Mr. Vertigo
Paul Auster
Language: English
Pages: 304
ISBN: 0140231900
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Paul Auster, the New York Times-bestselling author of The New York Trilogy presents a dazzling, picaresque novel set in the late 1920s – the era of Babe Ruth, Charles Lindbergh, and Al Capone. Walter Claireborne Rawley, renowned nationwide as "Walt the Wonder Boy," is a Saint Louis orphan rescued from the streets by a mysterious Hungarian Jew, Master Yehudi, who teaches Walt to walk on air. Master Yehudi brings Walt into a Kansas circus troupe consisting of Mother Sioux and Aesop, a young black genius. The vaudeville act takes them across a vast and vibrant country, through mythic Americana where they meet and fall prey to sinners, thieves, and villains, from the Kansas Ku Klux Klan to the Chicago mob. Walt's rise to fame and fortune mirrors America's own coming of age, and his resilience, like that of the nation, is challenged over and over and over again.
back.” “For keeps?” “For keeps. Of course for keeps.” “And how long is this ‘little longer’ going to be?” “Not long. You’re already standing on the brink.” “The only brink I’m standing on is the brink of perdition. And if that’s where I am, that’s where you are, too. Ain’t that so, master?” “You catch on fast, son. United we stand, divided we fall. You for me and me for you, and where we stop nobody knows.” This was the second time I had been given encouraging news about my progress. First
ascent with my eyes open. I could actually look down and see my feet rising off the floor, and still the spell would not be broken. Meanwhile, the life of the others swirled around me. Aesop’s bandages came off, Mother Sioux was fitted with a cane and began to hobble around again, the master and Mrs. Witherspoon shook the bedsprings every night, filling the house with their groans. With so much hubbub to contend with, it wasn’t always easy to come up with an excuse for shutting myself in my
up here at this late hour?” “Master Yehudi,” I said. “Are you all right?” “All right? Of course I’m all right. Don’t I look all right?” “I don’t know. Yes, well, maybe you do. But this,” I said, gesturing to the ruins at my feet, “what about this? I don’t get it. The place is a shambles, it’s all in smithereens.” “An exercise in catharsis, son.” “An exercise in what?” “No matter. It’s a kind of heart medicine, a balm for ailing spirits.” “You mean to tell me you done all this yourself?”
a confession. I’d never heard him open up like that before, and even though he couched it in a language of what ifs and what thens, I wasn’t so stupid as to ignore the message buried between the lines. My thoughts went back to the stomach-clutching scene in the New Haven hotel. If I hadn’t been so bogged down with my own troubles since then, I would have been more vigilant. Now, with nothing better to, do than stare out the window and count the days until we got to California, I resolved to watch
proposition that will turn your life around, I said, you’ll come. He was tied up until after dinner, so we set the appointment for eleven o’clock the next morning. He showed up only fifteen minutes late, sauntering in with that loose-jointed stride of his and rolling a toothpick around on his tongue. He was wearing a worsted blue suit and a tan cowboy hat, and while he’d put on a few pounds since I’d seen him last, his complexion had a healthy tint after six weeks in the Cactus League sun. As