his father has never hit him. That changes when Guy calls out his father for lying to him [Chapter 15]. Repeatedly Harry Mazer’s novels explore how it makes boys feel to be hit by their fathers. The excuse of the time was that hitting a child was a form of correction: Spare the rod and spoil the child and all that. But in the Bible the shepherd’s rod was used to strike the predators, not the lambs. That was why Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. A parent’s correction and guidance were not intended to be a source of fear or bitterness. In Guy Lenny, a father hits. A trust is broken.
(In secular terms, if we were citing law, we could add that “inciting to riot” is no excuse for riot. Both the one who incites and the one who riots remain culpable for their own choices.)
None of the three adults apologize that Guy’s father hit him. Guy never apologizes for hitting back. Nobody acknowledges that Guy was hit for telling the truth.
Al Lenny’s behavior was never about correction. It was about what the adults were willing to do to get what they wanted. It was about asking a child to solve grown-up problems and to bear sole responsibility for grown-up, long-term consequences. It was about an adult’s loss of self-control, and the belief that a kid on the receiving end just had to live with it. It was about men getting away with bad behavior where women could not have done. (Emily may hit with words but she knew better than to ever lay hands upon a child. When Mrs. Troop snatches Maureen’s arm, the entire room recognizes that this behavior is shocking and wrong, no matter how bratty Maureen has been.) As for Guy hitting back, it was about a child copying what he sees, even if he should not have had to see that.
“His father said they had to talk without being emotional. His mother asked him to remember that they all wanted the best for him, they all loved him, he knew that, didn’t he? Nobody wanted to hurt him” [Chapter 17].
An old joke—not a funny one, really—says “The Bible tells us to love our enemy, also to love our neighbor, probably because they are the same person.” Whenever the Bible tells us to “love one another,” it’s not an emotion. It is always an act of the will. To love one another is to will the good of another. Christians believe that God created us for relationship with God and with each other. Our human choices cannot be separated from those relationships. The LORD who “maketh the rain to fall upon the just and the unjust alike” expects His children to demonstrate that same goodwill.
If you loved your enemy, if you loved your neighbor, you would do good towards them even if it is not returned, even if it is not noticed. To “love one another” is a commitment. That commitment changes us. How many times have we heard “the love chapter” read during a wedding? In weddings people generally are happy and agree with the premises. But consider what would happen if the participants were to read First Corinthians 13 as part of the proceedings in Divorce Court or during custody hearings, when it might do some good.
That’s the kind of love that Guy’s four parents and step-parents are struggling to achieve. Their ability to maintain parental love as a feeling is deeply messed up; so for now they’re just going to “fake it till they make it” and concentrate on meeting their child’s Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In that sense, Guy indeed is “lucky.”
Guy is lucky to live in a country and culture and century where his bodily needs will be addressed. He will eat food every day, and that food will be reasonably nutritious and filling. He will receive clothes, and those clothes will be reasonably appropriate to his size, the intended social function, and the weather. He will have shelter. When he is sick, he will go to a doctor. He will go to school because the law says he shall go to school. And all of these items—the food, the clothing, the housing, the medical care, and the public schools—are tested by public professionals who have made it their life’s work to protect the public safety. Altogether, Guy will be well-cared for as he receives the community-standards training to turn him into a law-abiding and productive adult.
However Guy also has a chance to demonstrate love as an act of the will. Does Guy really want his father to grow old alone? Probably not. Guy cannot undo what he has done, but he can be gracious now and step aside.
Guy’s ability to trust others may be scarred, but he can choose to show himself trustworthy. If he stays with Al and Emily, their marriage could be born in defiance rather than in mutual love and trust. These people are too old to be taking tips from Maureen Troop and Freddy Cannon. “You and me against the world” can be a strong bond, an intoxicating bond, but it is not a healthy bond. Al and Emily need to choose each other, rather than to circle the wagons shouting that nobody can tell them what to do. If Guy leaves, the couple may be more likely to address their actual motives.
Perhaps Al and Emily and Jean and Charles will have warmer feelings toward the next generation, without the complications of custody. Perhaps in a distant future these disparate characters might spend a carefully polite snowy holiday in D.C.: touring the White House Christmas decorations; the grandpas watching Forged In Fire on television (‘I told you It Will Cut™’); the grandmas debating how much TV and sugar is too much TV and sugar. (Grandchildren are the best toys: wind them up, watch them go, and send them home.)
