Joshua Henkin’s new novel …

 I recently finished reading Joshua Henkin’s Morningside Heights. The post that follows is my review.

When I looked through my copy of Morningside Heights (Pantheon, 304 pp., $26.95}, Joshua Henkin’s new novel, to re-read passages I had marked, I was surprised at how many were about Arlo Zackheim, Spence Robin’s son by a first, early marriage. Spence is the husband of Pru Steiner, and Morningside Heights is principally about them. Pru and Spence have a daughter of their own, Sarah.

The story of Pru and Spence is, one might say, the ground bass of this most impressive novel. And this is a novel that brings to mind musical terms, notably contrapuntal.

Prudence Steiner hails from Columbus, Ohio, but she arrives in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights because that’s where part of Columbia University’s campus is and Columbia is where Pru is going for her Ph. D., having just graduated from Yale.

Spence is one of her professors. He’s popular with his students. He’s on the rise, a rise that will culminate in a best-selling book and a MacArthur grant. Spence and Pru hit it off with each other from the start.

They have things in common. One day, over coffee, Pru tells him she’s from the suburbs of Columbus. “What’s in the suburbs of Columbus,” he asks. “Oh, just another bunch of complicated Jewish families like mine,” she answers.

“Another tautology,” he says. 

“So you know about complicated Jewish families,” she replies.

“I come from one.”

This surprised her. With his rangy, slender frame, his pale face and thatch of red hair, he put her in mind of the Irish countryside. And Spence — she thought of Spencer Tracy — not to mention his last name — Robin — well, you could have fooled her.

“My Christian name is Shulem,” he said.

Faith figures in this tale, though in an unconventional way. Pru was raised in an Orthodox household. She attended a school called Torah Academy. As for Spence, “his grandfather had been a rabbi in Lithuania, but his parents’ god had been Communism. He hadn’t even been Bar Mitzvahed.” Now, though, Pru and Spence both consider themselves atheists, but the god they don’t believe in is the God of Abraham.

Nevertheless, after they are married — as they soon are — they attend synagogue.

Part I of Morningside Heights ends with Spence getting his MacArthur. Part II starts after Sarah has left for medical school. It ends with Pru phoning Sarah: “Dad has Alzheimer’s,” she said. “We need to tell Arlo.” 

To continue my musical metaphors, Parts l and II serve as the overture. Then we get to know Arlo and Sarah. Arlo had been raised mostly by his mother, an unreconstructed hippie who moved them frequently, usually in pursuit of a man. She once expressed a wish “to poop in all 50 states.” He and Spence talk on the phone and he visits from time to time. Then, in his teens, he comes to live with Pru and Spence and Sarah. At first, brother and sister resent each other, but they come to grow close. While living there, Arlo is admitted to a special school. He has trouble with words, aggravated by his father’s pedantic  use of same. But “he had an excellent memory, and when he set his mind to something, no one worked harder than he did. … in the nethermost regions of his mind he allowed himself to believe he was smart.” Though “when his father came home with his vocabulary words, Arlo thought he was just fooling himself.”

Eventually, he and Sarah will go to Reed College, though Arlo quickly drops out. He has other plans for himself. He ends up making a fortune from a computer company he founds. So he is able to move Spence and Pru to D.C. He has arranged for Spence to be accepted into a trial of a new drug that may help with Alzheimer’s. Sarah, who is now a doctor, comes to watch over things.

Pru’s best fried, Camille, introduces her to Walter, Camille’s oldest friend. Walter is a caregiver too. His wife had left him for another guy, but that guy has taken off and Walter’s ex now has Parkinson’s. He takes care of her out of love. Pru and Walter like each other, but Pru loves Spence and will not leave him.

Spence’s inevitable decline is touched upon only intermittently, not dwelt upon. This actually makes you feel it more, since every succeeding incident makes the inevitability of the outcome clearer and more poignant. One night, Pru climbs into bed with Spence, having undressed herself and him, trying to remind him of the physical love they had shared and enjoyed for so many years. The episode is heartbreaking.

Pru and Sarah take Spence with them to Ohio, to celebrate Pru’s mother’s birthday. It is there that the inevitable happens. Spence falls ill with pneumonia.

He’d already stopped eating; soon he stopped drinking too. He allowed the nurse to insert a wet washcloth between his lips, but before long he locked his jaw. He was still Spence; still stubborn. Pru asked everyone to leave. She was alone with Spence, as she’d been at the beginning. She got into the hospital bed and lay there holding him, and she just lay there and lay there and she held him and she lay there.

This is a many-layered novel. Yes, it is about a loving couple facing dreadful circumstances. But the thread of religion that runs through it changes its perspective. Oddly, that is because the protagonists, though not believers, are sustained by the rituals and utterances of faith. 

Henkin writes beautifully. His eye for detail is uncanny. Morningside Heights deserves to be a bestseller. It will surely become a classic.