Winslow in Love

Twisted Mettle

Kevin Canty writes about battered souls on the stick's short end. His latest novel, Winslow in Love, is a sad and sodden romance, shorn of any gloss. It's what Leaving Las Vegas might have been if Elisabeth Shue weren't still kind of hot and Nicolas Cage still kind of charming.

Richard Winslow is a broke, lonely poet stranded in a frigid wasteland. When he meets Erika, half his age and bent on starving herself to death, he finds a kindred spirit. Little in this novel is idealized. Nobody joins AA, gets a decent job, or buys a condo. There's no cathartic romp in the sheets, only the most awkward, bittersweet act of fellatio ever described in print. Canty is Jane Goodall, observing his hero as if he were a primate -- albeit one with a taste for Johnnie Walker: "Take a picture of Winslow that night, sitting whiskey-drunk in front of the television....He's watching himself watch a cooking show."

You won't be surprised how all this ends. You will be surprised to find that this fat, failed poet is one drunk you wouldn't mind buying a round. Even through a liquored haze, he's still got enough savvy to step back and marvel at the fiasco his life has become. You have to love a guy who's wrecked the train but can still appreciate the mangled beauty of the twisted metal. Canty knows we all visit the murky depths from time to time. And he understands the secret: In the end, it's almost always a girl who pulls us out. And often a blend, neat, that gets us through.

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