Lloyd Alexander’s Farewell Novel, 'The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio'

At last I've completed my final unread book by my favorite author—Lloyd Alexander’s very last novel—on this, the year of his centennial birthday. I have now read all of his published books and novels, achieving my goal for this year, in his honor.  As an author myself, I’d once taken to calling him my ‘favorite childhood author’, but I can’t fathom ever calling any author aside from him ‘my favorite author’ without qualifying it.  I bought his last novel, The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio (2007), long ago, and for some reason only read half of it at that time. This time, I read it aloud to my husband a chapter or two per night, enjoying it thoroughly.  We’ve been saying, “You’re a Chooch!” to one another, as Chuchio is called by many who know him, and it really does seem to be a light-hearted novel on its surface.

Author Sophia Alexander with her favorite
author's final novel

It’s not—at least not for me, not essentially. 

However, as I am not a truly objective party, it’s hard to know how much to recommend it to the unfamiliar reader. It’s fine as a novel in and of itself. Not one of his very best, but his writing craft is honed, and it certainly has his authentic voice and inspiration (unlike some of his early commission works). The novel meanders a bit, as others written in his last decade of life seem to do, but his trademark tongue-in-cheek (and sometimes slapstick) humor still makes us laugh.  So yes, go ahead and read it to your kids—or husband, as the case may be.

Lloyd Alexander dedicated this novel “for young dreamers, and old ones.” This feels personal, as at about age 12, when I was actually living in Pennsylvania (he was in Philadelphia, PA), I dreamt in a totally ordinary fashion that Lloyd Alexander was my father. In my dream, he walked into my room to wake me up, saying, “Good morning,” and peering out my little window as the sun shone in.  It was the simplest thing, absolutely normal, yet my heart was so glad.

I say now that he’s my ‘literary father’. His Chronicles of Prydain were my favorite series then (and certainly where to start if you appreciate YA or Middle-Grade Fantasy).  Since then, I have read everything of his that I could get my hands on. His were the first books that I ever requested a bookstore order for me.  Later, my husband and I hunted down his out-of-print novels online.  He even gave us one himself when we visited him on our first anniversary, about 13 years before his passing.

Some of his earlier, out-of-print works are memoirs, so precious to me. Janine Is French stands out above all for me, though I’ve come to realize that he spun this memoir about his wife rather artfully, making something lovely out of a difficult situation. I don’t love it less for that, though. I do read between the lines now, shaking my head. But it is beautifully done.

In Carlo Chuchio, young Kuchik asks, “Are you saying, Chooch Mirza, these [folktales] are lies?”

“Yes,” I said, “but some lies are better than others.”

He did love Janine, so much. She passed away at age 90, only two weeks before him (he was 83). He wrote this book somewhere near his passing, no doubt within that last year of their lives, as it was published by his estate after his death, and he did tend to publish almost annually. 

(Spoiler Alert.)

At the end of Carlo Chuchio, the love interest, Shira, has decided to journey onwards, about to cross a river that she’s dreamt of crossing.  She weaves a branch into a circlet, explaining that journeyers carry wreaths of willow to remember where they come from. I can’t help but think of the river Styx. (Lloyd Alexander read mythology insatiably as a boy.)  Chuchio tells her, “Weave a circlet for me. I’m going with you.”  And he did.  He truly did.

So, from my perspective, I see Carlo Chuchio not only as a farewell to readers for himself, but as a second, minor ode to Janine. I don’t think she’s in most of his books, actually—rarely the inspiration for a fictional character, at least not obviously. I think I do see her a bit in Mickle (from The Westmark Trilogy, his darkest YA fantasy series) and here, in the character of Shira.

Despite their hidden marital troubles, I’m convinced Lloyd Alexander was speaking of Janine when his character, Carlo, tells Shira’s little brother Kuchik simply, “I love your sister.”  This was the essence of his life, it seems, as she was getting ready for her journey—their journey—beyond the river Styx. He’d lived with her, mostly childless, for nearly 60 years.  And the charming ‘lies’ in Janine Is French perhaps gave his true heart away, after all.

I recently read an enlightening short story of his written in a peculiar, artsy, existential style when he was quite young (his earliest published work that I’ve seen) but jaded from the war, and he seems to have written it about Janine, saying (and I may be paraphrasing), “It’s you, it’s always you.”  I’m not sure that ever actually changed.

All that said, The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio is more the story of Carlo than of Shira or even Carlo-and-Shira. It’s memoir-like at times, Carlo being Lloyd, of course. Uncle Everiste’s early frustrations with the hapless Chooch mirrors Lloyd’s father’s frustrations with him. Interestingly, though, Lloyd had ceased to travel by the time we even met him in 1994, saying that the last time he’d gone somewhere, many years before, that had been it, as the river had caught on fire! (I'd love to know the specifics on that, but I don't think I asked at the time.) So Carlo’s restless, ceaseless travels are perhaps more analogous to his writing career progress than to his physical journeys.  On the other hand, maybe not—he’d traveled much in his early years, and he’d been happy to settle down with Janine in Philly—much like Carlo was happy to settle with Shira at her homestead—but then when she had to move on, over the river, he chose to go with her.

In his old age, perhaps all those decades in Philly seemed like the blink of an eye. Shira’s home was where the treasure was (like his Newberry medals, books, etc., in Philly), but he was leaving it all to be with her. Perhaps this earthly realm even seemed more Shira’s domain (hence it being Shira’s family home instead of his) because of her grandchildren and such—she had deeper roots to keep her here, though he’d been happy to share her space. And wished to continue doing so.

I’m sure I’ll continue, as I’ve always done, to re-read and sometimes review Lloyd Alexander’s books, for all that this feels so final. And that’s the beauty of literature, isn’t it? That we can continue to read and even re-read the thoughts and imaginings and wisdom of brilliant people long since gone.

I’ve only just realized that I’m finishing his entire published works and am reviewing his final novel at the same age he was—exactly a half-century—when my life was just commencing. He began with memoirs and advanced to fantasy. I began reading his fantasy novels and have come to favor reading his memoirs. Ebb and flow, beginnings and endings… the written word is less bound by time than most. Yet Lloyd Alexander still said farewell, in a way, as Carlo Chuchio, once more recasting his life, this time as a hapless Chooch who ultimately does find his beloved—and his treasure, but it was always more about the journey, anyhow.