The Art Student's War

I was interested in reading The Art Student's War, by Brad Leithauser, because it is set in Detroit. There aren't too many books set there, and often when they are they are crime novels. I grew up in a suburb outside of Detroit, and while I lived there it was a scary place--the only time I crossed over its borders were to go to Tiger games. But the period that this novel is set, during World War II and the years afterward, it was a thriving city.

The novel is told from the point of view of Bianca Paradiso, and as the book begins she is eighteen and taking art classes at the Institute Midwest. Though the book is not narrated by her, it is seen through her eyes, and we come to understand things from her perspective. Thus her parents are referred to as Mama and Papa, not by their names. Her father is a contractor, and her mother is a moody woman, who would today be taking anti-depressants. Bianca, called Bea by her friends, also has a brother and sister and an aunt and uncle who are close to her. Her uncle, a doctor named Dennis, is an untarnished hero throughout the story, a simple, decent man who will do anything for his family.

We follow Bea as she dates a fellow student, Ronny, who is the son of a drugstore magnate. She volunteers to draw the portraits of soldiers recuperating from wounds in a hospital, and meets one, Henry, who falls in love with her and will end up being her first lover. Meanwhile her family life, which had seemed do idyllic to her, ends up slowly disintegrating, stemming from a seemingly innocent incident at a picnic by a lake.

The novel has two halves--the second follows Bea about ten years later, when she has married and has children. This half is less successful then the first, as it is more weighted on soap-opera melodrama. There's an entire section revolving around the firing of a milkman.

The style of this book is something pretty rare. It is not a book for children, but it has the breathless prose and numerous exclamation points of a work of juvenilia. I wonder if Leithauser had read many books that were popular during the years depicted and copied their fusty style. Aside from the scene of Bea's deflowering, there is little in the book that wouldn't have been acceptable back in the forties. There isn't anything wrong with this approach, but it certainly is a different experience.

As for its depiction of Detroit, I got some of the references, but I'm sure most of what was mentioned was long gone by the time I lived near there, such as streetcar lines and various businesses (although I recognized the name Sanders). There's a telling bit of dialogue near the end of the book, when Bea and Dennis are discussing the construction of a suburban shopping complex being built, Northland (which is a real place). Dennis doesn't think much of it: "Oh, it may succeed for a while. As a novelty. But how is a shopping complex going to compete with a real downtown? It doesn't make any sense." In this one instance, Dennis couldn't be more wrong.