Actually, she has one of the most fascinating back-stories I’ve ever heard.  Look for an essay by her in The Rumpus soon. River of Dust comes out on May 14, 2013—and I’m excited to see the book reach its potential. When Mongol bandits abduct the son of an American missionary couple in China in the early twentieth century, both husband and wife wrestle with identity. The word “identity” seems a bit easy in this case. How does one describe The Reverend’s role as the “Ghost Man”? How does one discuss Grace’s interactions with her Chinese servants, Ahcho and Mai Lin? How does one impress upon the reader the significance of landscape, from a poverty-stricken missionary compound to the villages where people die from illness and something like famine-induced frenzy? You’ve gotta check it out!

Virginia and I spoke!

What inspired River of Dust?

Around the time I read Gilead, I started exploring my grandfather’s journals written on yellowed and torn onionskin paper. He and my grandmother were Congregational missionaries in northwestern China from 1907-1926, when he died there. His journals are a strange mix of matter-of-fact church building reportage—the number of converts in a day, for example—and passages where he waxes poetical about the setting and the people. He read the Romantic poets and the diction of that earlier time flowed with verbal curlicues and arabesques from his pen. The man clearly enjoyed writing and, as a result, I developed a surprising fondness for him. He described with good humor and affection the Chinese around him and seemed to really love that very foreign land. I had always felt a weird mix of pride about him–because he was among the first to go back to China after the Boxer Rebellion, and he built a hospital, schools and roads that seemed to benefit the peasants there—and great shame. He was a full-blooded missionary who was unapologetically intent on changing the hearts and minds of the native people: an imperialist of the first order.

On a related note, the sensation of being a tourist in one’s own life—someone who looks in from the outside with a sense of longing while other people somehow manage to be at the center of things—has often crept into my work. It’s a cliché that writers feel that way—a bit off to the side as we observe life. But I began to wonder how it must have felt to be such a startlingly visible foreigner in China. My grandfather stood six foot four inches tall and had flaming red hair. There was no way he could fit in.

But as I read further in his journals, I realized that he didn’t want to fit in. That wasn’t his purpose there.  And yet, he felt he understood the country in which he was so clearly an alien. He could imagine he “got it.” That lack of acknowledging one’s own ignorance—of ignoring it despite all the signs—seemed both humorous and tragic to me, and worth exploring in a novel.  I wanted to portray someone who was sensitive and deluded. I guess you could say, I wanted to write about the blindness of the ruling class.

Is this a story about a loss of faith?  Related to this, I think it’s safe to say that Grace comes into her own, so to speak, in your novel. She becomes a “modern American woman.” Does part of this modernity involve giving up faith in a Judeo-Christian God?

As Grace’s story becomes more extreme and fraught with peril, she finally chooses her own course of action and is pleased with herself about it. She knows she’s stepping forward in a new way and sees herself in a new light. At the same time, I think she would say that she remains faithful to her husband and their God to the last. Sure, she sneaks around The Reverend and starts to call the shots. And she sneaks around God, too, and doesn’t behave in the usual docile way. She wants to be liberated, but she doesn’t want to be a troublemaker. That strikes me as pretty typical pretzel-logic for a woman of her time.

You mentioned somewhere that Marilynne Robinson was an inspiration for your work. Would you explain this because I love her so much? I think, personally, this is one thing that attracted me to your work.

Gilead and then Home were two books that confirmed my interest in writing about the early twentieth century. Robinson captures not only how people thought back then, but how time itself was made of a different substance. The slower, more contemplative pace of those novels is a revelation. I know some people who had to put Gilead down. It asked too much of them. But I admired how she took her time and got inside her Reverend’s mind and showed the texture of his thoughts. Paul Harding also accomplishes that beautifully in his novel Tinkers.

River of Dust is faster-paced than those novels. The plot charges forward, but I wanted the language and the inner workings of my characters’ minds to suit that time and place as accurately as I could.

