53
thePeorian.com
Literary Review
Mr. Bartelmay’s “Middleville”
bears a striking resemblance to
Morton, which is the author’s
hometown. And he makes no
secret about it: Chic has a job
at a pumpkin processing plant
in Middleville. In general, Mr.
Bartelmay does little to mask the
central Illinois setting. In fact, he
celebrates it. Many prominent
businesses and locations in Peoria
and the surrounding areas are
called out explicitly: Bradley
University and Expo Gardens
get a mention, the characters talk
about One World Cafe, they shop
at Bergner’s and have dinner at
Jim’s Steakhouse. One character,
Mary, works at the Par-A-Dice
Casino and comments how the
uniforms make her look like a
“
cheap slut”. They even have a
conversation which I have had
many times – how Peoria is “the
world’s worst city for Chinese
takeout.” And that says a lot
coming from someone who grew
up in a small Indiana town.
It seems at times that Mr.
Bartelmay is trying to evoke
something John Updike-y in his
representation of Chic Wald-
beeser as a man trying to make
sense of and find direction in his
life. In Mr. Updike’s “Rabbit”
novels, Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom
deserts his family and finds
himself struggling between self-
centered gratification (sexual and
otherwise) and society and family
duty. He leaves his family, he
comes back, he gets a job, he loses
a job – the characters age but they
don’t seem to grow, which leads
them into steadily escalating
circumstances.
In “Onward Toward What
We’re Going Toward” it seems
Mr. Bartelmay is exploring
similar terra. But that’s where the
comparison should end out of
respect for both authors.
Why? Because Mr. Updike’s
series of four “Rabbit” novels
(“
Rabbit, Run”, “Rabbit Redux”,
“
Rabbit is Rich” and “Rabbit
Rest”) are classics of modern
American 20th century litera-
ture – any comparison would be
intrinsically unfair. After all, not
every novel needs to stand up
alongside other great novels. I
just felt a certain kinship between
the authors when reading Chic
and Diane’s story. I mean, the
fact that Mr. Bartelmay’s book
causes me to associate him at all
with John Friggin’ Updike should
be praise enough.
AUTHOR DETAILS:
Ryan Bartelmay is a native of
Morton, Ill. He is a graduate of
the University of Iowa, where he
was a member of the Undergrad-
uate Writer’s Workshop, before
going to Columbia University,
where he received his MFA in
fiction writing. He won the Short
Fiction Contest for Emerging
Writers hosted by Boulevard, and
has been published in the Syca-
more Review, the Greensboro Re-
view, Phoebe: A Journal of Litera-
ture and Art, Opium and Sweet
Fancy Moses. He is the Dean of
General Education at Kendall
College in Chicago, and has been
a member of the Gotham Writers’
Workshop faculty since 2005. He
lives in Chicago with his wife,
daughter and two cats.
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