A Smuggler's Bible


A Smuggler's Bible is Joseph McElroy's first novel. David Brooke—who talks of himself in a split-personality manner—narrates a framing tale that consists of him "smuggling" his essence into eight autobiographical manuscripts, although their connection with Brooke is not always clear. Brooke seems to deteriorate, while his fictions become more real.
The term "smuggler's bible" refers to a book with a cutout in the body of the pages, suitable for hiding small items when the covers are closed.

Plot summary

The novel consists of a frame story, intercut with eight chapters that are the eight manuscripts mentioned in the frame story.
the principal parts of david brooke

The Shadow

Forty-two-year-old Peter St. John runs an antiquarian bookstore in Brooklyn Heights. His father Hugh lives in London, his wife Sally and daughter Joan are staying in Maine for the summer. His friend David Brooke, aged 28, living in his parents' house, sometimes hangs around the store. He sometimes steals books, with St. John's knowledge.
Walter Roy, a boy, has been stalking St. John from a distance. After a few times, St. John confronts Walt, and learns that, from a distance, Walt had thought St. John resembled Walt's father, William, who had been a 41-year-old stockbroker when he died the previous April. St. John ends up wanting to be fatherly to Walt, and give him a gift of an atlas, but Walt rebels against the idea and the gift.
the blue address book

A Cabinet of Coins

This manuscript consists of first person accounts by Mary Clovis, James Judah Lafayette, Abby Love, and Alonzo Morganstern, all residents on the same floor of the Kodak Hotel, now a boarding house. They share the floor with David Brooke, and one Luke Pennitt. There is also an account from Terri, the maid. Theodore Selbstein is their landlord.
From Mrs. Clovis we learn that Pennitt has a coin collection, is very secretive, and does not want maid service, that Morganstern is a Communist, that Pennitt and Morganstern constantly argue, that Brooke has gone from quiet to noisy under Morganstern's influence, and that Pennitt is behind in his rent.
Lafayette overhears Brooke talking with some girl. She's interested in him, but he's worried about Pennitt and his coins. She's also behind in her rent, and Brooke is willing to pay it.
Terri would like to marry one Franklin Benjamin, who, it turns out, knows Brooke and questions Terri about him. Selbstein has her check Pennitt's room for anything interesting. Eventually she finds an odd machine in his closet, with screw-rods and other things she can't figure out, but her description satisfies Selbstein's curiosity.
The girl with Brooke turns out to be Abby Love. She describes in great detail Brooke's conversations with Pennitt on coins. She has a big fight with Brooke, writes him an IOU for back rent, and leaves him for at least a day.
Morganstern lies to Brooke about being a former pro boxer. He admits to having to move around a lot. Selbstein tells him that Pennitt is being evicted for nonpayment and that Love has never missed a rent check.
That chapter ends with a section of pure dialogue, as Selbstein is evicting Pennitt. It turns out that Pennitt's coin collection was manufactured by Pennitt using the odd machine in his closet.
blind john jones and the ice-cream sculpture

Cable

David's mother Julia, 60, is reading a cablegram telling of the time of arrival that afternoon of her seven-week-old granddaughter Julie at Idlewild, giving time but not the flight, while her daughter Ann and son-in-law Dan stay in London sightseeing, headed to Israel. Her husband, Halsey, 65, is in Chicago, and will be taking a train back to New York. David himself, now 31, is in New Hampshire, having moved there eighteen months previously.
That night Julia gives a dinner, with guests Bobby Prynne, a friend of David, headed for a divorce and sweet on Julia in a way she finds creepy, friends Quincey and Sarah Fearon, and after they leave, her distant younger cousin Josie Wrenn shows up.
The next morning, Julia meets Halsey at Penn Station, much to his surprise.
reflex therapy, or what bruder didn't say

An American Hero, or the Last Days of Duke, Mary, and Me

Michael Amerchrome narrates in first person about himself, his "famous historian" father Duke, 54, and his stepmother, Mary, 35, Duke's third wife. Michael presumes the second wife was his mother, of whom he has no memories. Duke's past includes an eclectic list of job titles, but Michael admits he knows nothing beyond the titles. As an example, he mentions Duke's work acting in and directing a documentary, but which Duke does not let Michael see. The family frequently moves.
Duke is currently in his second year as a professor at a young New Hampshire university.
suicide in a camel's hair coat

Anglo-American Chronicle

the canal street hypnotist

Ice Cream, ''Invertito'', Cemetery by the Sea

the black box

Symptoms of Fugue, or How David in a Sense Faked Amnesia, and What Happened

integration and the man upstairs

Influences

McElroy explicitly acknowledged the influence of William Gaddis The Recognitions in an interview, and also in his "Neural Neighborhoods" essay, where McElroy states he was already well into his own novel when he read the Gaddis novel.
One McElroy passage makes a rather direct allusion:
which is closely similar to a passage in The Recognitions:
Professor Duke Amerchrome is an academic fraud, an addition to the catalog of quacks, counterfeiters, and art forgers in the Gaddis novel.
Moreover, Reverend Gwyon hides his liquor in a smuggler's bible.