I do have a question on this issue of pacing.  How is a slower, more contemplative pacing created in fiction? What does that involve? I would agree that your book is not slow-paced. I’m not sure how I might explain how pace is created in prose. What do you think?

I suppose the simplest answer is that pace moves forward more rapidly when actions, not thoughts, are conveyed. As I say that, I’m already thinking of exceptions. But in general, Virginia Woolf, for example, is considered slower paced because so much of her narrative is internal. The books that literary readers tend to avoid are those where the plot hurtles forward with minimal narrative description. In River of Dust, I try to strike a balance between literary language and plot-driven writing. I’m not averse to a good story—one that is gripping and that the reader wants to know how it resolves. But I love language and try to write evocatively and with care. By the way, a good number of literary writers these days are doing genre fiction which requires different pacing and narrative concerns. It’s interesting to be in a moment when these categories are breaking down.

Did you grow up in a religious household?

I went to Unitarian Sunday School, where we learned as much about the Buddha and Moses as we did about Jesus. I remember on International Day, my mother put on a sari she had bought in India and stirred a pot of Chinese dumplings in the church basement. My father, who was the son of the missionary parents in China, ended up believing in rational thought rather than religion. He was a political scientist at MIT for fifty years. And perhaps because he grew up in China in a mission compound, he didn’t want to be hoodwinked by either religion or foreign cultures. On a parallel track, my mother as a twelve-year-old girl had refused to rise when called to be baptized at a revival meeting in South Carolina. There was no way she was going to be forced to show her faith like that. She switched over to the Methodists, but as soon as she moved north, she and my father drifted away from the imposing influences of their parents’ religions.

There are a lot of interesting implications in River of Dust about imperialism and the work of missionaries. When I was reading your book, I couldn’t help but think of others, including Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder.  Do you see your novel as part of that literary conversation?

I do think this is a book about colonialism and the dangers of what Junot Díaz calls “white supremacy,” meaning racism. The Reverend and Grace see themselves as different types of human beings than Mai Lin and Ahcho. Their blindness to the full humanity of their servants leads to their downfall. As a good friend said after reading River of Dust, “this is a tale of expiation for the sin of arrogance.” If that is true, then I’ve succeeded at conveying my subject.

What was your arduous path to success with River of Dust? 

This particular novel started out as part of a larger novel that spanned one hundred years and three generations of an American family with ties to China and Vietnam. I worked on that book for over five years, went through twenty drafts and had over thirty agents read and consider it, several reading it more than once. The book was interesting, but flawed. A number of people said it should be two books, at least. Finally, I was able to take that advice when it came from Nancy Zafris, who is a brilliant writer and editor. She was so clearly on my side, so clearly wanted this book to work, that when she said I had two books, not one, I believed her. In River of Dust, I ended up using only the first pages and last twenty-five pages of the previous novel. Everything else was new and written in a startlingly short amount of time. All this has taught me to not hold on too tightly to anything I create. As they say, we have to be willing to kill our darlings.

Didn’t you once have a brush with Annie Dillard?  I’d like to hear more about that, since I once had a brush with Ethan Hawke, which shows up in my novel, Love Slave.

Annie was my first mentor, at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. I was thrilled when she let me into her coveted year-long fiction workshop. If I remember correctly, the class met only once as a whole because all our work with her was to be done on the page.  But at that first meeting she paced the room and ended up sitting on the windowsill as she told us that if we wanted to become serious writers we should be prepared to have no children or pets. We should even throw out our houseplants. Complete dedication was required. Then in great detail she showed us how to send out manuscripts to literary magazines—literally where to put the address and stamp on the envelope. It all seemed quite earnest and intense, which appealed to me perfectly at that age.

After that first class, we placed our stories in her English Department box each week and five days later she would return them to the box, covered with red pen. All of us got our stories back at the same time and I remember noticing which students’ papers had more check marks and even smiley faces in the margins drawn with her graceful hand. My stories were cross-hatched with corrections.

