Word: strawson
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Mayfield's best friend, a somewhat overromanticized womanizer named Strawson, confesses that if Mayfield had but said the word 40 years before, "I'd have spent my whole life bearing your weight." Mayfield doubts that living together could have worked, with "the rest of our lives to kill while the world snickered at us at the grocery store: two old sissies, harmless as house dust." Nothing is resolved between the two except yearning...
...observe this steady, fearless staredown of loneliness for three novels is exhausting, though by no means tiresome. What relieves the strain is unfailing grace of language, as when Mayfield and Strawson drive the New Jersey Turnpike "through an outrage of traffic like the silent forced evacuation of Hell." Grace and seriousness are enough. Price's dour trilogy is rich, not bleak, a satisfying accomplishment by a fine artist...