Poor George

by Paula Fox

"The best first novel I've read in quite a long time…A merciless uncovering of the exurban wastelands of the spirit." ― New York Review of Books Poor George gives us George Mecklin, a restless, soft-spoken teacher at a private school in Manhattan. Depressed by his life of vague moral purpose, George discovers a local adolescent named Ernest breaking into his house. Rather than hand the boy over to the police, as his nagging wife insists, George instead decides to tutor him. His life consequently implodes. Filled with vividly acid portrayals of American life in the 1960s, prescient explorations of suburban anomie, and a riotously disturbing cast of supporting characters, Poor George is a classic American novel―further reminder of Paula Fox’s astonishing literary gifts. With an introduction by Jonathan Lethem.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literary Fiction, The United States Of America, Novels

238 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2001

About the author

Paula Fox was an American author of novels for adults and children and two memoirs. Her novel The Slave Dancer (1973) received the Newbery Medal in 1974; and in 1978, she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal. More recently, A Portrait of Ivan won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 2008.

A teenage marriage produced a daughter, Linda, in 1944. Given the tumultuous relationship with her own biological parents, she gave the child up for adoption. Linda Carroll, the daughter Fox gave up for adoption, is the mother of musician Courtney Love.

Fox then attended Columbia University, married the literary critic and translator Martin Greenberg, raised two sons, taught, and began to write.

Reviews

[Frances · Rating 3 out of 5]

If Franzen could write, this is what and how he'd write.

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paula Fox is a master of fiction. Her stories are full of subtle deception's of suburban banality and urban decay. This book was written in the late sixties and is about a group of upper-middle class New Yorkers. The story focuses on George a teacher at a private school who is trapped in a loveless suburban marriage. He is surrounded by vacuous people passing through an equally banal existence. Everything is thrown off kilter by a teenage outsider who Georges attempts to take under his wing.

With a lesser talent this story would be hackneyed and tired, but Fox manages to breath life into even her most minor characters. Her descriptions of New York life in the late sixties are priceless.

I would heartily recommend picking this up if you can.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Done already? I keep looking for more - cuz I'm hungry for more - what can I say, I'm greedy for a good book to read and this one flew by too quickly. This is a beauty of a book. A man’s life implodes as a series of incidents that — in spite of his best intentions — become his undoing; good grief, poor George can’t do anything right to save his life. Agitated and disconcerting; darkly funny, and pitifully sad, it’s a book paved with gritty reality – Paula Fox writes in an elegant manner that is without affectation, haunting, down to earth, fluid storytelling backed up by a wicked cast of characters - it's quite special in that wonderful timeless way of a good bit 'o fiction.

[Ericka Seidemann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mid-century existential ennui. Yawn.

[Joe Bruno · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not sure what to think of this, I give stars for how the work affects me, not for how good I think it is. This is more like 3 and a half than four, but whatever. There is s a certain sort of fiction that leaves me a bit disorientated when I am done reading. This is certainly of that type. Franzen loves Paula Fox's writing, he said this novel changed his life. I am moved and disorientated, but I don't think my life is changed. I thought this was pretty strong though, even if I didn't completely understand it.

There is a certain non-standard sort of description in Fox's work. She sees and records some interesting sort of things. I will have to think on some of the stuff in here, and this is not the work of a lightweight even if the book is kind of short.

Fox's life story is quite interesting as well and that may have immigrated into her work. This came out in 1967 and she uses the word "negro" in her work. I didn't find it offensive but some might. Any literary fiction reader should read this and if you are a fan of Franzen you should probably consider that he thinks her work important. My library didn't have a copy of this so I got a nice clean copy cheap on the Amazon.

[Jed Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sad-sack schoolteacher, in new country digs with apathetic wife, tries to tutor ne’er-do-well Peeping Tom. What could go wrong? So good.

[David Curry · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you limit yourself to fiction that is uplifting and provides happy endings, the late Paula Fox’s 1961 novel Poor George is probably not for you. But if your reading appetite will accommodate the devastating, nobody delivers that more uncompromisingly than Fox.

The protagonist in Poor George is a private school teacher with a disappointing career, cheating students, petty colleagues, an alienated wife, dismal friends and neighbors, and a sinister house intruder for good measure. Just when I was thinking all that was missing was an awful child, an abysmally grotesque little boy entered the narrative.