As for happy-happy feelings in the here and now, well … The Kirkus Review calls Denouement Guy “a little more resilient.” This surprised us; we thought him more brittle. Perhaps Guy’s own need to “fake it till he makes it” will cover both interpretations.
Guy Lenny’s family members probably do love him as much as their individual natures permit. But the divorce and remarriages affected their ability to love a child as a feeling of joy, of yearning; as a source of strength despite the pain; as motivation for struggle and sacrifice; as a human connection, as bone of their bone, a part of themselves. For all their professed feelings and good intentions, it doesn’t change the odds that on Guy’s eighteenth birthday both households will shake his hand, wish him well, and turn his bedroom into a study.
“Nobody wins
We both lose
Hearts get broken and love gets bruised
When we light that same old fuse
Again and again
Nobody wins
Slamming doors
We’ve both lost this fight before
And I won’t play this game no more
Nobody wins”
(—Radney Foster)
Highly recommended.
Book discussion questions here.
(And keep reading.)
Compare, contrast, and closing thoughts
This novel Guy Lenny by Harry Mazer concludes our unofficial mini-series about runaways—the other selections being Elaine Lobl Konigsburg’s “From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” … Jean Craighead George’s “My Side of the Mountain” … Lucy Maud Montgomery’s “The Blue Castle” … Felice Holman’s “Slake’s Limbo” plus the WonderWorks adaptation “Runaway” … and Powers and Petersen’s “I am quiet.”
In all titles it is advertised that the main characters are running from something. Claudia Kincaid seeks freedom from “injustice.” Sam Gribley, Jr. withdraws from civilization. Valancy Stirling rebels against a pointless existence. Slake is fleeing from abuse. Willis Joe Whinny retreats from reality. Film-Aremis tries to outrun grief and guilt. Emile walks away from peer pressure and judgmental adults. And Guy Lenny tries to escape from the net of a custody swap as his parents and step-parents play ping-pong with his placement, his emotions, and his very wits.
Yet these protagonists have something greater in common. The thing they are running toward is higher and purer and holier than the thing they would leave. They seek something ineffable, something transcendent. Sam wants to be Thoreau on Walden. Valancy wants to feel the emotion of love and to find meaning in life. Slake wants to live. Willis Joe wants to be a good shepherd: to protect the lives under his care. Film-Aremis seeks forgiveness; also, to forgive himself. Emile seeks to teach people.
In theory Claudia Kincaid—who just for fun learns something new every day—aims the highest: she would see the New Jerusalem, or at least a type and shadow thereof. (This Christian is informed that some sages in Judaism suggest that Heaven and Hell are the same place. In that version, all souls sit at the feet of the Eternal and discuss Torah all day, which is paradise for the righteous and torment for everyone else.)
And Guy Lenny? Guy wishes he could turn back time. The difference is that Guy is the only one who never can have what he wants.
“‘Send her away!’ He jerked his thumb at Emily. Then at his mother. ‘And her too!’” [Chapter 15].
Once upon a time, there was a father and a son.
“The two of them drifting down the lake in their rented boat, trolling for pike and walleye and maybe grabbing on to a perch or a bass. Suppertime they’d pull the boat up on the pebbly beach, and while his father filleted a couple of fish, he’d gather sticks and build a fire between the rocks. They’d broil the fish over the coals. Maybe a steak too … set up the tent … then they’d sit and watch the fire, look for shooting stars, and maybe talk a little” [Chapter 1].
Before the book even opened, those days were gone.
“But lately he felt his father was going out of his way not to be alone with him. Almost as if he didn’t want to talk to Guy at all.” [Chapter 1].
And so we end our mini-series on runaways with Guy Lenny, a little sour to balance the sweet. (The “sour” being the plight of the character, not the novel.)
It is no accident that we (this reviewer; me, myself, and I) would seek this book again almost forty years after we discovered it as an adult—that it glowed in our memory alongside other gems of genuine quality. It is no accident that Guy Lenny was cited in over two dozen professional journals. (And even, we are pleased to observe, as a resource in some student’s university dissertation. See CITATIONS at end.) The novel, from the date of publication an outstanding piece of craftsmanship, remains a pioneering work in its subject matter. Moreover this was Harry Mazer’s first novel, and already it showed why Mazer would become both one of the pioneers of the “Young Adult Fiction” genre and also one of its most prolific contributors.
