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Getting Off Clean
Timothy Murphy
St Martins Press: 1997
From the Author
I think I've always wanted to be a writer, on and off. Growing up, writers were my heroes F. Scott Fitzgerald, J.D. Salinger, Edith Wharton, and later John Cheever, James Baldwin, Mary McCarthy. When I was 12, I tried to write the sequel to Gone with the Wind. I wrote about seven pages and still hadn't decided if Rhett came back. Alexander Ripley beat me to it, anyway. But as for specific reasons, GETTING OFF CLEAN is a debut, so much of it has that very urgent feel of a roman a clef, the story you've been waiting to tell.
One of my favorite books, and one that really informed a lot of the spirit of GETTING OFF CLEAN, is COMMON GROUND, Tony Lukas' big fat excellent book about the busing crisis in 1970s Boston as told through the lens of three different families. I just eat that kind of stuff up!
My Synopsis
Eric Fitzpatrick has a plan for changing his life. To disengage himself from his working-class background, Eric pushes himself at school with hope of a scholarship to Yale. As his senior year at high school approaches he is sure he will be leaving the small Massachusetts town of Mendham at the end of the year. Eric feels he is different from the other kids in his town; he is bright, creative, a loving son, and begins to discover, gay. Shortly before school starts, Eric meets Brooks, a sophisticated boarding school student who happens to be black.
As their relationship quickly develops, Eric uncovers unsettling background information about the snobbish, and very rich, Brooks. Soon a romance develops, of sorts, and the two begin a sexual exploration that changes Eric’s live dramatically. While dealing with a variety of family crises – his aging Grandmother, a younger sister with Down's syndrome, a pregnant unmarried older sister, his Yale scholarship, and a girlfriend – a young girl is killed and the town suspects local blacks and Hispanics. The result is an intensely racist situation which comes to a head when a Hispanic youth is beaten to death. Eric is shocked by the latest developments, and speaks-out against the hatred.
Shortly after, Brooks is savagely beaten in front of Eric’s church. Though Eric breaks-up the beating, he denies knowing Brooks, afraid that his relationship (and thus his sexuality) would be brought into the open. Brooks drops-out of school and makes plans to head to Paris. Meanwhile, Eric feels incredibly guilty for his actions, and decides to go visit Brooks. Upon arriving in Virginia, Eric is confronted with Brooks home life, and never actually meets Brooks.
As Eric prepares to give his commencement speech during graduation, Brooks appears to temp Eric to go away with him. The confrontation is heated, and as a result, Eric finally comes-out to his school, friends, and family.
My Notes
Timothy Murphy’s first novel is an entertaining look at young gay life in the eighties. Unfortunately, the characters seem to be from the forties and fifties. While the plot and setting engages the reader, both of the main characters have a fairly flat personality. Eric would seem to have nothing in common with Brooks, and the author never really explains why he is drawn to this character. Brooks is abusive and self-loathing, but Eric keeps coming back for more. Brooks is a very sordid character and changes little if any during the course of the story. For that matter, neither does Eric.
This is a good book, but I wish I had more information about the characters motivations and intentions. I also wish the author had refrained from all of the (I believe) French quotes. Unfortunately, Mr Murphy leaves many items unconnected and dangling. While there are a number of better coming-of-age books out there (many of them on this site), Getting Off Clean is worth a read.
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