Hamilton Stark by Russell Banks

possibly for the rest of her life, and certainly his.
    And if it seems strange that a hero’s childhood should be described in this manner, please remember that my hero is both controversial and enormous, and therefore whoever would attempt to describe him objectively (excluding from his description the narrator’s personal sympathies and antipathies for the subject) runs the risk of being dominated by the subject. That is the reason for the mask, the format of the tales, the realism, the lack of realism.
    There will be other masks, other formats, other castings ofreality. You may continue to call this one Rochelle, if you wish, and of course she will continue to play a major role in the events being described. She is, after all, Hamilton Stark’s only child, and despite her having been deserted by him, she is crucial to our understanding of him. Actually, her absence from his life, because it was willed by him, is more revealing than her presence would be. I hope you like her. I do. She’s twenty-six years old, a long-boned, precisely featured, red-haired young woman with green eyes and clear white skin that’s almost translucent. She moves quickly but with grace and elegance. True elegance. If I were a younger man, I would court her. I would pursue her ceaselessly. For though she’s the kind of young woman who tends to draw organized, purposeful, self-centered men into changing their lives suddenly, radically, and, very often, disastrously, she’s also the kind of woman who’s astonished when it actually happens—though, to one not so affected by her charms, it’s never clear that she did not secretly desire the disaster.
    But, to continue:

Chapter 4

Her Mother Speaks to Her of a Man She Calls “Your Father”
    N O, REALLY, DEAR, I mean it. It’s time everyone stopped all this dancing around the few trivial facts of the man and got right down to where you can stick your nose up against them, so to speak. Forgive me for saying it this way, but the man, your father, is a despicable man. Always was. Despicable, pure and simple, and everyone who’s ever had the misfortune to know him knows at least that much about him, and especially everyone who’s ever been married to him, among whom I count myself the first, as you know.
    But you’re his only child, dear, you’ve never been marriedto him, of course, so that’s probably why you keep going through all this hero-worshiping nonsense with the man. But only child or not, don’t forget the facts you have to ignore. Life’s like that, it’ll let you keep on ignoring the facts, practically forever, if you want to go that far, but eventually it’ll make you pay for it—or your children, or your wife or husband, or maybe even your grandchildren. Anyhow,
somebody
ends up paying, and I don’t plan on being that somebody for you. No, you’re practically grown now, old enough to know the truth about your father. You think now that he’s somebody to imitate, someone to admire and recommend to all your friends, someone who’ll defend you against your enemies, a confidant, an advisor, a teacher, a chum. When I get through, dear, you’ll know better than to imitate him. You’ll know not to expect him to defend you against anything. Hah, you’ll need someone to defend you against
him!
A chum. Some chum.
    You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all this now, why I waited so long to turn you against him. Well, blood is thicker than water, that’s how I always reasoned about the matter, and besides, I never wanted him coming back at me that I turned you against him, you his only child, the one he probably claims to love so much, but of course, only later, when you’re practically all grown up and it’s
easy
to love you,
easy
to be your father now—not that you weren’t a lovable child, no, of course not, you were a wonderful, cuddly, curly-haired little thing, everyone loved you, especially me, and I didn’t want your father claiming that I had turned