ALBERT HIMSELF: (none) [Paperback]

Jeff W. Bens (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 24, 2001

A "skillful, delightful" first novel set in working class New Orleans. When Albert Fitzmorris, who works in a French Quarter fish market, unexpectedly becomes an unmarried father, he finds himself bridling against the strict expectations of the tight, Irish Catholic community in which he was raised. Struggling with fatherhood, Albert further complicates his life when he embarks upon a doomed romantic adventure with an unattainable woman. In the end, Albert must learn to live a life beyond accommodation and his own half-truths in order to find the love he seeks.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The charming protagonist of this slight first novel, a chubby, kindhearted sad sack of a fishmonger named Albert Fitzmorris, lives with his widowed mother in working-class Irish New Orleans. His three-year-old daughter, Audrey, lives with her mother Eileen, a self-centered ex-girlfriend of Albert's, and Eileen's new boyfriend, a jazz trumpeter who has begun to replace Albert in Audrey's affections. Albert feels pressure from his mother and his father's conservative Catholic friends to marry Eileen, but can't bring himself to admit that she has left him. As the novel opens, he catches sight of a beautiful blond restaurant hostess named Chelsea and is compelled to pursue her. This ill-fated courtship eventually changes Albert, helping him to assert his individuality and keep a place in his daughter's life. Albert is a sweet, gentle character, the sort of bumbling innocent to be rooted for with one eye closed. The other characters, though, never fully take shape except as foils for Albert's haplessness, in part because Bens' dialogue is often hackneyed. The novel alternates somewhat haphazardly between no-frills narrative and shorthand, staccato layering of sentence fragments: "Spraying fish guts from the steel counter into the sink. Not minding the fish, the smell he was raised with. But the boredom." This style sometimes works, particularly in Bens' description of food: "Chops and the smell of fresh mint, the bubble of thick chowder in two deep pots, the scent of sweet onion and flames leaping around panfulls of fat shrimp..." The omission of parts of speech eventually becomes irritating, though, too precious for the simplicity of the plot and characters. There's some nice local color here, but the story and dialogue aren't meaty enough to thicken this broth into a satisfying gumbo.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Can a short, plump Irish Catholic fishmonger find happiness in contemporary New Orleans? At 35, Albert Fitzmorris lives with his widowed mother, fills his late father's chair in a long-standing poker game, and has yet to "make right" with Eileen, the mother of his daughter, Audrey. Albert's unmarried state is noted more frequently at the approach of Audrey's third birthday and the upcoming wedding in the family of close friends, the Delancys. What Albert has concealed is that Eileen, who never wanted to marry him, now lives with another man. So Albert embarks on his own romantic adventure, pursuing a lovely woman he glimpses for the first time in a drunken haze to an inevitably sad and embarrassing end. Drunken blunders cost Albert dearly, but a last-minute crisis in the Delancy wedding provides an opportunity for redemption and change. This first novel offers a working-class view of the Crescent City and an unusually warm and touching human portrait. Michele Leber
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Delphinium; 1 edition (July 24, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883285224
• ISBN-13: 978-1883285227
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,526,123 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a hidden gem..., December 4, 2007

By 

Cowgirlpunk (under the X in Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ALBERT HIMSELF: (none) (Paperback)

What a joy of a book to stumble upon! Beautifully evocative of pre-Katrina New Orleans, and a working class masterpiece at that. Forget Rick Russo, Stewart O'Nan. This is the real deal. This novel brings to life both the drudgery and simple beauty of its main character's life with descriptive passages so sensually dizzying that they border on sublimely surreal. Reading Albert, Himself was the literary equivalent of bellying up to a huge bowl of steaming hot gumbo on a cold, wintery day. In other words, it hits the spot. Can't wait to read more of this author!!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Simple, but beautifully rendered, February 23, 2006

By 

E. Gaffney (Nyack, New York United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: ALBERT HIMSELF: (none) (Paperback)

This is a touching story of a simple guy who thinks of himself as a loser but has much more going on than is first apparent. The characters in this book are ordinary working people but their bonds and dreams are respectfully and touchingly rendered. The writing is spare but it communicates depth and complexity.

Enjoy this book. It may surprise you.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting psychological novel, October 4, 2001

By 

Paul Lappen (Manchester, CT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: ALBERT HIMSELF: (none) (Paperback)

Albert Fitzmorris is part of present-day working class New Orleans. He works at a fish market in the French Quarter, a position he inherited from his now deceased father. On one side Albert faces a tightly knit Irish Catholic community, and the strict expectations that go along with it. On the other side is Albert's own preoccupation with unrequited love. Struggling with a self-image that is slowly falling apart, Albert puts his relationship with his community, his family and his daughter all at risk.

Albert is trying to live despite the shadow of the memory of his father. Fitting into his father's clothes too easily, or playing poker with his father's friends don't make it any easier. Things are made worse by the feeling that his role is diminishing in the life of Eileen, the mother of his daughter (the two aren't married), and in the life of Audrey, his daughter.
Pulling himself away more and more from friends and family, Albert finds himself in a doomed romantic fantasy. If only he could win the heart of the beautiful and unobtainable Chelsea (who works at a local hotel restaurant) his whole life would take a turn for the better. The biggest problem is that Chelsea makes it clear that she is only interested in a casual friendship.

This is a very quiet, and very good, psychological sort of novel about one person's slide into emotional oblivion. The author does a very good job showing the good, the bad and the ugly of a real human life--the aspirations, the messiness and the disappointments. It is very much worth reading.