Abstract: Might Henry James's What Maisie Knew (1897) figure in the haunting of Gabe Wallach in Roth's Letting Go (1962)? And does James's narrative subliminally bedevil Gabe's probing of the past? Because Gabe has written a doctoral dissertation on James, such novels as The Portrait of a Lady (1881) and The Wings of the Dove (1902) receive stated attention in his recounting of events. Yet What Maisie Knew , however absent in Gabe's utterance, may figure in a retrospective probing of his intrusion into the marriage of Paul and Libby Herz. Subject to similar examination is Gabe's account of his live-in affair with divorcée Martha Reganhart in proximity to her children, Cynthia and Markie, the latter of whom falls to his death when possibly pushed from a bunkbed by his sister. With regard to such events, What Maisie Knew likely remains sublimated in Gabe's retrospective musings because he fears complicity in Cynthia's sexual confusion and suspects his indirect agency in the death of her brother. At stake is the degree to which an unmentioned novel can, via direct correspondence or psychological projection, haunt Roth's narrator, attributing a higher level of narrative artistry to Roth's earliest novel than previously suspected.
James Duban (Thu,) studied this question.