The Sterile Cuckoo

My bookshelves are so overflowing they are stacked two deep which means half my books I can't see. But the upside of this is I sometimes stumble across much-loved books I hadn't thought of for ages. Which happened today when I came across The Sterile Cuckoo by John Nichols. I discovered this book one summer when I was in high school. My mum had a few dozen hardcovers on a bookshelf in the basement; they were from a time before she was married when as a young secretary she'd splurged and joined a bookclub. Anyway I read the book and it has been on my bookshelf ever since.

It is the story of Jerry Payne and Pookie Adams and their college romance. Which sounds like a pretty boring, conventional story and maybe would be without Pookie Adams, one of the most original characters ever to spring off any page.

They meet in a bus depot and here's the first thing Pookie says: "You're a kind of shaggy, scruffy-looking, bag of bones - the real cowboy role - aren't you?" she began. "And judging from the intense expression on your incredibly boyish face, you are thinking of either punching a gorgeous naked broad in her big white belly, or else catching a flock or tame canaries in a huge net just before they fall into the Mississippi river. All the same, you don't look bad to me, you know. You look like a grown up version of The Kid in the Charlie Chaplin movie, ever see it? Charlie Chaplin movies get me right here, especially "The Kid," and more especially when everybody is an angel with paper wings, jerking back and forth on wires you can almost-but-not-quite see. After "The Gold Rush" I bought some Brown and Serve Rolls, raided a couple of forks from the silverware cabinet in the dining room, and went upstairs to my room where I tried - on my pillow and without much success - to do thte dance the way he did. I love Charlie Chaplin...do you?" When I stared at her exactly as if she were nuts she said, "I'm not a pushmi-pullya, I don't have a goiter, nor am I a died-in-the-wool Kulack-killing Communist. I'm a girl. Going home," she tacked on with a pout, retreating her hands up out of sight into the shaggy sleeves of her grey sweater.

I'm going to have to reread it soon. I've read it a few times over the years. I have no idea whether it is still in print, it was published in 1965, but is worth seeking out. And it has a great ending!