G.F. Gravenson, The Sweetmeat Saga: The Epic Story of the Sixties (1971)

I'll tell you one thing: I'm pretty sure I've never read a novel in this physical format before.  The book is large; slightly smaller than an 8 1/2'x11' paper, but about the size of an academic workbook.  I guess I don't really have anything to say about that; it's just an interesting thing.  To me.  Though to nitpick, I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan of that eyeball-searing neon-green-and-salmon-pink color scheme.  The original was like this:

I kinda do prefer it like that in every way.

ANYWHO, it's about the Sweetmeats, Paul and Pookie, a musical duo and former child stars.  At some point they just disappeared, no one's sure why, only now it appears they've been rediscovered, maybe, in a hut on Mount Parnassus in California, and Mount Parnassus is definitely in Colorado, so I dunno.  At any rate, there are efforts to get them out and figure out what they want, and good lord, I'm trying to separate form and content here, and I don't think THAT'S gonna work too well.

Because this is written in avant-garde style, as a series of fragmentary dialogues, commercials, songs, and so on (it's written in a typewriter font with text arrayed all over the page in asymmetrical fashion.  As a guy who wrote a dissertation chapter on Dos Passos, I was immediately reminded of the newsreel and camera eye sections--though there's an actual narrative here, obviously.  So the story's told in an impressionistic way, as hordes of teenagers, news reporters, a National Guard battalion, the Sweetmeats' agent, a serial killer, an Indian chief, and I don't know who all converge on the Sweetmeats' alleged location.  And the ads--tons of ads, which often don't have any specific purpose in the text other than to illustrate the age ("The Epic Story of the Sixties"), which it does very well.  Also, very Pynchonian characters have very Pynchonian names: tycoon unrequitedly in love with Pookie, Forest Jagoff;  A therapist named Doctor Mountmother;  a couple of porn actors named Gerda Loins and Ric Gland.  And if you don't find those at least a little bit funny, this probably isn't the book for you (though admittedly, you may cringe a bit at Chief Broken Wind).

It sort of seems like this might turn out to be kind of obscure, but that's far from the case: once you get into its rhythms, this is very accessible, and I can easily imagine someone using it as a jumping-off point to get into experimental literature...I mean, if anyone actually does that.  And they might!  It would be easy to formulate complaints about the book, but those all seem to be based on presuppositions that a novel should do X, Y, and Z, and it's manifestly obvious that there's little concern about what a novel "should" do.  There are plenty of obvious influences here, but I don't think I've ever seen a novel do quite what this does.  It's a fast read, and I liked it a lot.

When I think about it, I realize I haven't really read too many novels about sixties counterculture.  Richard Fariña's Been Down So Long It Looks like Up to Me?  I'm pretty sure that was actually set in the fifties, even though it's clearly invoking the sixties.  Also, as I recall I didn't like it much.  Pynchon's Inherent Vice?  Great book, very evocative, but even though Pynchon was there, you still have to wonder how "authentic" this after-the-fact stuff is.  Well, there's probably something else I'm forgetting, but dang, Gravenson's novel really is from the belly of the beast.  Definitely worthy of study and appreciation, and it's great that outfits like Tough Poets can keep this sort of non-commercially-viable literature alive.  Seriously, where does editor Rick Shober FIND all this stuff?  I'd have no idea where to start.  At any rate, keep 'em coming.