So if we may, we would raise our own “sour” note. Excluding I am Quiet (which is year-2022 new), all of the other “runaway” novels have been deemed “classics” and faithfully reprinted generation after generation—but not Guy Lenny. Instead, the novel is virtually out of print. It should not be this hard for us to get our hands on a book this good.
We believe that this injustice should be remedied. This is a book that deserves to survive. Guy Lenny should be reissued, retailed, and re-promoted like these other classics. We look for the day when this novel too will assigned by teachers, challenged by censors, and devoured by avid readers like the timeless work of literature that it is.
After all, if there’s one more thing that the runaway mini-series would teach us, it is this: dream big.
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Want to help bring back the book to mass market? Contact these publishers!
[One.] “Penguin Random House” publishing group. (Owner of the Delacorte, Dell, and Laurel Leaf imprints.) See: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/about-us/contact-us
[Two.] “The Educational Publisher.” Will print sufficient quantities for small classroom setting. See: https://www.edupublisher.com/OutOfPrint.html
Can’t find the print book in the wild? Read “Guy Lenny” online!
[One.] “Open Library” website. “Edition published April 15, 1977; publisher Laurel Leaf.” See: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7523536M/Guy_Lenny
[Two.] “Internet Archive” website. See: https://archive.org/details/guylenny00maze
[Three.] BooksGoogle website. And may your Google-fu exceed ours, sensei.
[Three.] “Open Road Integrated Media.” See: https://openroadintegratedmedia.com/
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CREDITS AND ORDERING INFORMATION
Guy Lenny by Harry Mazer. First Delacorte hardcover / Dell Paperback edition contain seventeen (17) chapters. First published New York: Delacorte Press, c1971. The Laurel-Leaf paperback (published 1971) and the Laurel-Leaf hardcover (edition published November 1988) contain nineteen (19) chapters, with two bonus chapters from the author.
Avon Books also published a reprint in 1988, contents undetermined.
Random House edition purportedly contains 127 pages.
NOTE: Multiple editions consulted.
[One.] Copy consulted: Guy Lenny by Harry Mazer. “First printing” —t.p. verso page. New York: Delacorte Press, c1971. Designed by Ann Spinelli. Dust jacket design by Ken Braren. Cover art: stylized hands reaching toward nothing. Hand-written by earlier purchaser or owner or seller: “LCCN: 72-1824.” The LCCN on t.p. verso page: 79-157839. Contains seventeen (17) chapters. HARDCOVER, 117 pages. [Note: due to the second LCCN we are inclined to think this is a reprint of the “first printing,” despite the way that the t.p. verso page phrases it.]
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[Two.] Copy consulted: Guy Lenny by Harry Mazer. “A Dell Yearling book” (cover). “A Yearling book” (facing t.p. verso page). New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., copyright 1971. Cover art: foreground a boy in bobblehead style, background a man and woman in embrace, with backs to the boy, 1970s hairstyles. “First Yearling Printing October 1972” (t.p. verso page). “Reprinted by arrangement with Delacorte Press, New York, 10017” (t.p. verso page). Contains salutation: “YEARLING BOOKS are designed especially to entertain and enlighten young people. The finest available books for children have been selected under the direction of Dr. Charles F. Reasoner, Professor of Elementary Education, New York University; and Dr. M. Jerry Weiss, Distinguished Professor of Communications, Jersey City State College.” No ISBN or LCCN seen; Yearling book item “009-0013” (back cover). Contains seventeen (17) chapters. PAPERBACK, 117 pages.
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[Three.] Copy consulted: Guy Lenny by Harry Mazer. Laurel-Leaf edition. “New York: Published by Dell Publishing, a division of The Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.” (t.p. verso). “For reprint information address Delacorte Press, New York” (t.p. verso). Contains salutation: “LAUREL-LEAF BOOKS bring together under a single imprint outstanding works of fiction and nonfiction particularly suitable for young adult readers, both in and out of the classroom. Charles F. Reasoner, Professor Emeritus of Children’s Literature and Reading, New York University, is consultant to this series” (t.p. verso). “RL: 5.4. Reprinted by arrangement with Delacorte Press. KRI. One previous edition” (t.p. verso). ISBN 0-440-93311-0 and contains nineteen (19) chapters. [Binding?], 133 pages.
Note: this copy Laurel-Leaf ISBN 0-440-93311-0 was provided by the generous personal courtesy of Harry and Norma Fox Mazer’s daughter, author Anne Mazer and the Harry and Norma Fox Mazer family.