But by the end of that year, I had finally completed a long story. It went through many drafts, all commented on by her. On the last day, I went to pick up that final version and on it she had written something truly unexpected that seems to have stuck with me as a mantra, as well as a painful prod: “We all write awful junk first drafts. You have what it takes to turn them into a work of art. You will write books for the rest of your life.” What it had taken for me to write that short story, and what it has taken to write every piece of fiction since then, is what I learned from Annie Dillard that year: hard work, persistence, being willing to take criticism, and to simply keep at it.

By the way, that story, the one I slaved over, was called “The Loss of North China” and it took place in the fourteenth century. I didn’t touch that continent again in my work for twenty-plus years, until River of Dust. Who knows what would have happened had I just stayed put in China all along?

You’ve mentioned elsewhere being “an active and hopeful literary citizen. . . .” Would you explain this?

I’ve had a long road to book publication. Several near misses with publishers and several great agents over the years, but what I figured out with time was not to focus so single-mindedly on getting a book taken, but to enjoy my fellow writers as we pursue this common goal. Where I live in Richmond, Virginia, I helped run a literary non-profit for close to a decade. James River Writers attracts all types of writers—many of whom write in genres that I have no direct knowledge or understanding of.  And yet, we’re all trying to do the same thing—get our voices out there, explore who we are through the written word, and make a difference by sharing our stories. I’ve enjoyed encouraging them, and many published authors as well. More than once I’ve been the lone member of a bookstore audience. All this has led me to believe in karma. Now that River of Dust is coming out, I feel greatly supported by people who I’ve supported. In this difficult publishing market it can be hard to believe that there’s enough success to go around. But–not to sound too Polly- Annaish–the success may well be in the relationships we make along the way.

Everyone wants to know—for good reason—what you’re working on. What’s next? Do you plan on re-visiting China in future work?

I do hope to someday write the story of the stolen American boy in Mongolia. I may have to visit there for real, and that takes some planning and funds, so if anyone knows of a mule train looking for an added helper, let me know.

But in the meantime, I’m working on two novels—both resurrected from my drawer—as well as a collection of short stories. It’s anyone’s guess which of these will fully win my affection next. But very soon, I’m going to zero in on one of them and throw my heart into it. Still, I like this period now in which I’m envisioning the stories going off in different directions. It’s a fertile time and I’m deeply grateful to be in the midst of it.

_____________

VIRGINIA PYE’S debut novel, River of Dust, is an Indie Next Pick for May 2013. Her award-winning short stories have been published in numerous literary magazines, including The North American Review, The Baltimore Review, Tampa Review and Failbetter. She has taught writing and literature at New York University and the University of Pennsylvania, and helps run a literary non-profit in Richmond, Virginia. For more about her, visit: www.virginiapye.com.

Ahcho kept pace, and the Reverend was grateful, for he had not anticipated the shock on the faces as they looked up at him. He was a large man, he knew that. Six foot four ever since his seventeenth birthday. These country folk had no doubt never seen a white man before. And he supposed that the animal skin did nothing to make him appear more approachable. Ah, well. He would use it to his advantage. If they were intimidated by him, he could gather up his son all the quicker and make his departure posthaste. He would be the Ghost Man of their dreams if it helped him to secure his own.

He heard them whispering and assumed they spoke that very name as he brushed past. Many turned aside or shut their eyes, afraid, he supposed, of what he might do to them if they looked at him directly. Ahcho had hinted that the animal hide made even him feel ill at ease, for who knew what reason. The Reverend’s number-one boy was no longer superstitious but a true Christian through and through. He glanced over at him now and nodded in appreciation of his devotion and dependability. Ahcho kept his hand under his robe and looked as tense as a rubber band ready to snap. Perhaps in this one instance, his manservant’s penchant for worry was well placed.

