About halfway through Harris Lahti’s debut novel, Foreclosure Gothic, there is a photograph of two raccoons. One, apparently dead, has been laid on a bed of fruit. The other is attempting to have sex with it. The original image is taken from the multimedia series Nature Studies by Brazilian photographer Mari Juliano, which begins with several enchanting photos of levitating bones and flowers and concludes with footage of curious deer and drone shots of Juliano’s cabin. These surprisingly ordinary final images are the most effective in the series because, coming after the raccoon necrophilia that appears in the middle of the sequence, they seem to show Juliano’s shame, her search for a less-mediated representation of the natural world.
In Lahti’s novel, it’s Heather Greener, an actress turned farmers’ market vendor, who photographs the raccoons in her backyard. She wants to show them to her husband, Vic, a former Days of Our Lives star who drinks to cope with his shattered dreams and exhausting job. To Heather, Vic and the libidinous creature have something in common: They embody “the ways in which natural instincts—such as earning money—can sometimes lead to maladaptive behavior in the artificial world we live in.” Before Heather has the chance to explain this connection, Vic insists on hanging her work on their office wall, and the couple makes love for the first time in months, right there on the floor in front of it. An unconventional marital aid, no question. As in Juliano’s series, in Lahti’s fiction, to experience horror is to receive a moral shock treatment.
Foreclosure Gothic is a twisted melodrama animated by close encounters with addiction, incest, and death by misadventure. But it’s also an earnest heartland romance. Upon meeting on the Venice boardwalk in 1980s Los Angeles, Vic and Heather learn that they grew up a few New York State Thruway exits apart. As scene partners, they “Yes, and?” each other until they’re soon life partners. When Vic’s soap money runs out, they swiftly return to the East Coast. Tinseltown exists in this novel only to become a memory of fame. Junior is born. The family eats what Heather can’t sell from her garden. (Oops! All cauliflower.) Vic claims he’ll audition again once their finances are stable. Meanwhile, he buys foreclosed buildings at auction to remodel and rent them, just as his father did. The Greeners’ mantra: “Try to see the house behind the house.” It’s both sound development advice and a sentimental reminder of the difference between a house and a home.
Over the years, the Greeners amass eight properties. For one last hurrah before he joins the family business, a college-aged Junior takes a trip to Costa Rica. Enamored with the tropics, Junior renounces his place in the line of succession. He decides he’ll build a hut, surf every morning, and write the millennial Robinson Crusoe. Or so he thinks. As Hollywood was to Vic and Heather, Ostional is to Junior, who calls his parents for return airfare the moment he runs out of Spanish words and colones.
Though we spend more time with his parents, Foreclosure Gothic is ultimately Junior’s story. When he gets home and ditches the artist’s way to flip houses with his father, he learns to love sanding hardwood like the men in Caillebotte’s Raboteurs de parquet, finding beauty in the long, steady strokes. If this is good news for New York’s housing crisis, it also provides a grim outlook for American literature. The omniscient narrator scolds Junior for fiddling with his short stories amid “high unemployment, low wages, and little opportunity—the opposite of what Vic offered.”
But Lahti himself has found the middle way: Since finishing his MFA, he’s managed to publish his debut while painting houses upstate. Lahti knows that, for most artists, making a living off art will remain a fantasy. Foreclosure Gothic is more than a fable about embracing tradition; it’s a rejoinder to the horror of modern life. Vic Greener’s offer—the novel’s, too—is an escape from escapism.
Publisher: Astra Publishing House Page count: 240 Price: $26.00 Key quote: “In fact, he feels wonderful. Completely lobotomized. Sun-kissed and sleepy. Nostalgic, even.” Shelve next to: Jordan Castro, Bud Smith, Gabriel Smith Unscientifically calculated reading time: An afternoon drive to the dump
