FICTION

GOING TO PATCHOQUE by Thomas McGonigle (Dalkey Archive Press: $19.95; 213 pp.) The narrator of this chilling, challenging novel sets out for Patchogue, physically (as he explains in the first chapter) a village on Long Island, but emotionally the center of his existence. He travels a rather circuitous route, via Bulgaria, Turkey and Italy, at each stop sharing his observations and experiences with the reader. It is difficult to paraphrase the author’s range of perception. The eclectic array of facts he chooses to present about Patchogue give an unsettling hint of his imagination: In the same flat, vaguely threatening tone, he tells a racist joke, describes a grisly local murder, recalls his first love and discusses male adolescent fantasies and menstruation. McGonigle’s protagonist seems trapped in a straitjacket of detail and memory, seeking a way out even as he promotes the notion to himself that there is no escape. In an age of predigested plot lines and predictable suspense, it is no mean feat that McGonigle can manage to surprise the reader, time and again, with unexpected bits of physical and psychological violence. He does have a unique point of view; whether the reader will emerge from this travelogue feeling that he has conquered an exhausting array of ideas, or merely exhausted and relieved to be out, seems a matter of personal taste.