The consul’s wife, Yvonne, a decade his junior and a former actress, left him a year before. The life is that of Geoffrey Firmin, a British ex-consul in his early 40s whose sole remaining purpose in Quauhnahuac seems to be to foment his growing isolation and alcoholism. The place is Quauhnahuac (Cuernavaca), Mexico, a town living in the shadow of the Spanish Civil War and the hovering peaks of two active volcanos, and divided by a ragged gulf (or barranca) that winds its way like an impassible river of broken earth into the surrounding terrain. The day in the life of the novel is the 1939 Day of the Dead, a day in November when it is believed the souls of the dead are closest to the living. Life in the 21st century may seem an impossible, exhausting struggle, but it is the preponderant struggle, and more than half a century ago Lowry unveiled it in all its sadness, desperation, beauty and dignity. There is comfort in feeling that, upon finishing the story about a single day in the life of a ruinous drunk, not only have I been given a glimpse into cryptic truths about life and existence, but that they are the same mysteries people have always confronted. In my mind this is what makes any novel great: By exploring the many complex facets of a single compelling story, the book provides the reader with universal insights about the inscrutable nature of the human mind and soul.

“Under the Volcano” was first published in 1947, the final result of a short story Lowry first wrote in 1936, but its alluring and heart-rending account of modern isolation and personal and political intemperance and depravity is as relevant today as ever. Even if I’ll never be a novel writer, I thought, I damn well want to be among the enlightened readers who understands what McGuane meant when he said, “there’s no doubt it’s essential.” From the moment I turned the last riveting page of the autobiographic novel Lowry spent more than a decade honing to what is now considered a modern classic, I’ve been enthusiastically encouraging all the other novel readers I know to add Lowry’s lushly and tragically beautiful masterwork to their must-read lists without delay. Schumock’s question was, “Is there any novel more read by novel writers and less read by novel readers than Malcolm Lowry’s ‘Under the Volcano?’” Since I considered myself an enthusiastic novel reader, I was embarrassed to admit that I’d never even heard of the book, and immediately added it to my must-read list.

In 1990-something I read a provocative question in an interview* of novelist Thomas McGuane by Jim Schumock, a literary interviewer for a Portland, Ore., radio station and laid-back catcher on my friend’s softball team.

Lowry volcano