The Mayor's Tongue Book

This book opens up with a great deal of promise. We are quickly introduced to two stories. In one, we meet Eugene (probably the protagonist, though I'll explain in a minute why that may be a misnomer) and his friend Alvaro, a man from a region of the Dominican Republic who speaks only a dialect unknown to anyone else and no English. Alvaro and Eugene somehow communicate despite the fact that neither can understand a word the other says--though as the reader sees in translation, they're not always clear on what the other is saying, leading to some amusing interactions. Eugene and Alvaro both work for a moving company in New York. Eugene, as it turns out (and the author's failure to explain this point irks me) wrote his college thesis on a prolific writer named Constance Eakins, and is portrayed as being well overqualified for a job as a mover. Nevertheless, through his moving job, Eugene meets Abe Chisholm, who claims to be a close friend of the recently-declared-deceased Eakins, who has been missing for 30 years since last being seen in Italy. Chisholm is working on a biography of Eakins, and hires Eugene on for help, providing Eugene at the same time the opportunity to meet and quickly fall in love with his daughter, Alison (who--quite frustratingly--is referred to by the author with at least five different names over the course of the book). Alison runs off to Italy to try to track down Eakins, and Eugene is left deciding whether to follow after.

In the other story, two friends, Schmitz and Rutherford, meet for daily discussions about their past adventures in the army while stationed in Italy, while avoiding conversations about Schmitz's unhappy marriage or the mystery of Rutherford's Italian love who died in some unknown fashion not long after their romance began, leaving Rutherford's heart broken. This story is much less developed and interesting than the first, and I will dwell on it no longer at present.

I began this book by absolutely loving the concept of two friends--Alvaro and Eugene--who talk to each other all the time and who have an understanding between each other without every really knowing a single word the other is saying. That's an excellent concept. Alas, the book tumbles downhill from there. The author tells his story with a sort of magical realism, entwining myth and the supernatural with the course of the story. But he never explores the connection of his mythical characters--wood sprites and an Italian mountain demon--with the story he's telling. They show up as tangents and quickly disappear after fleeting glimpses that are left hanging and unaddressed by the time the book ends.

More frustrating is the arc of the two stories the author is telling here. One would expect that when an author writes a single novel with two storylines, that those lines will at some point connect and entwine in a meaningful way before the end of the book. Well, not so here. Other than crossing into the same region of the world late in the book, the stories have absolutely nothing to do with one another. I think it would have been just as well to drop the Schmitz-Rutherford story entirely: it's not that interesting and nothing would have been loft from Eugene's adventure.

The title of the book is also left shrouded in mystery. I won't explore this area to closely, lest I give anything away to future readers (not that I recommend anyone actually bother becoming one), but suffice it to say that there are at least four separate things in the book that might be referred to by the title "Mayor's Tongue." And when it comes right down to it, each meaning has very little to do with the others. So which is it?

Finally--and once again I am constrained by my desire not to ruin anything for those of you who brave this book despite my warnings--the ending is disappointingly lackluster and implausible. That's all I can say without making this into a spoiler.

Ultimately, this book is about language, communication, and the power of stories over people and even over reality. Alas, these promising themese are lost along the way when the stories in this book seemingly twist out of the author's control and beyond the reader's interest. As I said, this book started out strong, but it progressively lost steam until it puttered meekly into its disappointing conclusion. Nathaniel Rich may have potential--he provides some glimpses of it, surely--but it is lost on this particular effort.