Godlike
A Novel
Richard Hell
Akashic Books: New York, NY, 150 pages

Reviewed by Rob Woodard

Richard Hell is of course the former singer-songwriter-bassist for the early New York “punk” bands Television, The Heartbreakers, and the Voidoids, and later musical assemblages such as the Dim Stars. Always a fascinating lyricist, he has in the last decade or so forsaken music — and an on-and-off-again acting career — and turned his attentions to the written word almost entirely, building himself a very interesting, if under appreciated, career as an essayist, critic, poet, and novelist.

Hell’s first novel, GO NOW, released in 1996, can probably best be described as a flawed effort that manages to succeed in many ways despite itself. It is the story of a cross-country trip taken by a down-and-out, and hopelessly strung-out rocker named Billy Mud and his French photographer former-girlfriend, Chrissa. As Billy’s musical career and life are hitting a serious trough, Chrissa uses her connections to get them both a book deal, the premise being that they will fly from their homes in New York to Los Angeles to pick up their backer’s “fire-colored ‘57 DeSoto Adventurer” and then drive it back to New York, for the purpose of later creating a book about their experiences along the way, with Billy writing the text and Chrissa supplying the photographs. This trip back to New York turns out to be a strangely under-described leapfrog from city to city, during which Billy and Chrissa find and lose each other again on more than one occasion, while Billy spends most of his time scoring, or being sick because he cannot score, heroin.

While there is some wonderful writing in this book (especially in its early chapters), where Hell lays down some jarringly spot-on descriptions of and insights into the artist-junkie’s lifestyle in late-twentieth-century America, it is ultimately undermined by its gimmicky plot and the lack of interest its author eventually seems to show in his own narrative (it is as if Hell realized halfway thru things that his basic premise was not working very well and simply did not have the heart to delve into it any further than absolutely necessary). In the end, we are left with huge chunks of a truly fascinating addict’s memoir attached to the wobbly scaffolding of just another silly road-trip novel.

I am happy to report that GODLIKE, Richard Hell’s second novel, is an affair of a much higher order, both as a technical piece of writing, and more importantly, in the depth and wisdom of its tale.

In this novel, Hell basically retells the story of the doomed love affair between the great nineteenth-century French poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud, recasting them as American post-Beat poets who come together in New York City in the early 1970s. Paul Vaughn (Hell’s Verlaine stand-in), though he hangs out deep in the heart of New York’s underground poetry scene of little mimeographed magazines and drug-soaked bohemianism, is also a married man, who goes home at night to a life of middle-class comfort, mainly because of his wife’s family’s money and connections. This more mainstream half of his life is quickly shattered, however, by the appearance of a young poet named Randall Terrance Wode (most often simply referred to as “T”). At sixteen, T has flown from the stunting sterility of suburban America to the more stimulating environment of New York City. Having written his poet hero Paul in advance (and out of the blue) of his plan, Paul encourages his young fan to track him down once he is in the city, which T does, in arrogant, blustering, and brilliant fashion at a poetry reading featuring what seems to be a large number of New York’s alternative poetry elite. Paul immediately falls violently in love with T, forsaking his pregnant wife on this very first night for the burning privilege of sucking T’s dick and generally basking in the genius and passion that the younger poet constantly sheds like sparks from a crackling fire.

This relationship is not entirely a one-way street, however. Paul is T’s gateway into the world of poets, and for a time his necessary partner in mind-opening (and bending) experiments with homosexuality, various drugs, and a poet’s lifestyle that finds its meaning in pushing things to their emotional, physical, and financial edge. But though T is brilliant, he is also a peculate child, and therefore cannot return or even understand Paul’s love; and so Paul ultimately becomes little more than fodder for T’s insatiable need to experience, his need to move beyond certain feelings and beliefs in search of his own destiny. Because of this, Paul is eventually forsaken by T, but not before a wild affair of bittersweet meaning is paraded before our eyes. Not that Paul is anything close to a complete victim; he truly understands T and what he is getting into. He also has his own agenda of need fulfillment, which he is not shy about putting into play, and most importantly, understands certain things that T, with all his intelligence, does not — mainly that youth, though it is amazing, is also short-lived and limited in its vision, and finally “that love is real.”

Those familiar with story of Verlaine and Rimbaud will easily recognize the grooves and textures of this novel, and those who are not will probably feel a sense of déjà vu anyway, as the dynamics of Paul and T’s impossible love accurately reflects so many a doomed relationship in literature — and more importantly, in life. Indeed, one of the most interesting virtues of this book is how its familiar story works to its advantage. Freed from the necessity of having to labor over the mechanics of his plot, Hell is able to paint in broad, almost impressionist strokes, which not only lays bare the inherently diaphanous nature of his main subject matter (poets, poetry, and of course, romantic love), but also allows him to describe the more surface level aspects of New York poetry scene of the early seventies, and the time and place in general, in language which is often both shimmering and evocative without ever being soft or lush.

This story’s evocative nature also owes a great deal to its structure. Though told from Paul’s point of view, the novel does not follow the standard first-person narrative, but shifts back and fourth between fragments of Paul’s abandoned novel about T and excerpts from his notebooks, many of which are written from the mental hospitals in which Paul apparently often finds himself in the years after his time with T has ended. In less skillful hands, such an approach could easily become unwieldy and/or pretentious; but with Hell it becomes the instrument he uses to truly capture the voice of his aging poet, both thru “Paul’s” prose, and thru the poetry Hell writes in Paul’s name (Hell’s skill as a poet as well as his knowledge of poetry serves him well throughout this work, as “T’s” poetry also appears and other real-life poets are quoted liberally).

Though GODLIKE updates the Verlaine-Rimbaud story in a sure and meaningful fashion, and also brilliantly captures the feel of New York poetry scene in the early seventies, in the end, what reveals this work’s true worth is that it transcends both its love-story framework and the time and place in which it is set and shows the broader and deeper reality of being an artist in a society that does not value such insights. Basically, GODLIKE is a wonderful novel on all levels, that due to the underground nature of its author’s reputation and its graphic and unapologetic descriptions of homosexuality and recreational drug use, will probably languish as a cult read — at least for the time being. However, if this country ever decides to move in a more humane and compassionate and less judgmental direction, GODLIKE will no doubt come to be seen as the American classic it is.

Rob Woodard is the author of the novels Heaping Stones and What Love Is. He is also the editor of the Burning Shore Review. He currently lives in Long Beach, California. He can be reached thru the “Contact” page of this website.