BOOK REVIEW


Hauser, Thomas.  _Mark Twain Remembers: A Novel_.  New York:  Barricade
Books, 1999.  Pp. 207.  Cloth.  $20.00.  ISBN 1-56980-154-1

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Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:

Barbara Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>
Tarleton State University
Stephenville, TX

Copyright (c) Mark Twain Forum, 1999.  This review may not be published or
redistributed in any medium without permission.


_Mark Twain Remembers_ by Thomas Hauser, the latest entry using Twain as a
central character in a work of fiction has been a long time coming.  Late
in 1998 word leaked out that noted Muhammad Ali biographer Thomas Hauser
had written a work of fiction about a black boxer and his relationship with
Mark Twain titled _Harder than It Looks_.  This reviewer promptly visited
the Amazon.com web site and ordered a copy.  After months of waiting,
Amazon wrote that the book had been pulled from production and would not be
published.  Research revealed that the original publisher was experiencing
severe financial difficulties and would not be able to fulfill the
commitment to publish the volume.

Now, scheduled to ship this September with a new publisher--Barricade
Publishers--under a different title and a pledge of $200,000 in
accompanying promotional publicity comes _Mark Twain Remembers_.

Writer Thomas Hauser, a practicing attorney and currently a contributing
sports columnist with the HBO online web site, has a long list of past
successes in both fiction and nonfiction including: _The Beethoven
Conspiracy_; _Missing_; _The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional
Boxing_; _Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times_; and _Muhammad Ali: Memories_.

In an interview regarding _Mark Twain Remembers_, Hauser related that the
genesis of his latest novel came to him in a dream in 1987 which he jotted
down on a note card.  During the intervening years he began reading much of
Twain's writing.  His latest book is the result of his study of Twain's
life and works combined with his knowledge of the boxing world.

In his preface to _Mark Twain Remembers_ Hauser reminds the reader that his
is a work of fiction but states, "I have commingled Mark Twain's words and
ideas with my own.  I invite the reader to suspend disbelief and enjoy"
(7).

A first person narrative in Twain's voice, the story opens in April 1910,
days prior to Twain's death, and reveals him looking back on his
life--remembering six weeks during June and July of 1856 when he first
ventured out on his own to Kansas and met up with a black freedman by the
name of Hiram Kane and his slave, a boxer by the name of Bones.

Hiram Kane is a black version of P.T. Barnum traveling throughout Kansas
challenging local men in the crowd to "Hit the nigger! Hit the nigger!" and
offering a cash prize to anyone who can best his boxer Bones.  Young Sam
Clemens accepts the challenge; ends up in the dirt and loses his wager to
stay the course with Bones.

In a twist of fate, Sam later ends up in a poker game against cardsharp
Hiram Kane and manages to outcheat the cheater with Bones as the ultimate
prize.  Twenty year old Sam finds himself as an owner of an aging
thirty-three year old boxing slave.  In a gesture of goodwill, Sam decides
to free Bones explaining, "No one has the right to treat another man like
that" (71).

Sam proposes to throw in his lot with Bones and become his boxing manager
in a profit sharing venture.  After a 4th of July success in the
entertainment world of boxing, Sam is seduced by a young local female.
However, his romantic illusions are soon shattered when he discovers his
love interest has double crossed him into signing a contract to fight Bones
against Billy Morris, a white boxer working in partnership with their old
nemesis Hiram Kane.  Morris, a much younger and overpowering boxer, seems
destined to end Bones' career with death in the ring or retrenchment back
into servitude.

To proceed with a review giving the outcome of this final confrontation
between good and bad, black and white, would require a "spoiler alert" and
this reviewer will refrain from giving away the surprises in Hauser's
story.  The final pages of the novel conclude with a reasonably accurate
biography of the remainder of Twain's life.

One of the most powerful chapters of this short ten chapter novel is
devoted to the background of the institution of slavery and its horrors--a
picture which is painted to explain the death of Bones' parents and the
sexual mutilation of young Bones himself.  According to Hauser, he also
considers this chapter to be the highlight of the novel.

The shortcoming that is evident throughout the novel for this reviewer
is--the voice is not that of Mark Twain; nor is it the voice or dialect of
a slave relating his story to Mark Twain; it is the voice of Hauser--a
modern day historian and story teller relating an intriguing narrative.
Although familiar Twain quotations, maxims, and passages are sprinkled
throughout the novel and are easily spotted by anyone familiar with Twain's
writings--when it comes time for Hauser to write new Twain dialogue, the
attempt falls short.  In one passage where Sam finds out he's been horribly
double crossed by one young man, he verbally retaliates with a mild, "Pete:
you're a fat stupid ugly pig" (153).  Writing like Mark Twain would think
and speak is indeed harder than it looks.

The strength of the novel is in Hauser's story telling ability and an
ability to slowly build the reader's tension and apprehension when it comes
to a final confrontation between fighters in the boxing ring--an area of
writing in which he is very much in his element.

According to Hauser, he considers _Mark Twain Remembers_ to be his best
piece of fiction and a book he truly enjoyed writing.  It is his hope that
readers unfamiliar with Twain will come away from the novel with a greater
interest in and motivation to read the works of the master.