I LOVE YOU, MARY FATT

by Russell F. Davis ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

I Love You, Mary Fatt is a first novel about some humorous and touching aspects of adolescence written in the idiom of The Catcher in the Rye. But the difficulties of 15 year old Clarence Bascomb are of a different intensity than Holden Caulfield's. For one thing he is more ordinary and his confusions, though poignant, have not the quality of terrible loneliness that made Salinger's hero unforgettable. Clarence is certainly Salingeresque but he is traceable to Henry Aldrich. His problems occur at home -- with his parents who are a little distant and disappointed (in a way that he can't fail to sense) that Clarence doesn't measure up to the All- American standards set by his dead brother, and in school because his marks have dropped. All of this is due to his overpowering infatuation with 13 year old Girl Scout Mary Fatt. Clarence spends all his time with the warm and casual Fatt family, has his first sexual experience with Mary and becomes close friends with her epileptic brother. But Mary's childish inability to concede that their relationship is more than a game shatters Clarence and only through an irony of circumstances does he emerge from the experience on firmer ground. As it stands the resolution is acceptable enough; it would probably be too much to expect that Clarence would become really aware of what has happened to him.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1960

Categories: FICTION