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[Four.] Copy not consulted. INTERNET ARCHIVE website access. See: https://archive.org/details/guylenny00maze
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[Five.] Copy not consulted. OPEN LIBRARY website access. “Edition published April 15, 1977; publisher Laurel Leaf.” See: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7523536M/Guy_Lenny
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CITATIONS
To our knowledge Guy Lenny did not win any awards. (In our opinion it should have won.) However the novel was cited in over two dozen professional settings: some for theory and research, and others for real-world application such as therapeutic settings. These are some of the citations that are easiest to access and/or locate.
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Year 2001. Dissertation.
LANTINGA, Amy J., “A study of the novels of Harry Mazer and Norma Fox Mazer and their place in young
adult literature. ” PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2001. See: https://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=10318&context=utk_graddiss
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Year 1977. [Author.] “Separation and divorce—selected readings for children and adolescents.” From JOURNAL ON CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue Summer 1977, pages 63-67. See: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/15374417709532769?journalCode=hcap19
Year 1981. Dorr, Lilith J. University of Northern Iowa. “An Annotated Bibliography on Divorce in Children’s Books.” UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA: UNIVERSITY SCHOLARLY WORKS GRADUATE RESEARCH PAPERS. See: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/viewcontent.cgi?article-2960&context=grp
Year 1981. Seminoff, Nancy Wiseman. “Smuggling the Language Arts in the Secondary Subject Matter Classroom.” MICHIGAN READING JOURNAL, Volume 15, Issue 2, Article 8. [October 1981]. See: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2372&context.mrj
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The following articles can be accessed as a group at https://www.jstor.org by using the Search function. This reviewer used the Search function to pull the group list by entering:
https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=“guy+lenny”+mazer
Year 1972. [Author.] “Front Matter.” From THE READING TEACHER, Volume 26, Number 1 (October 1972).[pagination?] See: https://www.jstor.org and use search function.
Year 1973. [Author.] “From the Publishers.” From THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL, Volume 73, Number 8 (May, 1973), pages 456-458. See: https://www.jstor.org and use search function.
Year 1975. Haley, Beverly, “Once Upon a Time—They Lived Happily.” From LANGUAGE ARTS, Volume 52, Number 8 (Nov/Dec 1975), pages 1147-1153. See: https://www.jstor.org and use search function.
Year 1977. [Author.] “Front Matter.” From THE ENGLISH JOURNAL, Volume 66, Number 3 (March 1977), pages 1-89. See: https://www.jstor.org and use search function.
Year 1980. Skeen, Patsy with Patrick C. McKenry. “The Teacher’s Role in Facilitating a Child’s Adjustment to Divorce.” From YOUNG CHILDREN, Volume 35, Number 5 (July 1980), pages 3-12. See: https://www.jstor.org and use search function.
Year 1984. Carlson, Jon. “Alert—Update.” From ELEMENTARY SCHOOL GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING, Volume 19, Number 1, Special Issue: Families in Transition (October 1984), pages 95-98. See: https://www.jstor.org and use search function.
Year 1990. “Ley, Terry C. “Paperback Books for the Teenage Reader: A Teenage Soldier in Vietnam: ‘Hours of Boredom, Seconds of Terror.’” From THE ENGLISH JOURNAL, Volume 79, Number 3 (March 1990), pages79-82. See: https://www.jstor.org and use search function.
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Year 1971. KIRKUS REVIEW of Guy Lenny, release date October 28, 1971. See: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/harry-mazer-9/guy-lenny/
RECOGNITIONS
“Profiles of Talent: Norma and Harry Mazer,” Carolyn W. Carmichael, Kean College of New Jersey, Union, NJ. From the ERIC Files [quoted by School Library Journal]. Citation: Document Resume ED 128 811 … CS 202 926 … Author: Donselon, Ken., Ed. … Title: Adolescent Literature Revisited After Four Years, publ. date “76” [i.e. 1976] … First pagination original to the Document Resume is “203” … Second pagination added during indexing/binding of Document Resume is “210” … See ERIC link at: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED128811.pdf
Author Harry Mazer received the Knickerbocker Award for outstanding life achievement from the New York Library Association.
Along with his wife, author Norma Fox Mazer, author Harry Mazer received an ALAN award in 2003 for outstanding contribution to adolescent literature. (ALAN = Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of NCTE [National Council of Teachers of English]).
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potluck2point0 