Peter Collingridge’s Secret Weapon

There is no way that I can do justice to Karoo. All I can do is urge you to read it as I have urged countless others, to varying levels of success - over the past eight years. It used to be easier - the book was in print, in stock and available - but it is still possible to find a new, or used, copy.

But let me try. I was given Karoo by a friend who had worked on the book’s publication at Chatto in the UK in 1999. We worked together at the time and she impressed it upon me, emphatically, like a secret.

At the time I was working for Canongate / Rebel Inc who did a line (so to speak) in underground classics, many of which were written by drink- or drug-soaked failures of men who only found a voice in death. From what she told me, Karoo’s author Steve Tesich was a drink-soaked emotional failure of a man who seemed to have found his voice in death. I began reading it immediately.

The book opens at a cultured (i.e. full of successful film and book types) Boxing Day party in New York, where the guests - primed by pronunciation guides in the New York Times - are discussing the recent fall of Nicolae Ceausescu. They are clearly reveling in their erudition and grasp of Romanian, spouting “eh-LEH-nah chow SHESS- koo”s and “is YAHN ill-ee-YES-koo”s among the “nee-koh-LAY-yeh chow- SHESS-koo”s. Saul enjoys their enjoyment and mocks his own, “There was a quality to these names that made them delicious, almost irresistible to pronounce, and made speaking as pleasant as eating canapes.”

Reading just that line again now, I am sorely tempted to begin the book again. I may well. But even this scene - which included on the first page an extract from the NYT with the very pronunciation guide the guests are reciting - grabbed me immediately. It turns out that it’s grabbiness got me hooked on a book for which this brilliant scene would be uncharacteristic of where the book ultimately heads - even if it is characteristically funny, ascerbic, deprecating and brilliant. It’s just that the book is so much more than that.

Saul Karoo, our hero of sorts, is a Hollywood script doctor. He heals sick movie scripts. He has attained a reputation, standard of living, divorce and drink problem concomitant with his position. At this party, and any other occasion, he is expected (by his ex-wife in particular) to play the role of the drunk, and the absent father to his brilliant and gorgeous son. The problem is that however much he drinks, he can’t get drunk. Yet the weight of expectation upon him to make a fool of himself is so heavy, and to disappoint would be so churlish, that he feigns drunkenness. This is the paradox of Saul: tied up in his outer asshole appearance is an inner angel that can’t break out in case it shatters anyone else’s illusions. See - the asshole is actually a decent, caring, compassionate and sensitive soul. This is a paradox many of us can associate with, or aspire to at least, particularly boys working in the rocknroll wolrd of counter cultural publishing.

So far, you may think, so what? It is the same line - albeit wittier - that one could cruelly accuse of any Rebel Inc type novel of the time.

But Karoo is so far beyond this. I have given this book to many friends. I gave it to my wife - before we even began a relationship - as my favourite book (which it remains). As she worked in publishing too - and I was desperate to impress beyond my ‘Rebel Inc’ credentials - the stakes were high. It won hands down and it may still be her favourite book.

As the book has slipped into obscurity and out of stock, and maybe out of print - a crime that would be the first remedy should I become a dictator or (close second) CEO of Waterstones - I have urged publishing friends to acquire and republish this book with the attention and care it merits. When, finally, after perhaps five years of monthly hectoring, one of these publishers read it on his honeymoon - he and his new wife perhaps came close to agreeing with me that it is at least “up there” with the best. Of course, he then tried to acquire it only to discover that it has been slated for reissue, apparently by Vintage.

I could rant on for ages. Talk about the people I thought should join EL Doctorow and introduce this book. Talk about the tragedy of Steve Tesich, the author, dying a rumoured two weeks after delivering the manuscript. I would love to, but I think I need to read it again.

Look, Karoo is the most moving, sensitive, funny, biting, cruel, uplifting, and god knows how many other words, book I have ever read.

I’ve read it four (soon to be five) times. It’s beyond a secret weapon - it’s… Just trust me. Read it.