The death of a child is always heart-wrenching, but when it is told from a mother's point of view during her tenure in divorce court, it becomes all the more powerful. So begins John Bricuth's latest literary endeavor, As Long As It's Big, a tale so cleverly written that the reader easily forgets that he or she is reading narrative poetry. Bricuth has contrived a storyline so engrossing that it transcends prose and poetry to become a reading adventure.
Also known as Hopkins' own Professor John Irwin, Bricuth embarks with the reader on an adventure through the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Fish, a couple who, after the suicide of their son, are on the cusp of divorce. Bricuth's language handles the delicate matters of marriage and divorce with enough care to portray the emotional gravity such a topic deserves, while simultaneously infusing the narrative with enough humor to glide the reader through his curvy plotline.
The narrative is peppered with madcap characters: an anti-divorce judge, feuding lawyers Messrs. Fox and Bird, bumbling bailiffs and a violent, overprotective elder sister. The reader becomes completely submerged in Bricuth's alternative world. The feeling that the characters act on their own, independently of the reader is present; as if they are going to tell their stories, have their reactions and feelings regardless of the reader's presence. Each character has a personal agenda, and As Long As It's Big's protagonists won't stop until they have accomplished their goals. This novel isn't something that happened -- it is something happening as it is read, something that will continue to happen, with or without you. If I were you, I'd stick around.
Divided into seven parts grouped into "Allegro," "Largo" and "Presto", Bricuth treats his novel as a musical composition; the story's pacing matchies its tempo demarcations. "Allegro" -- fast, upbeat and a flurry of activity -- thrusts the reader straight into the book's action with the judge's complaint of the adjacent hallway's brouhaha.
It later focuses mainly on the lawyers' tumultuous relations with one another and the judge. The increasingly lyric "Largo" portrays a defeated Mrs. Fish's tale of the loss of her son, family and marriage, while Mr. Fish counters with a desperate plea to his wife. "Presto" resolves the story's many loose ends; the conflict over the Fishes' marriage, as well as Mr. Fox's anger at having been beaten up by Mrs. Fish's older sister, Gert.
The beauty of As Long As It's Big rests not only in the believability of the Fishes' predicament or the reader's sympathy but in the excellence of Bricuth's writing. The sonority of the character's dialogue coupled with the poetic meter becomes chant-like, driving the reader forward, occasionally infusing the narrative with delicious descriptions of ordinary things explained so as to make them extraordinary: "It's funny judge, / About possessions, objects stained for decades with/ Dumb feelings" reads one notable passage.
While the thought of reading a novel told entirely in poetry fills most with dread, it is the poetry narrative of As Long As It's Big that draws in and surrounds the reader with the story's events.
Witness Theater offers a sophisticated but flawed night of dramaWitness Theater offers a sophisticated but flawed night of drama
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