Life Begins at Ninety

Blind Ambition

A review by Ron Charles

Once you reach a certain age, the appearance of yet another brilliantnovel by someone barely old enough to vote is deeply irritating.It's akin to that moment when you realize while brushing yourteeth before bed: "By the time Byron was my age, he'd been deadfor 10 years."Well, buck up. Here's a shot of adrenaline for middle-aged hopes,and it comes, of all places, from McSweeney's, that insufferablyyouthful publishing company in San Francisco run by Dave Eggers.Their lead title this fall is Bowl of Cherries, a smart, zanycomedy by a first-time novelist who's 90 years old. A few filmbuffs may recognize the name Millard Kaufman -- he was nominatedfor two screenwriting Oscars in the 1950s ("Take the High Ground!"and "Bad Day at Black Rock") -- but everybody knows Mr. Magoo,the nearsighted cartoon klutz he created with John Hubley in 1949.Now, almost 60 years later, Kaufman is back with another haplesshero who wanders around falling into mischief. Judd Breslau isan impossibly brilliant 14-year-old boy who's trying to finishhis doctorate in English literature. When his father disappearsand his mother waltzes off to Colorado to work for a poetry magazinethat publishes her "dilapidated rhymes," Judd is left to fendfor himself. And so begins one of the strangest journeys in Americanfiction, which, after all, specializes in the strange journeysof teenage boys.