I have been an irregular reader of late. Time seems steadily to slip out of my grasp. Few books hold my attention lately: Rainey Royal by Dylan Landis, which I read in two feverish sittings, tops the list right now.
Like its gorgeous cover, the book is random pages torn out and stuck together, a collage of a life or two. It is not a novel in the strictest sense. It is a series of incidents fit together in loose chronology.
Rainey Royal by Dylan Landis is set in Greenwich Village in the 1970s. Rainey Royal lives with her father, jazz musician Howard Royal and his cult of acolytes, groupies and aspiring musicians. Her mother has left the family to live in an ashram, and under her father’s neglect, Rainey fends off advances from his best friend Gordy. She stumbles through life trying to nurture her creative drive, praying to Saint Cath – the patron of temptation, staying barely out of trouble, along with her friends Tina Dial, who secretly loves Howard, and Leah and string of young and old men.
To the world, Rainey Royal is a manipulative bully, a rebel, a criminal even; admirably disturbing, selfish. She’s greedy, talented, cruel, ruthless, moody, secretive. She is not likable. But with her art, Rainey is, in every sense of the word, “royal.” She can sew memories into people. And as she grows up, Rainey learns to use her art to find a place in the world, getting commissions for making tapestries of dead relatives and lovers. But throughout the book, Rainey’s reluctance to vulnerability, her inability to trust herself, her inexperience with love and care – the shadow of her past – hang over her head like a knife ready to sl iceher the moment she lets go of the anger keeping her upright. Rainey Royal is a masterfully crafted character, one you can’t bring yourself to care for. She stands somewhere between protagonist and villain, between good and bad and beyond grey.
Like Rainey Royal, the book is beautiful but it’s not likable, it’s full of emotions but it doesn’t touch you, it’s passionate but not lively. The tone is pessimistic, there is no solution and no real ending. I did not end up feeling a rush of affection towards Rainey or Tina, I did not wish them well, the story showed me nothing but the unfairness of life and innateness of art, and I left the book convinced that the 1970s of the story might as well have been today.
I don’t know if I like this book. Parts of it drip with melancholy beauty and parts make me gag. Sometimes it seems silly and overdone, other times grotesquely profound. Surely, you will like a book which captures how it feels to have that one skill, talent, calling, that makes all the problems of your life whoosh away; but what if its characters make you mad and miserable? Rainey Royal by Dylan Landis is such a book, memorable but I don’t know if I can call it good. It’s short, so you can read it and decide for yourself.
Tabula Rasa 