Books: Memories of Grandeur

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DeFORD by David Shetzline. 21 7 pages. Random House. $4.95.

David Shetzline, 32, has wandered through the U.S.—from his birthplace in Yonkers, N.Y., to the small ranch in Oregon where he now lives. He has been a ditchdigger, an army parachutist and a college student (Cornell and Columbia). DeFord, his first novel, reflects his experience and the diversity of the nation he knows so well.

Like the author, Lyle DeFord is a wanderer come to rest on the West Coast. He is a carpenter, and a good one, a descendant of hardworking, hard-luck ancestors who moved to the U.S. in 1772. He is as old as this century; he rode the rods in the '20s, and after a life of honest work, he subsists on social security. He journeys East for an old relative's funeral, and in New York City he is knocked down by a heart attack. His hand-crafted wooden suitcase is still in hand, his treasured copy of the Carpenter's Manual is in the suitcase.

DeFord is treated at a city clinic, then rents a cheap room just off the Bowery, where he plans to wait until the doctors tell him he can go home. He is surrounded by winos, hoods and drug pushers, but he manages to maintain his integrity. Amidst defeat and depravity, he nurtures his memories of the country's reach and grandeur, of the days he spent hunting and fishing, and of his pride in earning his living with his hands. It is Author Shetzline's singular achievement that he keeps DeFord and his memories uncorrupted.