Cabot Wright Begins by James Purdy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Viruses Are Top of the Food Chain

Nothing preys on viruses. They float around, like stardust (perhaps they are stardust), without need for defensive weapons waiting patiently for a warm-blooded host. Finding a comfy place in lung or brain or other vital organ, they are almost impossible to dislodge. Excessive heat might slow their progress so fever sets in until the immune system belatedly awakes to the alien onslaught. Then they provoke a sneeze and find something else to feed on. The motiveless cycle continues. Obviously the virus not the human being is top of the planetary food chain. Only arrogance balks at the conclusion.

Cabot Wright, although human, is a virus. He doesn’t infect, or only incidentally; he rapes. At last count at least 300 women.

Bernie, a hen-pecked, ex-con, wannabe writer is a virus hunter. Since viruses are elusive, he must work hard at his job. But Bernie is also a virus. His ‘vector’ is some unneeded and awful prose about Cabot Wright.

Princeton Keith is an over the hill New York publisher who needs Bernie’s book about Cabot Wright to make a splash. Keith’s job is hype and mirrors. He too is a virus. He is the catalyst by which Bernie can reach millions.

Carrie is Bernie’s wife, venal, ambitious for celebrity, manipulative and unfaithful. She sends Bernie in search of Cabot Wright on a whim. Along with her frenemy, Zoe, she is a virus. In fact they are the source, the case zero, who promote the inter-species jump by sleeping with pigs.

Fortunately viruses can act as parasites on other viruses. They don’t eat their fellows but merely dissolve them in a soup of activity that is neither dead nor alive. Purdy’s view of the world seems to be that this is the daily apocalypse in which we all are continuously engaged. Who knows, he may be right. After all, in the 1960’s, when the book was written (and stardust was a big Aquarian thing), we all thought we were headed for a new Ice Age. Viruses would be invulnerable. Then the question was: ‘Is it possible to be immunised?’ Depressingly, Purdy thought not. It’s no picnic at the top.

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