ERIC Kennedy, who grew up in a small Massachusetts town not far from Hyannis Port, is not really Eric Kennedy; neither did he have an idyllic New England childhood which he often liked to boast about. He is, in fact, Eric Schroder who was born in Germany and fled the country of his birth as a boy after it was divided into East and West territories.

Eric is the protagonist of Amity Gaige’s critically acclaimed novel, Schroder, a heart-wrenching story (well, that’s what it’s supposed to be) of a delusional man’s unselfish love for his daughter.

Stylistically, the book is written as a confession in the form of an extended letter with separate chapter titles. The protagonist calls it a “document.” True to the name that Eric gives it, the document comes with its own footnotes and in-text references. Moreover, there are some diversions into German history, and the history of divorce and custody rights in America.

However, though a highly recommended book, Schroder left me exasperated.

The falsification of Eric’s identity has rather mundane beginnings. One day, when applying for a summer camp club, he decided to change his last name to fit in with the other New England boys. “Endowed with a last name that could only be uttered in rupture,” he became so used to his new identity that he actually came to believe in his own fabricated past life as a Kennedy (people wondered whether he was a distant cousin of the Kennedys). Nobody in his intimate circle knew his secret, not even his father from whom he hid his new identity like a sin as he “couldn’t be both men to anyone.”

After college Eric meets Laura, the love of his life, a school teacher, in a rather scenic setting; the two of them passionately fall in love.

At the opening of the novel, Eric is in a correctional facility, writing the true story of his life for Laura. They have a daughter together named Meadow but after her birth they grew apart as a couple. For Eric, this was a natural course for a marriage, “a natural evolutionary phase.” Laura had taken the initiative to file for custody after their separation and became the custodial parent as Eric foolishly gave up his rights in the hope that she might one day return to him.

The separation from Meadow is the most painful experience of Eric’s life and one day he makes the whimsical and fatal decision to take Meadow on a long road trip on one of her assigned visits. He is so naïve that he doesn’t seem to realise that he has kidnapped his own daughter. “I was merely very, very late to return her from an agreed upon visit,” he consoles himself. And that is how he ends up in a correctional facility.

Eric’s passion for research on the historical significance of silences is also explored: “I have always been fascinated by — and uncomfortable with — pauses. My research forced me to see that short pockets of silence were everywhere and that even sound needs silence in order to be sound.” However, he had to give up his passion to become a realtor at the instigation of his father-in-law when he got married: “In retrospect, it seems that the groom was an example of the suicidal integrity toward which the bride liked to encourage her middle schoolers.”

Eric is a delusional man with a case of extreme narcissism. It’s possible to sympathise with him at the beginning, but when he keeps making one bad decision after the other it becomes hard to read his endless efforts at self-justification.

However, the writer does not want us to like her character. In fact, the point of the novel is to unravel how little mistakes can mutate into horrible life decisions. A lot of great literature is about anti-heroes: Paradise Lost, Lolita, Notes from Underground, to name a few. However, Gaige’s protagonist is neither a hero nor an anti-hero. This makes him all the more appealing as a literary figure as he inhabits that shade of grey which has the enticing possibility of becoming either. Yet, the manner in which he is characterised leaves the reader unable to empathise, or even sympathise with him. Despite the potentially rich characterisation he stumbles into a type.

Overall, the language, structure and form of Schroder are all rather impressive. But I was still unable to connect with this book — or perhaps appreciate it. It was probably because before I got halfway through the book, the narrative had already exhausted itself, leaving no room for further plot development, stylistics (unless you count a chapter that consists of a single sentence repeatedly copied) and characterisation (the book is solely focused on the central character and deliberately leaves others as rather hazy sketches). Moreover, I must admit I find it incredibly tedious to read about mundane marital arguments and divorces complicated by custodial conflicts — unless, of course, it’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf or Anna Karenina.

If you’re looking for few hours of light reading entailing some sappy emotional exercise, look no further; but if you want more from your books, you can skip this one.

Schroder

(NOVEL)

By Amity Gaige

Faber and Faber, London

ISBN 9780571296729

224pp.