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A review by clambook
Remembering Denny by John Gregory Dunne, Calvin Trillin
4.0
Written in 1993, it’s a consideration of the apparently failed promise of Trillin’s Yale classmate, Denny Hansen, class of 1957. It’s also a reflection – Trillin’s and others in Hansen’s orbit – of the burden of promise, of being among the elite of the elite (Hansen was also a Rhodes Scholar). From Nancy Mitchell, a student of Hansen’s: “The way I see promise is that you have a knapsack. And all the time you’re growing up they keep stuffing promise into the knapsack. Pretty soon it’s just too heavy to carry. You have to unpack.”
It’s also an examination of how what’s expected of someone, by others and him/herself, has changed as the generations have changed. Trillin does a thorough job of reporting, with extensive verbatim quotes (I wonder how he does that) and no little compassion for Denny’s secret torments, not the least of which was his confused sexuality. Near the end, he thinks about whether he, Trillin, had fulfilled his own promise:
“And me? Had I become my father? He raised me to not become him of course but it occurred to me that a reporter could do worse than aspire to a standard of behavior reflected in my father’s approach to being a grocer — give good weight, refuse to buckle under to pressure from the chain stores, Great with contempt the wartime temptation to get rich by cutting a few corners.”
Well said.
It’s also an examination of how what’s expected of someone, by others and him/herself, has changed as the generations have changed. Trillin does a thorough job of reporting, with extensive verbatim quotes (I wonder how he does that) and no little compassion for Denny’s secret torments, not the least of which was his confused sexuality. Near the end, he thinks about whether he, Trillin, had fulfilled his own promise:
“And me? Had I become my father? He raised me to not become him of course but it occurred to me that a reporter could do worse than aspire to a standard of behavior reflected in my father’s approach to being a grocer — give good weight, refuse to buckle under to pressure from the chain stores, Great with contempt the wartime temptation to get rich by cutting a few corners.”
Well said.