The Reverend ducked his head deeper into the hide and balanced the wolf’s jaw over his brow. When he straightened himself to his full height with the animal head now atop his own, he must have measured a full seven feet tall. The Reverend chuckled to himself, for he realized that he, too, now belonged in the sideshow tent.

He swept his arms up under the fur cloak and spun around to face the assembled crowd. The fire breather stopped tossing his fire. The giant with the nails in his belly belched quietly to himself. The flute music died abruptly, and the snakes dropped to the dirt like useless pieces of rope. Nomad mothers pulled their children into their heavy skirts and turned the babies strapped to their backs away from the great, ghostly spectacle before them.

The Reverend cleared his throat and looked about for someone in charge of this ragtag scene. He whispered to Ahcho under his breath, “Do you see any sign of a ringmaster?”

Ahcho inched closer and looked at him with uncomprehending eyes. “A ring, Master?”

“The fellow in charge,” the Reverend clarified.

“No one is in charge here. That is the problem,” Ahcho said, then glanced around and said, “The Reverend is aware they surround us on all sides?”

“Indeed. No need to worry, dear fellow,” the Reverend said.

It was true.  Around the edges of the crowd, men wearing brightly patterned jackets and matching hats sat atop diminutive, though sturdy and strong, horses. The Reverend could not help noticing the grand archery bows held in position by a clever apparatus at their sides. These horse-riding nomads had been known throughout history for their warring streak. They were nothing if not fierce. The crowd had closed ranks by now, and he was the main attraction.

The Reverend glanced over their heads and spied a sorry-looking elephant grazing amongst a herd of camels and horses. The skin on the enormous animal sagged miserably, and the Reverend wondered about the pathetic life the once magnificent creature had endured here with these barbarians. Then his face went hot as he allowed himself to consider what his boy had suffered in their midst as well.

The Reverend lifted his arms again, and the crowd stepped back a pace. His first instinct was to reassure them, but instead, he forced himself to make a fearsome face.

“Listen to me!” he began.

His powerful voice did nothing to set their worried brows at ease. If anything, hearing him speak their tongue only rattled them more. He thought he heard a fearful shriek from the back of the audience, although perhaps that was only the sound of the wind whipping up and over the cliff. The Reverend glanced at the sky and noticed a cloud bank approaching from the west. The weather on the steppes was notoriously unpredictable, and he hoped they were not in for a sudden storm. Although the quickly approaching shadows helped magnify the unsettled mood, which could work nicely in the Reverend’s favor.

“Give me back my son, and I, the Ghost Man, will leave you in peace!”

Ahcho moved closer, and the Reverend could tell that even his skeptical number-one boy was impressed by his alarming tone.

“He is small.” The Reverend lowered his arm toward the ground and put his hand at just the height where dear Wesley’s head would have been. “And his hair,” the Reverend reached for a hank of fur from the wolf’s head atop his own, “his hair is the color of the sun!”

The crowd let out a gasp.

“Bring him to me, and then you may return to your festival.”

The crowd stirred, and several of the burly, half-naked wrestlers marched off. The Reverend felt certain they would return in a moment’s time with his son’s hand in theirs. He waited and forced his expression to betray nothing of his excitement.

After a few long moments, the crowd parted, and the Reverend could not help the broad smile that overtook his countenance in anticipation. The people whispered, and several even clapped their hands, for everyone, except perhaps Ahcho, who remained as stern-looking as ever, knew that a miracle was about to take place before their eyes.

The row of grandmothers and grandfathers at the front of the crowd bowed and stepped aside. The children scurried off. Then there, before the Reverend, appeared a blond head, so blond as to be freakishly white.

The Reverend staggered back.

“Are you all right, Master?” Ahcho asked and reached under the hide to take the Reverend’s arm.

The Reverend did not speak.

