The Second Coming (2024)
Why this one?
I’d read and enjoyed (with caveats) GRH’s City on Fire, so thought this one was worth a look. Thanks to Netgalley and Granta for the ARC.
Garth Risk Hallberg (1978- ; active 2007- ) was born in Louisiana, US to parents who were both teachers. He studied English at Washington University in St. Louis, graduating in 2001. He published his debut novella, A Field Guide to the North American Family in 2007, and his debut novel proper was 2015’s City on Fire, an epic that shone an explosive light on New York (now his home city) in the 1970s. The latter was the subject of a fierce bidding war between publishers and therefore huge hype that divided readers. It was adapted for TV by Apple TV+, screening in 2023 to fairly muted reviews. The Second Coming is (appropriately) his second novel.
Thoughts, etc.
The Second Coming is set primarily around 2011, but with leaps in time that take it 2022, 2001 and occasionally elsewhere. It focuses on two primary characters - Jolie Aspern, a precocious and troubled 13-year-old living in New York with her mother Sarah, and her estranged father Ethan, an ex-convict and recovering addict. It begins compellingly, with Jolie finding herself hospitalised following a narrow escape on Subway tracks, and Ethan receiving a call from Sarah that convinces him that he has something to offer her, and returns to New York to seek her out.
It’s clear from early on that Ethan’s ‘gift’ to Jolie is his life story, an explanation of the errors of his ways that (in his mind at least) will offer her empathy into both the circumstances that can lead to deep dissatisfaction with life, and through that perhaps a pathway to avoid his own mistakes. It’s also fairly transparently an attempt to absolve himself of some of the blame for the impact his actions (and subsequent absence) have had on the mental state of his daughter.
Through the novel’s time leaps we find ourselves rubbing up against key moments in history. From the 2022 vantage point we see the lingering world of the Covid Pandemic, referenced regularly in these snippets but never seemingly to any great purpose - though it was presumably in Hallberg’s mind when choosing Yeats’ Spanish Flu-influenced poem ‘The Second Coming’ as inspiration for the titling. There are bits and pieces of 90s and early 2000s history deployed elsewhere, with 9/11 most impressively evoked.
If anything, that last point made me wish the book had spent more time in 2001 than 2011. City on Fire, for all its flaws, masterfully evoked a sense of time and place with its depiction of the unimaginably different New York of blackouts, looting and terror in the 1970s. The Second Coming struggles to have any similar impact in its primary parts. Hallberg is, here, far more interested in recreating Ethan’s sleepy Maryland hometown, which is fine but has much less universal appeal, at least to this UK-based reader’s eyes. The 9/11 section, if brief and not wholly original (how could it be?), offers a brief glimpse of Hallberg’s knack for vividly capturing that city at its strangest moments, and I for one would have loved more.
Elsewhere there are other strong positives. There are memorable scenes that stick in the mind, notably one atop the Brooklyn Bridge, and its characters, while not likeable (and occasionally in Jolie’s case not especially plausible) are captivating in their oddness. Beyond those couple of redeeming features, though, I have to admit that I struggled fairly massively with this one.
The primary bugbear is the language. Hallberg is a publicly declared fan of the likes of DeLillo (me too!) and David Foster Wallace (who I’m too lazy to have read!) and it shows in the ambition of his writing but not always in the delivery. What he is strong on: conveying an atmosphere through writing; the imitation of the rhythms of music (especially jazz-influenced music) through prose; sketching out vivid scenes and characters. What he’s less strong on: writing prose that is actually a pleasure to read; plot; storytelling. I’ve read reviews describing this book as ‘exhausting’ and ‘headache-inducing’ and as I did so I excitedly showed them to my partner, shouting ‘yes! Look! THIS is the book I’ve been suffering through for the last 2 weeks!’
If its endless sentences that go nowhere are its biggest pain point, they certainly aren’t its only issue. From its promising origins, its ‘plot’ covers a lot of ground in terms of time and space, but its destination seems barely any further advanced than its origin. Trainwreck absent dad attempts to bond with traumatised daughter; realises he was better off out of her way in the first place. Duh. It’s also a book that makes a big play of threading musical references through its many pages, right down to its final third being an effective mix-tape with sections titled with track names (some very familiar, some cool deep cuts, some too elusive for this semi-nerd even). This is all very nice, but it does very little for the reader. The songs exist primarily in the characters’ heads, offering no insight into their situation beyond the occasional reference that you catch but is way too on-the-nose anyway. Its prose, as mentioned, is musical, but more of an elaborate free-jazz puzzle than an enjoyably melodious symphony.
Score
5
A book I didn’t entirely hate but I’m definitely glad to have done with. I’m not sure what the wider world will make of it. But with critics already divided by Hallberg’s far superior debut, it’s hard to imagine that he’s made life easier for himself with this meandering 600-page follow-up.
Next up
Something random, I feel.
