Published by Inside the Castle
As I sat looking at a blank Notepad document with this book and copies of David Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress and This Is Not A Novel and Other Novels at my side, I kept coming back to the word "devotion."
This book is a true believer's dedication to the act of devotion. There's something almost religious about it. Devotion to Markson, of course, but also a devotion to that inescapable figure the Dead Father. We all have fathers. Some are dead. Writers, more often than not, have their own type of dead father. That is, the inspirational creative force whose shadow they can't escape. If they're neurotic enough, that is. It could be said that Malcolm Lowry was that figure for David Markson who wrote a book length critical study of the Under The Volcano author. The anonymous author of this book has given us perhaps the ultimate example of someone who has fully embraced life in this shadow, if only for this one book. Because I don't know who wrote this, I can only assume they have other books bearing their name. And if they don't? Well, then this really is a singular piece of work which has no equal of which I'm aware. Maybe someone better read can think of another book where the author forgoes their own identity to essentially inhabit the identity of the dead author they worship. Dedicating years of one's life to essentially a pastiche (and I don't mean that in a derogatory way) of an established master is fanatical and a creative expression that gave me pause. On one hand, why not just read Markson? On the other, we have yet another new conceptual approach to the novel that feels rather refreshing in the world of ego driven social media saturation.
Before getting into the specifics of Afterword, Markson's work itself needs to be addressed. There is, of course, Wittgenstein's Mistress, which is broadly considered his masterpiece. At this juncture, that may be in no small part due to David Foster Wallace's championing of it. Wallace provided the afterword in a later edition and shouts out the book in his list of 5 underappreciated American novels in the second half of the 20th century. It's also the book of Markson's with which I'm most familiar. While reading Afterword, I caught the references to WM. Bits are lifted and reappropriated including the final line which is one of the all time greats. But it's actually Markson's later novels that provide the real structure of Afterword and that's where an interesting effect occurs. As I flipped through three of the novels from The Notecard Quartet, I started to realize I wasn't going to be able to remember what lines I found in Afterword and which come directly from Markson's work in these later novels. Certainly, there are Marksonisms in Afterword that clearly postdate Markson's death and had to be created by the Author. But, certain lines like those that reference the deaths of major literary figures could have just as easily been lifted from This Is Not A Novel. Or I first saw them in This Is Not A Novel and misremembered seeing them first in Afterword. Or maybe, or maybe.
I don't think it's inaccurate to say reading Afterword without being familiar with Markson would make little sense as far as fully appreciating the work. Because once you realize what's happening, and you start to sound like Markson's narrators losing their trains of thought and doubting their own memories in real time, Afterword reveals itself as quite the achievement. It could very easily be the follow up to The Last Novel, Markson's final work. Lovers of plot, obviously, need not apply. But the postmodernist in your life will be rubbing their grubby little hands together by the end. I certainly did.