Review: 'Painting Beyond Walls,' by David Rhodes

"Painting Beyond Walls" marks David Rhodes' sixth novel in a career that can be divided into two parts. After graduating from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1971, he published three novels in quick succession with Atlantic/Little, Brown and Harper & Row.

Unfortunately, a motorcycle accident in 1976 left Rhodes a paraplegic and kept him from publishing for more than 30 years.

Now "Painting Beyond Walls" joins "Driftless" and "Jewelweed" to shape the second half of an impressive career. Characters from his earlier novels appear prominently in the book, as does its setting, the Driftless Region of southwestern Wisconsin.

"Painting Beyond Walls" begins five years from now in September. Having lost his research position in a biochemistry lab at the University of Chicago, August Helm returns to rural Words, Wis. During his years away, the place began to seem "nearly irrelevant to the life he'd become accustomed to." His academic training and recent work experience, together with a failed love affair, leave him adrift in Words, where his parents and childhood friend Ivan Bookchester have remained and where Hanh, the orphan, looks after Lester Mortal, who rescued her during the Vietnam War.

Initially, the book's dramatic tension derives from conflicts in the characters' lives and from the conflicts Ivan, Hanh and Les have with residents of a gated community. "Wealthy people from all over the world" live here, Ivan tells August upon his return. Planes and helicopters land in Forest Gate. Hired "local goons" patrol inside and outside the gates. "All of it, including the adjacent valley, now belongs to developers from Chicago." April Lux, August's future partner, lives in Forest Gate.

A problem of international scope develops later. Rhodes seeks a language to describe a future where, by 2073, birth rates have tumbled precipitously. What to make of how August, the biochemist, speaks about human sexuality and "gene circling?" In his frequent theorizing, he mentions "male and female gametes" or being caught, himself, "in the grip of the three neuropeptides responsible for the sensory awareness of physical pleasure."

The arch language will distract readers. However, Rhodes often tells in plain language his vision which, as it looks to the future, returns to a day years before when a dreamer arrived in Words. Despite its complexities, "Painting Beyond Walls" is an impressive and beautiful novel.

In his first book, "The Last Fair Deal Going Down," Rhodes created a city beneath Des Moines, a sub-city. Before he enters it, Reuben Sledge, the protagonist, tells his sister, "I'll write you a giant novel ... a book that is the inside of me, a great, sprawling ironclad prodigy of emotion." David Rhodes, a Midwestern treasure, has now written six such novels.

Anthony Bukoski lives in Superior, Wis. He is the author of the story collection "The Blondes of Wisconsin," winner of this year's Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award.

Painting Beyond Walls

By: David Rhodes.
Publisher: Milkweed Editions, 432 pages, $28.