In Henry Bean’s brilliant novel, The Nenoquich (1982), reissued a few years ago by McNally Editions, the narrator, Harold Raab, is a thoroughly unpleasant guy.  You will not like him.  I guarantee it.  You will, however, be fascinated by what I call his imaginary diary. 

Harold does not call it a diary.  He writes,  “Recently I have begun work on a large and formless project, which I like to think of as a scientific, rather than an artistic or literary effort.”

In his “formless project,” or book, he keeps track of events, but then impulsively takes off on wild trajectories.  He criticizes his friends or frenemies (he seems not to like them) but then invents scenes and their imagined reactions to them.

The trouble is that Harold has no audience, and truth to tell, his girlfriend is mortified and upset when she reads an excerpt. And yet nothing stops Harold from asking his three housemates in Berkeley to read it. They are not interested in his writing.

 Harold used to have a 9-to-5 job with Blue Cross coverage, and was recognized as a “Somebody” in his alumni magazine. Now he’s nobody, first living in a house with three roommates, later living alone in a rented room. Yet he perversely likes it. He doesn’t enjoy writing all that much, but he prefers working at home.

Yes, everyone likes the work-at-home life-style, and there have always been quite a few at-home writers. Some are poets who publish their own chapbooks. Others are novelists, many without an audience. These days, Harold might self-publish on an internet platform. On the other hand, he would probably get published (like Henry Bean) if he showed it to a discerning editor.

Personally, I am intrigued by Harold’s descriptions of mundane, ordinary life.  Who hasn’t eaten bad hamburgers and watched TV with housemates? As for dinner parties, Harold manages to alienate old friends: he is often mean-spirited in social situations. Most of the novel, however, is about his affair with his married lover, Charlotte, whom he meets at a party.  Her husband, a resident doctor at a hospital, is never home; hence the affair.

Here’s the problem if you’re a woman. Harold does not really like women. He cheats on Charlotte, but makes sure to tell her, because he is downright sadistic.  She loves the sex, but out of bed he is alternately sweet and cruel to her.  She focuses on the sweetness, because she wants love. But she loses her spark because of his treatment of her.

Is Henry Bean a 20th-century Norman Mailer?  Nah, he didn’t try to kill his wife or fight with Mary McCarthy on The Dick Cavett Show. (You can watch the Mailer scene on Youtube.) Is he a Miranda July, author of the humorous, Booker-nominated All Fours?  No, but Bean and July both write too many sex scenes. 

This really is a stunning novel, though.  As far as I know, Henry Bean, a screenwriter, has written no other novels. But I think that readers will agree that Bean really can write.