Bonnie Garmus has graced us with another stunning novel. Her first novel, “Lessons in Chemistry,” is a bestselling favorite, beloved by book clubs and readers everywhere. Her sophomore novel, “Peck & Peck,” is a very different sort of story, but Garmus’ brilliant writing shines through as we read about Batter Gray, a young man whose only ambition in life is to read, discuss, and critique poetry.
Batter explains that his affair with poetry began with Dr. Seuss, but unlike other kids, he just kept going. He says he liked that poems were short and had secret messages. “To get at the secret message, you had to read the poem again and again: really think, you know?” And Batter quotes Auden, one of his favorite poets at age ten, as an example.
Batter’s obsession with being a poet did not go over well with his teachers or his parents. Everyone explained that he needed a real job, that writing poetry was not a full-time endeavor with a salary. But Batter couldn’t find anything that interested him, and in college, he tried out several majors and failed. He ended up with a degree in pre-law, which he had no intention of using. But much to his chagrin, Batter realized, when he took a poetry class, that he wasn’t good at writing poetry, just reading it and analyzing it.
His favorite poetry publication was a tiny quarterly journal called Peck & Peck. The quarterly was first presented to Batter when he was eleven, and we understand from Batter’s description of the event how very special it was. “Then she unlocked a cabinet behind her desk and withdrew the slim journal like it was the Holy Grail.” The subsequent description of the journal is extremely detailed, It was bound in a “thin, leathery field-guide-type cover that seemed to suggest it could survive any storm.” Its simplicity was extreme; there were no banners, and every cover was the same, with a drawing of an egg which seemed to emit a tiny glow. Above the egg was the name, Peck & Peck, “perfectly set in thirty-two-point serif type called Bembo.”
Over the course of the novel, we learn a lot about typeface because Batter’s mother is an expert in the field. By age 11, Batter knew hundreds of different typefaces by sight. So that plays an important part in the story, as does the dog that Batter was named after. (This novel is, after all, by Garmus, who made us fall in love with Six-Thirty in her first novel.) Batter-the-first, the dog, was an incredibly brilliant dog as we learn from the stories Batter-the-second’s mother tells him. The stories are so outrageous, that like Batter, we find them hard to believe. It’s obvious that Batter was a special dog, but saving a city? Giving children money? Bringing Batter’s mother a bouquet of roses? Definitely stretching credulity.
The humor is omni-present, and as Garmus describes Batter’s relationships with his parents, his best friend Paul, and his coworkers, laugh-out-loud moments jump off the page. One is when his mother tells him about bloodhounds. She says, “If you ever commit a crime and the detectives put a bloodhound on your trail, take my advice: turn yourself in. Bloodhounds are pros — they’ll find you no matter what. And when they do, they won’t tear you limb from limb as so many believe, but lick you until you’re fully covered in a blanket of their slobbery drool. According to a recent government study, given the amount and viscosity of this drool, nine out of ten criminals would prefer being torn limb from limb.”
What’s also amusing is the huge number of people in the story who hate poetry. In fact, think about it. How many friends do you have who love poetry and read it for pleasure? Probably not many. And that’s why Peck & Peck finds it impossible to stay afloat. But when the millionaire twin brother who really hates poetry takes over the family business, he’s really all about business. He also has a secret agenda, which he shares with Batter.
This novel really picks up speed as we start to see the passions of those who love poetry. The editors at Peck & Peck argue relentlessly about which few poems they should include in their very selective, very distinguished, very respected journal from the hundreds and thousands of poems they are sent. I loved the impossibly beautiful building in which Peck & Peck is housed — as if it, also, is a work of art, a work of poetry, containing a vast glass dome on top, pneumatic tubes that send memos around the building, and topiaries on the balconies that, when read together, spell out messages. It’s all utterly fantastic and utterly charming.
According to Batter, poetry is everything. At one point, Batter comments that, “poetry is supposed to make you think, not follow.” Ironically, while receiving poor grades in his poetry classes, his pre-law professors praised his papers and arguments. When his best friend and roommate Paul asks where his ideas come from, he responds that they come from poetry. Batter’s argument in his paper was that minimum wage was not a living wage. His ideas came from Langston Hughes’ poem “Mother to Son,” which is a brilliant piece but not about minimum wage. What Garmus has done here, also brilliantly, is to showcase Batter’s ability to take important poems and dissect them to prise out hidden messages and ideas, which he then hoards in his mind as a pirate’s booty of treasure to be used as needed.
It’s good versus evil (or poetry and the arts versus crass commercialism/capitalism), and we aren’t really sure which side Batter is on until the end. After all, being able to afford a nice apartment and paying off student loans would be nice. But by the end, we are rooting for Batter to do the right thing, to overcome the enemy of poetry, to defeat the enemy of beauty and morality. And while Batter doesn’t actually have a dog, he does have years of hearing about his namesake’s courage and determination to do the right thing. Will Batter rise to the challenge as the dog he was named after certainly would have done?
Garmus’ novel is inspiring. It’s really the kind of book that is even better when it’s read the second time, to really be able to appreciate the foreshadowing that is easy to miss on the first reading, and the lovely prose. Rereading encourages us to appreciate the descriptions, the stories within the story, and the myriad characters who (almost) all, in their way, are rooting for Batter. I’m planning on using it for the book club I lead, as I imagine will many others.
Read my review of “Lessons in Chemistry,” Bonnie Garmus’ first novel.
This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.