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L.J. Davis’s 1971 novel, A Meaningful Life, is a blistering black comedy about the American quest for redemption through real estate and a gritty picture of New York City in collapse. Just out of college, Lowell Lake, the Western-born hero of Davis’s novel, heads to New York, where he plans to make it big as a writer. Instead he finds a job as a technical editor, at which he toils away while passion leaks out of his marriage to a nice Jewish girl. Then Lowell discovers a beautiful crumbling mansion in a crime-ridden section of Brooklyn, and against all advice, not to mention his wife’s will, sinks his every penny into buying it. He quits his job, moves in, and spends day and night on demolition and construction. At last he has a mission: he will dig up the lost history of his house; he will restore it to its past grandeur. He will make good on everything that’s gone wrong with his life, and he will even murder to do it.… (more)
User reviews
Well written but blimey, once I finished the book I felt sad.
Whenever he tries to change things, to make them fit his intentions, he bungles up and things turn out differently than what the way he thought they would. Partly because he just lets things happen and makes little effort to change. He does a lot of things without thinking about the consequences- most of the time he has a faint idea of what he wants but takes no effort to make it happen.
His marriage is falling apart, but neither he nor his wife make an effort to make it better. His wife, Betty, is a character not very well delineated who appears to almost be like another piece of furniture in their apartment. Although she fights back and aggravates him. She also seems to go along with
May 2012