DE FORD

by David Shetzline ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 27, 1968

De Ford is the last of a losing line. In fact ""a De Ford always seemed to lose no matter who won."" Now, after a lifetime of wandering in search of, maybe, ""the forgotten places, secret places in his great country where a man might live alone,"" he has wound up on the Bowery with its flophouses, bloody buckets, wineshops, missions and mongrels. But De Ford is not a member of the club. He was just trying to stretch out a meager sum until his heart is thoroughly examined. But the Bowery absorbs those who stray too long across its boundaries and he has had his pension check stolen by Indian Joe Raven who carries an ice pick and manipulates his henchmen, the Sadistic Crook and the femme fatale fag Proudhomme. Raven doesn't really want the check, he wants De Ford because ""he runs. The old man runs."" De Ford is befriended by the artist Johnny Leggett who lives under the Williamsburgh Bridge and they are hounded by characters: Tanner, an ex-lawyer who now collects DT's instead of fees, D. B. Smith a fallen businessman who talks in memos. De Ford and Leggett wander from Bowery to village Bistro to Park Avenue Pad and somewhere in the no-sense of this non-world De Ford decides to stop running. . . and he stops Indian Joe. The author writes out of an intense concern for human frailty; there is solid sense in the novel's prismatic ambiguity. . . and it's alive.

Pub Date: March 27, 1968

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1968

Categories: FICTION