A Friend of Kissinger
Published by The University of Wisconsin Press
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In this coming-of-age novel, young
Danny Meyer lays bare a landscape of illness and despair but emerges triumphant, with a new awareness of the
limitations of security and the lessons of eternity. Danny's bubble-like existence is paradisal Madison
is broken when his father, a concert pianist and professor, is stricken with illness and must give up his
professorship. The family is forced to move to Milwaukee to live at the brink of poverty while his father get
sicker, his artistic mother struggles as bread-winner, and his brother becomes dilusional. Here, Danny finds
himself in the uncertain position of having to accept the responsibilities of manhood while still struggling
with adolescence.
In a world that keeps shifting, Danny befriends the son of a gangster and, through his brushes with the
compelling world of crime, find his way to a new confidence. Realistically portrayed, A Friend of Kissinger
captures an authentic sense of place that is one part arty, hearland Main Street and one part shady, small-time
gangsterland. It verges into the comic and picaresque in its description of Dickensian characters in unlikely
settings and geographies.
A selection from "A Friend of Kissinger"
"Looking back, it seems impossible nevertheless that we were not prepared for what was about to occur. One imagines the small
family huddled together in the tiny living room and my father sayiny, "Boys, we have some bad news." But at least in memory,
no such announcement of my parents' intentions was ever made. And thus my first real knowledge of our family's move from the
only home I had known occurred the morning of the August day we packed up our car and drove down Route 30 to Milwaukee,
leaving Madison behind for good along with any childhood illusions I might have had.
Even now, I remember the day vividly; if I close my eyes I can hear the humming of the tires on the road, the wind rushing
through the windows, my mother's low voice speaking in the front seat, the sense that if I didn't open my eyes things would
be as they had been before. I remember stopping at a hamburger stand thirty miles from Milwaukee called Korky's Korners
and my father joking in the way he had with the waitresses. It was as if we were only on a family outing, to Mount Horeb
for Norwegian food or Devil's Lake to swim, and that after lunch we would get back in the car and go home.
Then suddenly, we were in Milwaukee, driving down Wisconsin Avenue, which was the only way into town in those days, before
they built the freeway. Skyscrapers and movie palaces crowded the streets; the Riverside and the Strand boasted large marquees
layered with neon. I remember Boston Store and Gimbel's on the river, the cosmopolitan bustle of the city. The top was down
on our Plymouth and wind ran through my hair as we crossed over from the West Side toward the lake. I heard forhorns and my
father explained that Milwaukee was a port with large ocean liners from Europe arriving daily. And even then - is this possible-
I remember feeling reassured because the ocean liners that came would surely be leaving, thus guaranteeing my escape. This would
be a persistent fantasy, extending beyond my childhood into adulthood. I would never live in an apartment nor go to an office
where I would not establish an escape route before settling in. I would never be comfortable anywhere again until I knew
how I would leave."
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