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Guy Patrick Cunningham is a writer and critic living in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Bowl of Cherries by Millard Kaufman
Reviewed by Guy Patrick Cunningham
Posted: November 27, 2007

Millard Kaufman’s debut novel comes with the kind of backstory that marketers love and readers often dread. The man’s biography is simply too interesting: combat veteran in World War II, Oscar-nominated screenwriter of film-noir classic Bad Day at Black Rock, co-creator of cartoon icon Mr. Magoo, former professor at Johns Hopkins University, and now, at 90 years old, first-time novelist. And then Rolling Stone magazine, of all places, declares him the “Hot Novelist” of 2007. It isn’t unreasonable to worry that Kaufman’s life story—and not Bowl of Cherries itself—is at the center of the (albeit modest) hype around this book. Thankfully, that isn’t the case. While it probably won’t attain the classic status of Bad Day at Black Rock (or Mr. Magoo), this is pretty funny novel, probably the funniest literary work I’ve read all year.

The novel is a coming-of-age story, following Judd Breslau from his difficult childhood on through his adolescent years, culminating in a trip to contemporary Iraq. Due to Kaufman’s age and military service, one is tempted to compare the book to Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, with which it shares a certain tone and feel. But Kaufman lacks the unyielding rage that animated Heller’s famous satire. Instead, the novel recalls a more recent work—Gary Shteyngart’s Absurdistan. Like Shteyngart’s book, Kaufman’s novel depicts a young, naïve narrator with father issues cast adrift in a fictionalized third world nation. Both books are more playful than angry, using humor and an over-the-top absurdity as a way of commenting on current affairs.

Despite his age, Kaufman has a scatological heart, setting much of his story in the fictional Iraqi province of Assama (perhaps a crude play on Osama bin Laden’s first name). Assama is quasi-independent, with its own king, customs, and religion. However, the Assamans draw the attention of Judd’s mentor—Joseph Grady, a war profiteer, Washington insider, and general symbol of corporate greed—with their unique architecture. All of the buildings and statues in Assama are made out of human excrement. And, apparently, there’s money in feces. As Grady explains:

…costs of materials have skyrocketed. But here we have a product that has withstood the ravages of time and elements, an innovative substance that costs practically nothing to produce, and the supply is unlimited—God knows the world is full of straw, mud, and shit… All we have to do is find the one elusive ingredient that makes it work. Then we set up processing plants from here to Timbuktu and watch the money roll in.

Now, it’s not necessarily profound to say that wars are sometimes fought over “shit,” but that doesn’t mean readers will argue with the idea. Especially when Grady tries to build a nuclear reactor in Assama as a cover for his “architectural” ambitions.

Despite the bluntness of his allegory, however, Kaufman shies away from directly invoking the major players of the Bush years. Here, Grady’s Resource Analysis and Technology (RAT) stands in for the private companies, such as Halliburton or Blackwater, that have been hired by the US government to implement much of the United States’ policy in Iraq and elsewhere. Compared to Shteyngart’s decision to single out Halliburton by name as the key exploiter of the Absurdi people, Kaufman’s RAT sometimes feels like a pulled punch.

But to be fair, this isn’t a polemic. In fact, much of the novel focuses on something perhaps even more elemental than war—love. While still a teenager, Judd manages for a time to attend graduate school at Yale University. When that falls through, he is drawn into the orbit of Phillips Chatterton, an “Egyptologist” convinced that he can find a way to move large items using sound waves. This brief apprenticeship sets in motion the rest of the novel, as Judd meets not only Joseph Grady (undercover as one of Chatterton’s “researchers”) but Abdul al-Sadr, heir to the throne of Assama. Most importantly, though, he meets Valerie, Chatterton’s teenage daughter.

Breslau, then 14, is struck with a crush of Hollywood intensity after glimpsing Valerie playing tennis:

She had an effortless way of walking, as if a substance more volatile than blood—helium perhaps—were coursing through her adorable veins. Her legs seemed to flow while her hips remained motionless, her breasts bobbing and weaving as if the sap and the fire of life were racing through them.

If the narrator wasn’t so young this might be over-the-top, but it sets the tone for Judd’s fevered efforts to romance Val. First he struggles to woo her away from Derek, a pompous actor, given to long, narcissistic soliloquies on his “craft.” Winning Val’s heart proves even more problematic though, as Judd must eventually vie for her affections with Abdul. In fact, the story is presented mostly in flashbacks from an Assaman prison, where Abdul has stashed Judd as a means of getting him out of the way. Judd’s devotion to Val in the face of the unyielding hardships he endures for her—from living in near-isolation as one of Chatterton’s researchers, to the deprivations of Assama (Judd only enters the country after Val’s prompting), is the source of much of the novel’s humor.

Of course, this is a first novel, and it suffers from the limitations all first novels endure. It feels overstuffed in places, with its cast of porn stars, crooked preachers, Assaman “savages” who turn out to be Cambridge-educated intellectuals, and all sorts of caricatures. Sometimes Kaufman’s narrative gears are visible, too—for example when Judd repeatedly mistakes strangers on the streets of New York and Assama for his father, who abandoned the rest of the Breslau clan when Judd was a child, we know the two will eventually be reunited. And it seems odd how a string of beautiful women find themselves drawn to a character as, well, nerdy, as Judd. But it’s comedy. And the test of any comedy in any medium is a simple one: Does it make you laugh? Bowl of Cherries makes you laugh.

Copyright © 2007 Guy Patrick Cunningham