A stout form waddled toward him. It was not a child’s face but a man’s, pink and with pink eyes. He blinked wildly under no eyebrows or lashes, as if it hurt him just to see. The small creature looked painfully raw and unfinished, and the Reverend could not help but think that the Lord had left this lump of clay only half molded. He looked away in disgust. He had never before seen a more hideous human being.

“Great Ghost Man,” the albino midget said, his high voice shaking. “You have come to save me!” He threw himself onto the ground and began to kiss the Reverend’s boots.

The Reverend stepped out of his reach and shouted, “Stand up, man. Do not grovel like an animal!”

The midget rose and wiped tears off his cheeks with his thick arm clothed in a colorful tunic.  But his tears kept coming, and the Reverend saw that the hideous fellow was unable to control himself.

“Whatever is the matter?” he asked.

“My misery will soon end,” the man whimpered. “You will kill me, and I will finally meet my ancestors. I should never have been born, and now my time on this earth will be over. I am most grateful to you.” The man let out a sob and raised his head and shut his eyes, as if expecting to be smote down by the Reverend in the next instant.

The Reverend swallowed. Could those be his own tears rising up behind his eyes? He had become so resistant to allowing his grief to reveal itself that he hardly recognized the sensation. There was no mistaking, though, that the man before him was wretched to his very soul. His body was a travesty and his entire being spoiled and irretrievable. The Lord had seen to that.

The midget opened his eyes again but remained cowering, still waiting for the blow. The Reverend stared into the frightened and frightening pink eyes. The man’s features resembled those of other Mongols, but his skin lacked color to the point of virtual transparency. Blue veins rose up the thick neck and coursed behind fragile temples. The slick, tear-soaked cheeks resembled pulp more than flesh. He was made only of the most base of human matter and nothing divine.

Then the Reverend noticed the most hideous sight of all: red slashes cut across the backs of the fellow’s hands and on his shins below the polka-dotted bloomers.

“Turn around,” the Reverend shouted.

The crowd inched forward, curious what cruel thing was about to happen next to the midget. The Reverend recognized the sickening look of prurient curiosity on their faces.

“I said,” the Reverend repeated, “turn around.”

The midget did as he was told, his large head bowing lower on his stump of a neck. The Reverend pulled up the brightly colored tunic. Across the pale skin of the man’s child-sized back appeared long scars and welts. Beside them were fresh red cuts that oozed fine beads of blood. The Reverend dropped the shirt. A fury rose up inside him that he did not recognize. A low and fearsome growl issued from his lips. The midget dropped to the ground and covered his head with his arms.

“Stand,” the Reverend said through gritted teeth at the shaking creature. “Tell me who did this to you.”

The midget stood and swayed before him, his eyes shut and his whole body trembling.

“Open your eyes!” the Reverend shouted.

The eyelids quivered slowly open. The Reverend looked into those unearthly portals and thought he had never before seen such fear and misery in a man. How could the Lord do this to one of His creatures? How could He so punish an innocent soul?

The Reverend reared back his head, raised up his arms, and let out a piercing cry that echoed down the cliffs and into the ravine below.

“I will smite whoever has harmed this man. He must not be hurt again!” the Reverend shouted at the crowd. Then he swung his arms around and swooped toward them. The claws of the wolf slapped the ground and stirred up the dust. The people scuffled back frantically to keep out of his reach. “If you lay a finger upon him, I will fly at you in the night and I will swallow your soul. I will suck it out of you and spit it into the valley below. If you do not treat him with respect, you and your children and your children’s children will suffer a hideous punishment for all time.”

The Reverend returned to the midget’s side and took his pudgy, damp hand into his own and raised it up. “This is a man of consequence,” the Reverend said, his voice breaking with sorrow. “This is a man.”

He let the midget’s hand drop. The Reverend’s own head bowed as well. “The Lord Jesus,” he said more softly, “and I, the great Ghost Man, will watch over him from now on, forever and ever.”

