Coping with Alcoholism in the Universe of Einstein
A review by Raymond M. Vince
In terms of genre, The Pool Boy’s Beatitude (2013) by D. J. Swykert is hard to classify. The protagonist is Jack Joseph, who has a Master’s degree in Particle Physics, possesses a major alcohol problem, and cleans pools for a living. In Jack’s life there are three women: his wife Elle — in process of divorcing him, Rosemary his “sugar mama,” prepared to support him with few questions asked, and the new love of his life, Sarah Jane, aka as Delilah.
In Jack’s less alcohol-addled moments, he wrestles with Quantum Mechanics, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, our reptilian brain, the unreality of space and time, and the God Particle. Such cognitive wrestling may be necessary, but for mere mortals it is not sufficient. Even in the midst of his alcoholic pain, Jack realizes this salient fact,
“As much as I understand about relativity and reality, the composition of the world, I am as frail and mortal as anyone else. I need encouragement and affection, the security that I am not alone, even if every brain cell in my cerebellum understands that I am alone. We all live hoping things will get better than they are” (53).
All of us struggling with modernity, who live in the world that Einstein showed to us, could identify with these reflections. Jack’s frailty is the frailty of Everyman. His particular battle is with substance abuse and commitment: the rest of us have other dragons to fight. As J. R. R. Tolkien said, ““Men with courage as their stay went forward to that battle with the hostile world and the offspring of the dark which ends for all, even the kings and champions, in defeat” (Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, 18). Jack is no Beowulf, but his warfare is no less poignant.
What is the genre of this novel? It could be a delayed coming-of-age story, an unabashed male fantasy (three sexy women, all caring for Jack?), a romantic comedy with quarks and dark matter, the fable of Jack climbing the beanstalk to battle his giant, a third millennium novel of ideas in the likeness of Thomas Pynchon, or a pragmatic tale of coping with alcoholism in the strange universe bequeathed to us by Albert Einstein. At times, the novel seems to be all of these — and more. That is both its delight and its curse. Some readers may be impatient of the genre-confusion. But others, including this reviewer, will appreciate the complexity and risk-taking of the novel.
Like his biblical namesake, Jack Joseph could be said to interpret dreams. Yet, these are modern dreams — in reality, nightmares — haunted less by the dogmas of Jehovah than the uncertainties of Heisenberg. As an English teacher but with Masters’ degrees both in Logic & Scientific Method and in Theology, I confess to a certain kinship with Jack — and maybe with his creator, D. J. Swykert. I too enjoy the intersection of Modern Physics with the raw contingencies of Life — a fusion not often encountered in novels.
There are some interesting forerunners: Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle (1962) and Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 (1965) come to mind. The ecstatic love-making, “into the paradise of this unknown God” (16), has echoes of the British novelist, D. H. Lawrence. Swykert does not have the narrative command of Pynchon or Lawrence, but he is a good, competent storyteller. The characters seem real, and we care about them. Ultimately, this tale of a pool boy’s redemption works. The tale has meaning and significance, even if — at least according to Jack — the universe does not. Perhaps, in this Einsteinian world, one should not ask for more.
Raymond M. Vince / 25th June 2015
The Pool Boy’s Beatitude by D.J. Swykert, is published by Rebel ePublishers, 2013. Paperback, 225 pages. ISBN-13: 978–0615824567. Available at Amazon and elsewhere as a paperback and in Kindle.
An earlier version of this review appeared on Amazon.com.