A novel this dark could not easily survive 400-500 pages, but at 220 pagesPoor George held me from beginning to end through the perfect pitch of Fox’s relentless prose. She simply reveals the darkness and never seems to be forcing it. (Other novels in this rare and curiously affecting mode that stick in my mind are Richard Yates’ 1961 Revolutionary Road, Nathaniel West’s 1933 Miss Lonelyhearts, and Christina Stead’s 1940 The Man Who Loved Children.)

It’s difficult to quote anything from Fox’s novel that adequately conveys her cold eye. Here’s a passage in which George is reacting to his unmarried sister Lila, who goes from low-paying job to low-paying job:

“Always self-deprecating, he thought, and it touches everything that touches her. There would be no gain in his assuring her; she would drag whatever he said into her system of doubt. She had arrived so soon at an attitude of defeat without ever really experiencing it.” ( “Attitude” is italicized in the text. I’m not sure that’s necessary, and it isn’t possible in this venue.)

At one point a cook chopping a Chinese cabbage asks George, “How’ve you been?“ George notes that the man’s eyes are “swimming.” Then he wonders: “Onions? Alcohol? Grief?”

Paula Fox’s adult novels including Poor George went out of print in 1992. Later in that decade, she enjoyed a revival when prominent younger writers such as Jonathan Franzen and Jonathan Lethem championed her work. The current paperback edition of Poor George includes an introduction by Lethem. Fox also wrote children’s books (Talk about a change of pace!), for which she received a Newberry Medal and a National Book Award.

[Justin Evans · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the first few pages of this, and then... meh. Ambivalent I guess. Fox can write beautifully, although a tad too florally for my taste. But the real problem here is the 'mysterious stranger interrupts otherwise banal existence' plot device, see also Greene's 'Travels with my Aunt,' combined with completely opaque psychological motivations in almost every character, with the exception of George's sister, Lila. That, combined with the feeling that conversations from a Pynchon novel are inexplicably taking place in Yates' fictional universe, meant that I was just puzzled for most of this book. That said, I'm willing to give 'Desperate Characters' a try, in the hopes that it keeps the great bits of this book - the black humor, the perfectly chosen symbols and the way that ordinary moments bear an enormous amount of meaning - and gets rid of the irritants.

[Seán · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am so old.

[Don Flynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Desperate Characters, I knew I had to check out more Paula Fox. This is her first novel, and is every bit as good as Desperate, which was her second. Published in 1966, Poor George concerns a married couple, George and Emma, as they get accustomed to a new neighborhood north of NYC. Their lives begin to unravel when George catches a young intruder in the house, but instead of prosecuting, George decides to take him in and help him learn a few things. In the bargain, George hopes it will make the youth, Ernest, a better person.

Ernest is resistant, however, and seems resigned to his truant ways. The frustrations for George and Emma pile up, until it leads to dramatic events for the couple. Ernest suffers the worst fate of all.

The story really evokes the time of the mid-60s, when disillusionment sparked by the war and the relentless march of materialism began to seep in and permeate society. All of the characters are affected by this to some extent. George is a teacher, and he spends his time with the rest of the faculty either complaining or despairing over the direction the kids are taking. I was particularly taken with Emma, George's wife. She's a willowy presence, concerned about George's obsession with Ernest, and in a constant tug of war for her husband's attention. Though she's not perfect either, I felt sorry for her and wanted to step in and "save" her. The characters are so well drawn in this story that it was easy to entertain such a fantasy.

Fox's prose is of the highest level. I think I'm echoing my review for Desperate Characters when I say that it's a crime she's not mentioned in the same breath as the other great American writers. Her talent is truly monumental, and it was on full display in her very first novel.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"She was no help, for whatever point she might start from she always ended up with herself" (11).

"Among the impersonal debris of the outside world, Emma and George grew personal. Sleazy restaurants, bloated cars, the ravaged countryside bleeding into the new highways, the plug-ugliness of modern life gave their being together a moral character. On their evenings out they joined one another: commiserating about what didn't really matter to them" (29).

"People narrow to their choices," said the other woman. "That's not the same as changing" (49).