The crowd remained frozen and unspeaking. The albino midget fell to his knees, and the Reverend ran a hand over his hair. Blond to the point of whiteness, it was as fine as dear Wesley’s and surprisingly soft. As he touched it, the Reverend felt tears roll down his own cheeks.

The wind kicked up at that moment in a sudden gust. Black clouds gathered overhead. The tents began to shudder, their flaps making a cracking sound in the rushing air. Rain came in an instant, hard and furious. The updraft from the ravine next caused hail to fall. Large pellets struck the crowd, and they covered their heads with their arms and fled. People screamed and shouted as they ran in all directions, seeking shelter.

Still on his knees, the midget looked up at the Reverend. His face flinched against the sudden ice that fell from the sky. “Take me with you,” he begged and threw himself around the Reverend’s legs. “Please, dear Ghost Man, take me!”

The Reverend kicked him off. “No, man, they won’t harm you any longer. Rise up and find your place amongst them. No one here is better than you.”

The man stared at the Reverend with disbelieving eyes. The Reverend would have liked to say more, to quote the Lord about the meek inheriting the earth if he could still believe it. But Ahcho had his arm and was pulling him toward the donkeys.

The Reverend looked back and saw the midget stagger off into the chaotic scene. No one bothered him, but no one helped him, either. He was a free man, with all the suffering that would entail.

The Reverend could not rush away. His heart had been broken here, and he wished to remember it always. He noticed then that no one was tending to the animals. The camels had dashed off toward the dangerous trail, and the horses had fled into the open countryside.

And the poor, panicked elephant had broken free of the chains that bound its legs and appeared altogether lost. The Reverend watched it trot off, the enormous creature’s feet surprisingly dainty. The great ears flapped like sails luffing in the wind. Despite its size, the elephant, too, seemed frighteningly vulnerable as it dashed into the sheets of hail. With small eyes closed against the elements, the animal stumbled in the direction of the cliff.

The Reverend left Ahcho and ran after the creature. He ducked his head deeper into the wolf hide for protection. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he couldn’t very well stand by as a great beast fell to its death down the precipice. Yet, as the Reverend pulled closer, he was shocked at the elephant’s size. From a distance, it had appeared large, but now, standing next to it, he understood that this was one of God’s grandest creations. Its scale suggested the expansiveness of the Lord’s will. He could make anything He pleased, and this elephant was what pleased Him most.

The Reverend dared not go nearer, for one stomp of the animal’s foot would end his life. But the animal had run precariously close to the rocky edge. The Reverend grabbed one of the chains that dragged in the dust and yanked on it hard. The animal stopped in its tracks, turned its head slowly toward the Reverend, and stared directly at him.

The small, dark eyes looked out with what could only be described as infinite sorrow. The creature conveyed a deep weariness with the world and all its follies, especially those wrought by humans who had bestowed upon it nothing but pain. The Reverend felt his heart wilt even more as he recognized and understood the animal’s misery.

“Dear Lord,” he whispered, dropping his chin to his chest, “why do you abandon us so?”

He set the chain back down upon the ground and stepped away. He was no match for the Lord’s cruel whims. If He, in His cruelty, chose to kill one of His finest creations, whether an elephant or a precious child, then who was the Reverend to stop Him? But in one final effort, he called out to the beast, shook his fists in the air, and even stomped his foot. The animal appeared not to hear his weak voice, nor did it seem to care about footfalls that were not powerful enough to shake the ground.

Then, as if to confirm how ineffectual the Reverend truly was at saving even a single soul, a bolt of lightning struck the field of poppies only a hundred paces away, and further mayhem ensued. The crack and boom shattered the air, as if God Himself had shouted down from the heavens. The Reverend instinctively covered his head with his arms and gripped the wolf’s fur with trembling fingers. The sound rang magnificently in his ears. A fire began instantly on the spot where the bolt had hit. The wind swirled with smoke and fire and falling ice as the terrifying blast continued to echo all around.

