Out in the Mountains Two Halves of New Haven: A Review Brian Grady Martin Schecter’s first novel, Two Halves of New Haven (Crown, 1992) is actually two books in one: the book is neatly divided along the lines of the au- thor’s and his main character’s decision to drop out after a year of medical school at Yale. It is, one gathers, pri- marily an autobiography. Schecter, like the fictitious Paul Levinson, also left medical school to tend bar and to attend art school. The first half represents his struggle with medicine versus life and art, his family versus himself. It is a well known theme, but like many first time writers, Schecter treats it as terra nova, imbuing his prose with the new- ness of discovery. It’s not entirely un- convincing. He winds his growing re- solve to leave medical school around the character of Daniel/Lyle, a young man arrested as an impostor, pretending to be a medical student. It’s a choice fraught with possibilities, none ex- plored too deeply. What is done well is the capture of the sense of shallowness of the medical school experience: the characters around him, his fellow stu- dents, are not the larger than life, per- manent friends-more-than-friends that one expects of such a place and time, of such a peak-life experience. They, and the environs, tend to be two- dimensional, directed, driven, and ul- timately, boring to anyone not also in love with the profession of medicine. It’s an interesting insight into the mak- ing of a physician, and enlightens many of one’s disappointments with the doc- tor-patient relationship. The fnst half of the book is interesting, if a little predictable. It keeps the reader in- terested by jumping from the present into the past, recent and distant, with images of the young Paul at the science fair, moving into medical school, plodding through the first year, a strangely distant death in the family, and the inevitable blowup between himself and his father when he announces his intention to de- part from medical school. Paul’s excuse: he wants to be an artist—specifica1ly, a video artist. This is oddly appropriate: there is something decidedly camera—like about the prose and dialogue throughout. It does not delve into, or embellish the characters or the action, it records their images, their surfaces, but not their con- tents. He tries perhaps too hard to irn- press the reader with medical lingo, but winds up bewildering. There is also a cer- tain lack of distinction in the voices of the characters; they seem to lack in- dividuality, and all seem to ring with the same voice of the author. The form and the content are well matched: nervous and immature (“...the right mixture of in- nocence and enthusiasm...” as Schecter states.). The sense of apartness that Paul experiences in medical school is also well done: not only is he separated from his fellow students by his desire not to be a student, but also by his emerging awareness of his own homsexuality. Paul’s coming out is the main thrust of the second half of the book, and this is where the book is much more likely to capture the attention and imagination of the average reader. He moves to an apartment in New Haven, gets a job as a bartender and befriends several of the employees there. He eventually comes out to Marlou, the cook, who happens to be a lesbian. His character now grows rapidly in strength of action and of voice, and the characters around him are much more intriguing and independent. There still remains a cinematic flavor to the sto- ry, but this is a major theme: Paul’s de- velopment as a video artist. What is touching is the naiveté, unrevised by the years of experience intervening between the fact and the writing. Schecter is un- abashed about relating the elation of the first touch of and by another man's body, the freshman enthusiasm, the impulsive urges to rip everything out by the roots and start one’s life over again: “You Where to Find OITM Bennington Bennington Free Library Bennington College Bennington Library Record Rack Southern Vemiont College Brattieboro Brattleboro Food CoopCahoots Common Ground Everyone's Books Burlington . 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