Loon Lake

A work of experimental fiction, award-winning American author E. L. Doctorow’s Loon Lake (1980) incorporates a wide range of literary techniques and styles, including blank verse poetry and stream of consciousness. The narrative focuses on a young man who finds refuge at a millionaire's estate in New York's Adirondack Mountains. Contemporary reviews for Loon Lake were wildly mixed: The New York Times called the book "a portrait rich in its psychology and historical nuance," while Kirkus Reviews called it "artful but lifeless." Nevertheless, the book received a nomination for the National Book Award for Fiction.

The protagonist is Joseph Korzeniowski, the son of two mill workers living in Paterson, New Jersey during the 1930s. At the beginning of the narrative, Joseph is a teenager who resents his working-class upbringing and the routines this lifestyle entails. In 1936, Joseph graduates from high school and relocates to New York City, eager to escape the less cosmopolitan environs of Paterson. Life in New York City isn't so glamorous, however. Joseph lives in a shabby rooming house and can only find work as a delivery boy. In search of adventure, Joseph leaves New York City and joins a traveling carnival for which he does menial tasks. At one point, he engages in a sexual affair with the wife of the carnival company's proprietor.

Restless as ever, Joseph abandons the carnival and wanders the Adirondack Mountains region of Northeast New York State. He accidentally stumbles onto the property of a rich industrialist on Loon Lake and is chased by attack dogs. Joseph makes his way to a stately mansion, at which point the owner of the estate, F.W. Bennett, calls off the dogs. Bennett is a millionaire tycoon who made his fortune in manufacturing. He agrees to let Joseph stay on the estate in return for manual labor.

During his time on the Loon Lake estate, Joseph meets a number of characters, including the failed poet Warren Penfield. A World War I veteran, Warren has spent the last seven years at the estate, paralyzed by his literary failures. He also suffers from crippling loneliness, feeling unable to forge real relationships with anybody. Joseph also meets and falls in love with Clara, a beautiful young woman with whom the married Bennett is having an affair. Bennett met Clara through her ex-boyfriend, Thomas Crapo, an influential gangster and associate of Bennett's. Bennett's wife, Lucinda, a famous aviator is presently away from the estate on one of her feats of aviation.

When Lucinda returns, Clara realizes there is nothing keeping her at Loon Lake. She and Joseph steal one of the Bennett family cars and drive West with no real destination in mind. They make it as far as Jacksontown, Indiana before running out of money. Joseph gets a job at the town's manufacturing plant, which happens to be owned by Bennett. He and Clara rent a room in an apartment building where they live next door to a young married couple, Lyle and Sandy James. Although Lyle belongs to the local manufacturing union, he is actually an undercover company man working to disrupt union activities. He works for Crapo Industrial Services or CIS, a criminal organization run by Clara's gangster ex-boyfriend. Bennett, Joseph learns, hires CIS to thwart and suppress local unions across the country at his plants.

One night, Lyle is murdered in the street, supposedly by members of the local union. However, Joseph strongly suspects that CIS killed Lyle and made it look like the work of the union. When Clara abandons Joseph to return to her gangster ex-boyfriend Crapo, Joseph leaves Jacksontown with Lyle's widow, Sandy. They travel west and begin to plan a life together. However, when Joseph learns that Lucinda has died in a plane crash over the Pacific with Warren, he pities the surviving Bennett and decides to return to Loon Lake without Sandy. As Bennett grieves the loss of his wife, he and Joseph grow very close. Bennett begins to think of Joseph as the son he never had and eventually adopts him. Thanks to his association with Bennett, Joseph finds great success of his own as a business tycoon.

Loon Lake is at once a novel of probing psychological depth and a striking historical depiction of the conflicts between big business and unions in pre-World War II America.