The innocent elephant took fright in this hellish moment. It dashed forward, and as the Reverend watched, the great, grand creature plunged over the cliff. Just like that. The Reverend stared unbelieving at the blank space where the animal had stood. The sleet struck hard, and fire spread, but even with disaster on all sides, there was no cause and no reason for the magnificent beast to have been sacrificed on this day. There was no possible understanding of such a pitiless world. The elephant had simply turned away from life.

And the Lord, the Reverend’s good Lord, had done so, too.

___________

VIRGINIA PYE‘s debut novel, River of Dust, is an Indie Next Pick for May 2013. Her award-winning short stories have been published in numerous literary magazines, including The North American Review, The Baltimore Review, Tampa Review and Failbetter. She has taught writing and literature at New York University and the University of Pennsylvania, and helps run a literary non-profit in Richmond, Virginia. For more about her, visit: www.virginiapye.com.

Adapted from River of Dust, by Virginia Pye. Copyright © 2013 by Virginia Pye. With the permission of the publisher, Unbridled Books.

Which I will do now. Promise.

Debut novels are, by their nature, both self-indulgent and self-aware as well. Self-indulgent because who said that anyone has any right to assume anyone cares about anything writers have to say? And yet self-aware because without at least some level of self-awareness, all debut novels would tell the same story again and again–someone meets someone, someone leaves someone, someone’s family is fucked-up, someone finds redemption–but bring nothing new to the table. Or the Kindle if that’s your thing.

Which brings me back to my own self-absorption, though I swear there will be no more about me after this. It’s all Anderson and Wheatyard henceforth. Promise.

Anyway, I was invited to blurb Wheatyard and I had the following to say:

“For the people who tell us books are dying, I would suggest they grab a cold beer, find a porch, and read Wheatyard, so they can remind themselves how much words can still dance on the printed page, and how much feeling, suppressed and otherwise, can be found in this debut novel’s vibrant passages.”

I share this because the thing I want to say about Wheatyard more than anything else is that it is a novel that believes in the power and urgency of words. But this belief is not merely limited to the words splashed across the pages themselves. The characters in Wheatyard believe in words and the printed page as well.

Which brings me back to Anderson, and I did promise I would focus him, right? I did.

So here it is. In the end, Wheatyard is the story of two men, one buttoned-up, isolated, and wanting something more to believe in, albeit somewhat lacking in self-awareness; the other, unstable, isolated, and self-absorbed, but free to write if he can just find a way to focus on doing so.

It is somewhere there in the intersection of ideas and determination, self-awareness and self-absorption, and isolation–because the writer is always isolated–that creativity lives, and breathes, and searches for oxygen.

Which, of course, is exactly what debut novelists know like nobody’s business. Ideas are just ideas until you sit down and write, and that’s what Pete has done. He sat down and he told his story, in a loving, and urgent fashion.

HOST (V.O.)

Eugene, Oregon!

Ext. Midday. Rain pummels a tiny little city while the homeless runaways with face tattoos still sit in the open on the corner outside of Voo Doo Donuts, demanding baked goods from passersby.

HOST (V.O.)

A sleepy little hamlet known for its rain,
the birthplace of Nike, and its rain.

Ext. Midday. Rain continues to pummel a tiny little city as an old homeless woman struggles out of a filthy red bra and bounces around Ken Kesey Square, next to Voo Doo Donuts. A black editing box is applied across the torso of the bouncing woman, although it is not clear if the flapping in that area is due to her social security boobs or…wings. The homeless runaways stop harassing passersby for a moment and watch, now visibly scared. One drops his recently secured donut into a mud puddle. He does not notice.

HOST (V.O.)

