Gilvarry is a master of the secondary character — Eastman’s exchanges with newspapermen, bigwig editors, a cop buddy, are lively and sharp. While in Saigon, Eastman is taken by a thirty-something correspondent named Anne Channing, a savvy, brave, and intelligent woman who proves his better in all respects, a foil through which we see all that Eastman is not. Some of the chapters are written from her perspective, which gives us a welcome respite from Eastman’s deluded buffoonery ... Gilvarry has given us a portrait of toxic masculinity — one that feels as if it both belongs to a certain time and is still familiar. His Eastman is a riveting, loathsome presence who demands to be loved and remembered. He is not likable, but human. There is much to admire about this book, but in the end, though, questions linger: Haven’t we had enough Eastmans (and men like him)? Did we need another?
...delicious, biting, xenomorph-blood-acidic satire ... Eastman Was Here equal parts distressing and cathartic. Distressing in that A) Gilvarry’s satire is so spot on it can be uncomfortable (which is to its credit), and B) there is doubtless some aspiring writer out there who is reading about poor Eastman’s successes and nodding his head yes. He is, of course, a lost cause until he finds himself anyway, but the fear still creeps ... The real question is, can we enjoy Gilvarry’s vicious joke in a moment in time wherein the Fragile Male Egos he’s mocking are bellowing their death rattle? Can we enjoy the righteous pressure on the sinking porcelain porcine while King Pig himself is on the throne? Is the toxicity level too high for venom to be effective? Or is now the perfect time? I suspect the answer to these questions depends on the reader. As a cis-straight-white-male-narcissist myself, I thrill at Gilvarry’s thorough and surgical dismemberment of my peers. Where I anyone else, however, I suspect I’d feel that Eastman’s fate isn’t harsh enough. Even now, part of me prays that he had found his tortured brain aerosolized in Vietnam.
Gilvarry is skilled at highlighting the humor of hypocrisy, jealousy, exaggeration, and foolishness through scenes that crackle with amusing dialogue. The supporting characters come alive and animate every page, and play well off of Eastman, who, though volatile, petulant, and infuriating, still somehow comes across as endearing. Gilvarry succeeds in drawing Eastman as a convincing and recognizable composite of the breed of male figureheads who dominated American letters in the middle of the 20th century, only to realize the tides were slowly but surely beginning to turn against them.
Starting with Eastman at rest, the novel takes an existential, and at times psychological approach to examining male literary power, and the destructive ego it can create. Throughout the novel, Gilvarry makes it clear that his greatest skills as a writer are conjuring sympathy, and clearing a path for his protagonist to earn it ... While it’s ultimately unfortunate that Channing wasn’t explored as deeply as Eastman, Gilvarry uses her as an envoy for exploring the politics of the war ... Reading Eastman was Here is a pleasure, but those familiar with literary fiction might recognize similarities between it and Jonathan Safran Foer’s messy effort, Here I Am. Both deal with the trajectory of a failed marriage, a desperate, egotistical male writer, a country at war, and an attempt to find oneself by engaging with the struggle. Both are about acceptance of change, however hard won. Yet, Gilvarry manages to accomplish what Foer merely aspires to: a sense of revelation, however minor. In focusing on the interior life of a man in crisis, Gilvarry is able to speak to not just the plight of white intellectualism in the 60s, but to the beauty that can be found at the end of an existential crisis, at the end of middle age. His protagonist shines, even as he reluctantly fades into obscurity, allowing more daring writers to have a seat at the table.
As self-important as he is self-pitying, and a writer who thinks literature is warfare, Eastman is surely a fool. But how to avoid making him also a caricature? Gilvarry manages to avoid this, making him a 'real person' as well as a buffoon, because he understands that the problem is one of distance—narrator to Eastman; reader to Eastman—and that this problem translates in terms of craft into a question of tone ... Gilvarry has a greater aim with this, though. It’s not just setting up the rules of our interaction with Eastman; it’s also making a point about his sense of self ... Is this satire? And is Mailer the target? He’s the inspiration, but it seems an odd choice to satirize a man not only easily satirizable but who’s also been dead for 10 years. The only way to make it work would be to use it to illuminate our current culture. I don’t think Gilvarry is satirizing Mailer per se, but I do think his book does some of the latter. Eastman craves attention but does not understand (or often even care for) people, and in this it’s hard not to see him as a prototype for the kinds of men that populate Twitter and currently inhabit the White House.
Gilvarry is plainly unsympathetic to Alan’s self-inflicted plights; his preening recalls Norman Mailer during his most macho know-it-all moments. But because Gilvarry is inclined neither to lionize nor openly satirize his protagonist, the novel has a flat affect, delivering a straightforward brand of realism that puts Alan’s misogyny and sense of entitlement in the context of their time but does less to dive deep into their psychological roots or their consequences. There are signs of comeuppance in the closing pages, but of a wan sort, and Alan is a hard man to root for throughout, even in a hate-read sort of way. A persuasive glimpse of the world of early-1970s publishing and journalism, but it lacks much of a message to deliver about it.
