THE GREATEST THING THAT ALMOST HAPPENED

by Don Robertson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 30, 1970

More about Morris Bird III (who is never called anything less, save now and then Bird the Turd), seen at nine and thirteen respectively in The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread (1965) and The Sum and Total of Now (1966). To be precise, at the expense of giving away the ending, it is the end of Morris and the best that can be said is that he dies with as much spunk and sentiment -- and in the same Salinger idiom -- as he lived. Now he is seventeen, pebble-faced and coping with old memories and the trials of high school. He is vaguely torn between basketball and ""communicating,"" pinched between fantasy, lust and virginal ethics, put upon by earnest or indifferent elders. But it's the '50's and the conflicts stay in hand; he's the prototypical teenage secular saint down to the last good old, goddam, for Chrissake, while getting and giving grace right up to the end. It lingers painfully from any point of view, and which you take will depend on your memories -- the boy he used to be or the Teen Angel of that other tune for the heartstrings.

Pub Date: Nov. 30, 1970

ISBN: 0061868140

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1970

Categories: FICTION