Henry begins to shed his role as a minor character (vide `background noise') in life's movie and edges toward becoming an `actor' in every sense of the word. Dan Duryea hair, like Bette Davis eyes, is a distinctly urban image, with all the tough-guy stuff that entails.īut Henry's milieu is suburbia, and his compulsion to bring form and color to his drab environment finally surges beyond the fabulous hair: it becomes a struggle for Truth, Justice and the Maslow-ian Way of self-fulfillment, with a soupçon of `Go West, Young Man' thrown in for good measure.
The hirsute gift fuels Henry's aspirations to become an actor like Dan Duryea, the star of nineteen-forties movies like "Black Angel" and "Manhandled." This is a nod to an era when men were men and the suburbs were not yet The Suburbs. The hair is remarked upon repeatedly to increasingly droll effect at dark moments in Henry's life by his clueless acquaintances, as if this crowning glory were salvation itself, all one might need to find happiness in life. This rather desultory quest is signified throughout the story by his gorgeous white-blonde hair, which shines like a semi-ridiculous beacon of hope. Set adrift in this oobleck-like miasma, Henry seeks to overcome inertia and inject some meaning and vitality into his existence.
The Bronx, where Henry has accompanied his delivery man uncle in the opening scene of the book, is as exotic to him as a Moroccan souk. His neighbors include a `swinging' sexually ambivalent carpenter, a sketchy gourmand priest, a heroic ill-fated policeman, and women who waitress, tend bar and dance topless. His is a bleak netherworld of working-class existence punctuated by run-down houses, sleazy bars (lots of them), and malevolent Little League baseball teams. He is a sort of low-rent latter-day Holden Caulfield, innocent but not wanting to stay that way, lonely but unable to engage, indignant but not committed.
Henry - yes, named for the Oh! candy bar - lives in the interstices of suburban Long Island during the last gasp of the twentieth century.
It is also a comic, caustic, and touching work. This despite its being a novel about sadness (lots of it), death (of several characters), failure (misguided ambition fueled by no visible means of support), anger and violence (lots of it), and sex (squalid or imaginary or both). "Background Noise" is a great read and much more because Peter DeMarco is an adept storyteller who lures you into his world before you can say, hey, wait a sec, do I really want to be here? By then it's too late and you can't put the thing down until it's done.
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