#283 Lorelei- Jerome Charyn
Howell was a con-man, a grifter, a chiseler. He went from
small town to small town taking advantage of rich widows. But he always came
back to the Bronx where he grew up a poor child of a poor family. He never
stole the big money and never hit it big, even as a kid watching Yankees games
from afar up the hill, he was always “binoculars away” from what he wanted.
So, now in his fifties, tired of the con, he comes back to
live in the diminished Grand Concourse “Lorelei” where he was once the
superintendent’s son. To his surprise the love of his youth, the debutante and
daughter of the real estate king of the Bronx was still living there, unmarried
and waiting for him.
Naomi is a cross between Scarlett O’Hara and Miss Havisham (the
old jilted spinster from Great Expectations). She was false, tragic, despicable
and irreversibly damaged; and in a way Howell only saw now, more of a chiseler
than even himself.
“Howell was in misery. She’d robbed him of whatever thunder
he had left.”
I liked this story at the start, I thought the set up was
great and built a foundation for something rich and tragic and very dramatic.
Instead it kind of fell off the rails and stopped short. I would have liked to
see this story as novella.
Notable Passage: “The white rose is a symbol of love as
everlasting war.”
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