The Reader at Large

There you are, on the bus, head in a book, headed home. You even have bedhead.   The woman next to you told you this. 

Having done her hairdo duty, she asks, “Is your book good?”

Am I Holden Caulfield?  Is she Ackley?  Do I dare say, “This sentence is terrific”?  

Now it’s not always like that.  Many passengers are readers, or at least sympathetic to readers.  Sometimes they read a library book.  Sometimes they read on their phone.  I am, at present, reading a Penguin of Maureen Howard’s autobiographical novel, Bridgeport Bus. 

But there is much bustling, what with bicyclists struggling to hitch their bike on the rack on the front of the bus  (Driver:  “I’ve got to get moving, man!”), the homeless guy dragging his garbage bags down the aisle (some of us give up our seats, so we don’t trip over his bags later), men getting hysterical over baseball chat (“Go, team?”), and overhearing noisy conversations about private subjects.

No food and drink are allowed on the bus..  I once had to leave a coffee on the curb. I asked the driver, “Do you want me to litter?” He just raised an eyebrow.

When the reader at large get off the bus, she gallops home, changes into her pajamas, and flops on the couch. And finally she can enjoy the following comic conversation between mother and daughter.

 “Tess Mueller is coming over with their nice son who works at the bank.”…

“That’s a shame,” I tell my mother, “because tonight I’m going to the library in New Haven.”

“The library, the library!” – shrieks of coronary outrage.

This witty early novel by Maureen Howard, published in 1965, is one of my favorites. Some, but not all, of her later books are less straightforward, even experimental, so I recommend Bridgeport Bus as a starter book,

The critically-acclaimed Howard doesn’t seem to be well-known anymore, and that’s a shame. Her books are uneven, but her best are stunning. She was a great American writer.