"She had arrived so soon at an *attitude* of defeat without ever really experiencing it" (57).

"Passionate anger was one thing, but there was a comic side to little thorny rages; he supposed it was because there was a confusion of purpose in them" (87).

[Beverly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quiet desperation

Someone once wrote, "All men lead lives of quiet desperation." Well, that's certainly true of poor George. He seems to have reached that moment in his life when he begins to question his existence. He had a vision of what his endeavor in life would bring and he is feeling sorely disappointed. He attempts to rectify his ennui by taking on a new project of teaching a lost young man, much to the dismay of his wife who is also dissatisfied with her life. As a matter of fact, everyone is struggling to justify their existence. It is difficult to like the people in this story. But it is well written and a thoughtful read.

[Veronica Ciastko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Astonishing writing on a sentence level (Fox is a master of metaphor) but almost every character except for Lila is totally opaque. People feel things and say things and do things seemingly without any connection to the world around them. George develops a preoccupation with Ernest. Why? Who knows! Ernest spies on people in their houses. Why? Who knows! Emma cheats on George with Ernest. Why? Who knows! George takes up a friendship with Walling. Why? Who knows! Fox has a real handle on human physicality, but something eludes her in their interiority. Even the characters themselves profess to not knowing why they behave the way that they do.

[Cherise Wolas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though set in the 1960s, in NYC and upstate in Peeksville, this novel, Fox's debut, out of print for a long time before being resurrected, seems not far from our current and long-lasting ennui, an acidic portrayal of American life. The prose is so finely crafted as the life and times of George Mecklin, a teacher, is explored, the breakdown and disruption of what was to be a good marriage, a good profession of which he has become bored; he's a man who, one comes to realize, does not understand his own emotions. A brilliant evisceration of what lies under the surface of things.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Paula Fox. She can really write. The prose is precise and striking. In visual art terms, reminds me of an exquisite line drawing.

This particular book is a world-class line drawing of a pile of dogshit. A perfect rendering of unhappy, uninteresting people in an unhappy, uninteresting world. These people deserve to be as unhappy as they are because they are trying their best to stay that way. And that's the book.

4 stars for incredible craft.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a moody, brutal mid-century novel! Jonathan Lethem describes it as having a “homely doom vibe.” I agree. This book offers the perspective of a thoroughly messed up 1960s school teacher—whose unexamined racism and misogyny stews itself with his unacknowledged bisexuality. Fascinating and infuriating all at once. This one is going to stick with me for a long while.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

““…in the end you learned to live with things once you stopped talking about them.”

Fox used a pen the way a surgeon uses a scalpel—with brutal precision.

[Becky Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite children's book ever.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paints a picture, can’t really see it clearly but feel it for sure

[Fin · Rating 4 out of 5]

george was pissing me off whining so much for most of the book but by the end i was kinda like ok yeah poor george

[Denise Benoit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just ok

[Rod · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many brilliantly realized passages of the variety of meanings held in ordinary moments, though the plot didn't quite hold me in the way that The God of Nightmares did. I am very glad that Fox has been "re-discovered" as I plan to read more.

[Pezquenin · Rating 1 out of 5]

An utterly boring assemblage of dispassionate characters.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I don't see how you can count on co-operation from the government if you intend to instruct students in how to destroy it," said George. Adrift with the fevered cheerfulness brought on by gulping down two glasses of wine, he swept the air with his arms. "Come on, all of you! You know there aren't consequences from being against anything! My God! You take a swing at the system, and you find your arm slowly waving around, part of the composition."

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

A subtle but effective glimpse into suburban ennui in a time before that subject matter has become almost a separate genre. It felt vaguely British to me due to some of the phrases used but perhaps that's more evidence of how our language has changed since the book was written. The female characters are especiallly well drawn and the unpredicatabitly of the clashes between character and what the aftermath will (or won't) be is continually unsettling and realistic.
Interesting.

[maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

reprinted... Originally published in 1967 but has a modern "read" to it. Paula Fox is known for her juvenile literature, but this is great adult fiction!!

[Brent Legault · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elegantly worded.

[Kristen Balas · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit Gatsby-esq

[Ctkruckus]

Pretty terrific mid-century misery-lit.

[Claudia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poor George? Poor me!