The Gingerless Man

EVERYTHING MUST GO by Keith Waterhouse. 188 pages. Putnam. $4.95.

Pigeon kickers may find its meanness of spirit a trifle overdone, but readers who have long cherished a shy yearning to beat up crippled newsboys will be delighted with Keith Waterhouse's new comic novel. It is possible, of course, to write gaily about any abomination--Brendan Behan turned out two successful stage comedies about men who were to be executed in the morning, neither with a happy ending--but it is hard to recall anything quite like Waterhouse's merry laughter at his main character's torment.

The author, who in the past has dealt fondly and ruefully with flawed and crummy people (Billy Liar, Jubb), starts in an ordinary way--burying his hero to the neck in an anthill of character defects. What is unusual is that Waterhouse then proceeds to spread a blanket, unpack a box lunch, and invite the reader to watch the fun. William, the hero, is a 35-year-old Londoner of such low spiritual energy that he cannot be said to have anything so definite as a desire. But when he remembers to be wistful, he thinks vaguely that it would be nice if his life had more color.

"William had always hoped for a wife who was a 'character,' " Waterhouse writes. "In the early days of their marriage he had urged her to wear trousers about the house and had given her her nickname, Poodle, in the hope of investing her with some quality of whimsicality. He had tried to persuade her to smoke cheroots."

This is funny enough; but the author's peculiar animus against his character pushes the mockery one sentence too far: "He now had secret hopes that she would become an alcoholic so that he could boast about her capacity. . . ." Unfunny, because unbelievable. The reader begins to be uneasy; why is Waterhouse pressing so hard?

So the book goes: a series of clever and too-clever points scored against a character too unsubstantial to require more than a moment's wry smile. William has a daughter. Naturally she is dull and sniveling; of course she hates his bedtime stories; inevitably she becomes a kleptomaniac. William has an antique business. Of course it loses money. His friends chip money off him in huge hunks, and so do two wretched mistresses whom he inadvertently acquires. Waterhouse goes on making jokes: " 'Are you having an affair with somebody?' asked Poodle as he brushed dandruff from his shoulders."

Everything ends badly. William loses all his money, and Poodle, who has walked out on him, comes clinging back. The reader is left with the information that a fool is a fool and a feeling of bafflement about why a skillful author has chosen to pull the wings off this particular literary fly.

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