In spirit, Kennedy’s third novel in the series called The Copenhagen
Quartet is a love letter to Denmark, his adopted country.
Here he will clothe himself in its thousand years of history, let its wounds be
his wounds, let its poets’ songs fill his soul, ...its drink temper his
reason...its light and art and nature...wrap themselves about him and keep him
safe from chaos. (1)
A fictional narrative disguised as a guide to Copenhagen’s serving houses,
Kerrigan in Copenhagen takes place (partly) in numerous bars with names
such as Wine Room 90, The Railway Inn, The Stick, Axelborg Bodega, The Palace Bar
(the list would fill a page). Kerrigan, “...has been roaming since midmorning
while sampling pints here and there” (4). He enters Wine Room 90, “...an
elegant old establishment” (7) opened in 1916, in order to have another pint
and also to meet his Research Associate. She is a handsome woman, fifty-seven years
old, who was stunningly beautiful in her youth, and remains beautiful in Kerrigan’s
eyes. He is paying her to provide notable backdrops referencing “...one hundred
of the best, the most historic, the most congenial of Copenhagen’s 1,525 serving
houses” (6). From their research together, he will write a travel guide called
The Great Bars of the Western World.
Throughout the rest of the day and evening the two of them journey from serving
house to serving house, telling each other stories about their lives, while intermittently
noting historical facts and lore about Copenhagen, including insights and biographical
information concerning the city’s famous writers, philosophers, politicians
and more. It is a clever plotline revealing the pulse of the throbbing city, while
also boasting of its world famous citizens (Kierkegaard, Hans Christian Anderson,
Knut Hamsun, etc.) whose great accomplishments apparently energize the vibrant couple,
Kerrigan and his companion increasingly infatuated with each other, and perhaps
easing into a love affair, which is the last thing he wants—or so he thinks.
Days later, he makes a side trip to Dublin, where we are provided information about
a handful of its famous pubs—Davy Byrnes, The Temple Bar, Anna Livia Lounge,
and many other historical landmarks. We are also given a quick sketch concerning
Dublin’s history connecting it with Denmark and the Danish Vikings who settled
the city more than a thousand years ago.
What holds Kerrigan’s wanderings together are not only his musings on each
establishment he visits, but his memories about his wife leaving him for another
man. She took Kerrigan’s daughter to God knows where and left a note that
said: “I’m so sorry. I don’t love you” (37). She also
took half of his inheritance. Then disappeared totally, maybe to America, he doesn’t
have a clue. He wrestles with her betrayal, never quite understanding why she stopped
loving him. He believes he wants nothing more to do with love. Sex yes. Love no.
But then he finds himself longing for the company of his associate. In fact, she
is the main reason why he goes to Dublin. He needs to get away from her and gather
his thoughts. Can he fall in love again? Does he dare take a chance? Maybe it’s
best just to get drunk and put his mind to work on the influences surrounding his
muddled existence— the buildings, the streets, a thousand poets, novelists,
painters, musicians who lived long before he was ever born.
But then, what is life without love? Empty. Probably pointless. Certainly soulless.
Repeating what his ex said to him, “Blind,” she repeated with drunken
deliberateness. “Blind!” (61), he wonders what she meant. Years after
she said it he still doesn’t know. But he does know he doesn’t want
to go through anything like that again—love shriveling into contempt, even
hatred. Kerrigan despairs of ever understanding anything about himself or women
or God or life’s purpose.
Kennedy uses a poetically amorous tone that suffuses Kerrigan’s confused
contemplations throughout the book, a tone expressive of his state of mind mitigated
more and more as he surrenders himself (finally) to the spirit of Copenhagen written
on the first page, lines made breathless with tenderness and yearning:
Here he has made his home, in a city whose moods are unpredictable, unfathomable,
unimpeachable as a woman’s, often still and dark, perfidious as its April
weather—now light and sweet as the touch of a summer girl...now cold as snow,
false as ice, merciless as the howling, beating wind, now quietly enigmatic as the
stirring of the great chestnut trees which line the banks of the lake beneath his
windows. (1)
Kerrigan’s journey is clearly modeled on the meanderings of Leopold Bloom
and Stephen Dedalus in that monstrous masterpiece of 1922 called Ulysses.
But Kerrigan’s travels take place over several weeks, rather than the 18+
hours that James Joyce gave Bloom and Dedalus. Still, the homage to Ulysses works
shrewdly—the extra days give Kennedy plenty of elbowroom to move his characters
from location to location, filling the reader’s mind with historical particulars
that pour from a vast reservoir of knowledge about Copenhagen, Dublin, and
environs—knowledge that is both comprehensive and occasionally astonishing.
The research needed to write a novel as ambitious as Kerrigan in Copenhagen
staggers the mind.
Kerrigan is a rich read from beginning to end and would reward anyone who wanted
to peruse it a second time, or even a third. One comes away from the book knowing
that a large, lyrical and intricate intellect created Kerrigan’s world. This
is the work about which David Applefield, the editor of Frank magazine
in Paris said, [Kennedy] “...places Copenhagen on a level with Joyce’s
Dublin.” Joyce claimed that Dublin might be rebuilt from what he shoehorned
into Ulysses. I’ve taught several seminars on Joyce and I don’t believe
what he said is possible. Dublin could not be rebuilt by following the guidelines
in Ulysses. I don’t think engineers could rebuild Copenhagen from the information
in Kennedy’s book either, but they might be able to construct several of the
serving houses whose essentials he lovingly details. It is no exaggeration to say
that in Kennedy’s capable hands Copenhagen comes alive as convincingly and
intimately as Joyce’s Dublin.
Earlier in Kerrigan, we are shifted from history lessons regarding the
city, to thoughts about writing as a craft. Kerrigan waxes philosophical about how
writers of fiction create the appearance of reality—verisimilitude. He says
that writers create an illusion that gets readers to suspend their disbelief “long
enough to listen and experience what the writer wants to transmit” (30). Beneath
or between the lines, Kennedy claims the stuff of truth can be found, “a deeper
reality...that can help us understand something about human existence...fiction
is not existence, but about existence” (31). These perceptions
lie at the core of what Kennedy conveys throughout all the mighty books which
comprise The Copenhagen Quartet: “The consciousness of a man
starving to express itself” (31). So far his consciousness has done exactly
that. And done it with consummate beauty and style.
—Previously published in South Carolina Review
(Fall 2013)
is the author of six novels, and recipient of an AWP Award for Best Novel
(The Book of Mamie), a National Endowment for the Arts Award, a
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Award for Favorite Book of the year
(The Altar of the Body), a Milwaukee Magazine Best Short
Story of the Year Award, a Pushcart Honorable Mention—and, most recently,
a 2013 Indie Book Award (Minnesota Memoirs was chosen as Winner in the
Short Story category).
Brenna’s latest books include a memoir, Murdering the Mom (Wordcraft
of Oregon, 2012), and a collection of short stories, Minnesota Memoirs
(Serving House Books, 2012).
His novel, The Holy Book of the Beard, which he says is one of his favorites,
was re-released in 2010 (New American Press). A New York Times review of
this book says, “It is loaded with all the ingredients of an underground
classic...it is nearly impossible to put down.”
Brenna’s stories, poems, and essays have appeared in Cream City
Review, SQ, Agni, The Nebraska Review, The Literary Review, The Madison Review,
New Letters, and numerous other literary venues. His work has been translated
into six languages.
www.duffbrenna.com