A recently widowed poet of some renown, Thomas Murphy lives in an iconic rent-stabilized apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He's into his mid-70s and feeling it. His daughter, Máire, is worried that he's losing his marbles. The oft-repeated phrase "Have I told you about this?" in his conversational narrative suggests that Máire may be right. Roger Rosenblatt's novel Thomas Murphy features the very funny, often corny, occasionally melancholic musings of this smart, sensitive man who's drifting a little absentmindedly into the tail end of his life. Rosenblatt was a columnist for the Washington Post and Time, essayist for PBS NewsHour and, more recently, memoirist (Making Toast) and novelist (Lapham Rising). His eclectic curiosity, wit, warmth and good taste carry the day.
"Murph" likes his Jameson--especially at his favorite neighborhood bar, At Swim-Two-Birds, where he runs into Jack, who recognizes him from a poetry award ceremony. When Jack tells him: "I could use a good poet," Murph retorts: "I never heard of anyone who could use a poet, good or bad." Jack talks Murph into advising his blind wife, Sarah, that he has an accelerating terminal disease. It turns out Jack really just wants to leave Sarah for his mistress. Jack takes off, Murph and Sarah hit it off.
As Murph says of his award acceptance speech, Thomas Murphy delights us with "its wit and flow, its mixing of sincerity and self-effacement, the warming anecdote, the dip into pun, the soar into high seriousness here and there, a splash of poetry, a flash of skin." To which one might add, great compassion. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.