The Section Man

Amos Queensly's first novel, The Section Man, is a masterful parody of one of the outstanding novels of recent years, J. Parnell Donlevy's The Ginger Man. And like very few parodies, it surpasses its model.

"What a remarkable place Cambridge is," says Mrs. Chesterton Undergrowth, the wife of a prominent Harvard dean. That she says it in bed to the lesbian heroine of The Section Man indicates the tone and intention of the novel. The hero is the homosexual husband of the heroine, and three pages after Mrs. Undergrowth's seduction, he finds himself in bed with Mr. Undergrowth. That should indicate that the intention is carried out.

Critical response to The Section Man has been extraordinary, based partly upon Queensly's delicate handling of a controversial subject matter and partly upon his choice of locale. Leslie Fiedler has said, "...the confrontation of Cambridge's Fall into Death and Spring into Love leaves us its startling residue of thunderous denial, the amalgam of Huck and his raft separated by Thomas Moore's "Lolly Rookh" from the black pristine love found in the shoals of the frozen Charles!" Diana Trilling writes, "...disconcerted by the misconception of the tragic hero (ine?) and...foundering in the slough of my husband's anguish, I found it lovely." Norman Mailer's criticism is more direct: "...in Cambridge it always stinks--like sweat."

A plot synopsis of The Section Man is somewhat difficult: it contains one hundred and twenty-four major characters; it is told from fifty-seven points of view; the narrative voice is sometimes internal and subconscious, sometimes omniscient; time shifts from the present to the future to the prehistoric past in intricate patterns. (According to the dust jacket, Mr. Queensly is already at work on his second book--A Key to The Section Man. It will include a glossary of terms from the fourteen languages which Mr. Queensly employs.)

Roughly, the novel traces the rise to power and prominence of Cas Hauser--an amoral, homosexual, and nearsighted young man on his way up. His first decision is to be married, for he senses that a beautiful young woman who is willing to seduce his professors may be a social asset. He courts and wins Aelia Crispus--the dark-haired, olive skinned, ruby lipped, full breasted, and phi beta kappa-ed Biochemistry major at Radcliffe. And to Cas's grateful surprise, he courts and wins her without ever even having to kiss her.

Hauser's plans are set back when Aelia refuses to seduce his thesis advisor. Her explanation: "'But Cas, darling,' she purred, appraising her luxuriant body in the curved mirror she had installed to surround her bed, 'I thought you knew. I mean, I wouldn't sleep with... with...a m-a-n.' She oozed the word through tightly clenched teeth, as if to bite the life out of it." Needless to say, Aelia seduces the professor's wife and Cas seduces the professor, and before long Cas has tenure.

The Section Man is delightful parody, bitter satire, a complex and bittersweet manipulation of a whole kaleidoscope of colors, themes, and images, and already the subject of at least three Ph.D. theses.