SACCO AND VANZETTI MUST DIE!

Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." Pilate asked him, "What is truth?"
—John 18:37-38

"In a similar fashion, you are attempting a rather bold theft of what may be the oppressor's most prized weapon, his language."
—Bart Vanzetti to Nic Sacco in Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die!, page 182

As I wrote elsewhere, Mark Binelli is playing with language and codes in his "attack" on "established texts" in his novel Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die! The novel is an examination of history and historical memory, as well as the trial and subsequent execution of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. In Binelli's imaginings, though, Sacco and Vanzetti are vaudeville actors and film comedians, in the vein of Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, the Marx Brothers, and the Three Stooges, who live well beyond the date of the death of the actual Sacco and Vanzetti.

Binelli weaves elements of the lives of the "real" Sacco and Vanzetti into the lives of the "fictional" Sacco and Vanzetti. Binelli's Sacco and Vanzetti even undergo a trial, and although they are not executed, they do fade away from the public sight that they so need and crave to keep their film careers going. In essence, they are killed, and it is ultimately capitalism that does them in, just as it was capitalism that couldn't tolerate the real Sacco and Vanzetti and their ilk. The novel is full of references to "executions" of the two, and many allusions of the same. Gallows are mentioned (78, 83); a minor character mock hangs himself (97); the electric chair is discussed, as well as the rivalry between Edison and Tesla in developing such; the bioelectric theories of Galvani and Volta are referenced(190); and, the knife act of Sacco and Vanzetti (one of their vaudeville, and, later, film routines) that threatens their very existence and becomes a source of their downfall, although not as expected, fills the pages of the book.

Binelli has also included many scenes that fluctuate between the "real" and the "fake." These include panoramic backdrops in some of the Sacco and Vanzetti films, photographs, paintings, stories, costumes, ventriloquists and dummies (where does the voice reside?), historical figures that meet Sacco and Vanzetti (Mussolini, Ezra Pound, Italo Balbo, Helen Keller), and movies both real and imagined. In one of the more memorable scenes, Vanzetti is out on the "deck" of a "ship" that is really an elaborate set on a soundstage. The ocean scene is a lengthy panoramic painting that is rolled past the set to simulate movement of the "ship" on the "ocean." The problem is that at the same time that Binelli is describing the "set," Vanzetti and another character, one of the painters of the panorama, are "experiencing" the "ship" as though it were real. The stranger/painter even experiences seasickness: "Then, abruptly, he leaned over the rail and began to retch." What is real, what is a "set," or, in the words of Pilate to Jesus, what is truth? Jesus would declare that he is. But, that is not going to work here.

Another "trick" of Binelli's is to describe a scene from one of the Sacco and Vanzetti films (such as Sacco and Vanzetti Dessert the Cause, Ventriloquism and Its Discontents, Mars Needs Sacco and Vanzetti!). The problem that we are confronted with is that we are hearing monologues and dialogues that could not possibly have appeared on film. The conversations are both internal and external, but mostly between the people known as Sacco and Vanzetti and "the extras" rather than the screen characters that Sacco and Vanzetti play in the film (oftentimes referred to as Fatty and Skinnny, even though they are mostly the same in build and proportion). Therefore, there are three "levels" of truth at play: (1) conversations, thoughts, and actions of the "real" Sacco and Vanzetti; (2) conversations, thoughts, and actions of the "fictional" Sacco and Vanzetti that are the protagonists of the novel; and, (3) conversations, thoughts, and actions of the "characters" "Sacco/Fatty" and "Vanzetti/Skinny" played by the "fictional" "Sacco" and "Vanzetti," who in turn are alternative versions of the "real" "Sacco" and "Vanzetti." The interplay between the three levels, and sometimes not knowing who is speaking, or at what level of "truth" we as readers are located, has the effect of making us as readers very aware of the structure of the novel. Simultaneously, Binelli "pulls the rug out from under us" and allows the narrative to involve us to the point that we forget the structure of the novel and are once again involved in the story as story, for the sake of its own enjoyment.

At times, I found it hard to believe that this is Mark Binelli's first novel. If this is the level of all of his future offerings then I will be a devoted reader. I am ready to suspend the "truth" (just as I know that is ultimately impossible) for awhile and sit back for the show, knowing that as I enjoy it I will also be challenged and not just taken for granted as a reader. Truth, indeed.