…and also the home of Laurie Notaro, a self-proclaimed writer and author of the newly released The Potty Mouth at the Table. But approximately two years ago, an online reviewer known only as Cheryl, read one of Laurie’s books and left a scathing missive on Amazon, writing, ”I read everything from the back of cereal boxes to classics but this book was a waste of time.” Additionally, Tee Bee, another reviewer who had most recently penned a five-star review of “Fireplace DVD: Real Wood Burning Fire (Anamorphic - FullScreen Edition)” entitled, The Perfect Ambiance, referred to the contents of Notaro’s book “like nails on a chalkboard for me.”

Cut to a woman sitting in a blue La-Z-Boy with a TV remote in her hand.

WOMAN

Nails on a chalkboard? Really? Has Tee Bee ever heard nails on a chalkboard? Because I have, and it really wasn’t that bad. I have heard worse things. The sound of UPS pulling up and going next door? That’s worse! The sound of my husband coming home before I hide the red Vitamix I got from QVC because the blue Vitamix took the last spot in the bathroom closet? THAT’S WORSE. What an idiot. If that’s the worst thing you heard, I want your life. Gimme that life. If she thinks my daughter’s book is no good, I’m telling her to leave the book store. Leave the book store and don’t come back! Go to hell, you. And you’d better pay for that book! So Nicholas Sparks is going to Laurie’s house to tell everyone how good her book is.

Ext. Midday. Rain Pummels a tiny little house with four newspapers, soggy and bleeding ink, stacked on the front porch. A scatter of loose mail dots the rest of the porch, which is decorated with a dead bush in one planter and a half dead bush in the other.

HOST (V.O.)

With very little knowledge of Laurie’s books or even who Laurie Notaro is, Number One New York Times Bestselling Author Nicholas Sparks, Scribe of The Notebook, arrives at Laurie’s house to determine why Laurie needs his expert help.

Number One New York Times Bestselling Author Nicholas Sparks, Scribe of The Notebook, walks up to Laurie’s front door and after getting his sleeve caught on the dead tree, rings the doorbell. Several seconds go by.

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK

Hello? Hello? Gloria Motaro? Is Gloria Motaro home?

Number One New York Times bestselling Author Nicholas Sparks, Scribe of The Notebook, rings the doorbell again. A muffled voice is heard from inside the house.

MUFFLED VOICE

I’m sorry if you are troubled youth looking for a chance at life, but I don’t want any magazines and I don’t have any donuts. I just got laid off.

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK

No, no, Gloria! It’s me, Number One New York Times bestselling Author Nicholas Sparks, Scribe of The Notebook, coming to help you on this episode of Book Nightmares. Come on, come on, my darling. Open the door. It is raining even more than it did in my masterpiece, The Notebook. You really need Ryan Gosling in this rain to make it look good.

The door opens a sliver, and a disheveled head pokes out.

MUFFLED VOICE

Did you say Ryan Gosling?

Number One New York Times bestselling Author Nicholas Sparks, Scribe of The Notebook, walks into the house past Laurie Notaro, wearing a huge grey terrycloth robe, slippers, and hair in a very messy ponytail. She is eating an English muffin. There is a smear of strawberry jam on one lens of her glasses.

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK

Gloria! Are you Gloria? I’m Number One New York Times bestselling Author Nicholas Sparks, Scribe of The Notebook. I’m also a millionaire. You seem like a miserable failure. I’m here to fix that!!

LAURIE/GLORIA

I’m Laurie, and I did not invite you or your film crew in.

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK

Don’t worry about that! We’ve already been in your house for days, watching and taping you to see why you don’t sell as many books as I do. Your mom called us. She said you needed help. Now, tell me a little bit about your books that I’ve never read.

LAURIE/GLORIA

They’re just humor essays about things that happen every day.

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK

Like wives getting cancer and then husbands finding love again?

LAURIE/GLORIA

No, no, like trying to buy a little illegal alien boy from a street corner.

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK

Oh, boy! That never turns out well. What about wives getting Alzheimers and husbands finding love again?

LAURIE/GLORIA

No, more like throwing up in front of 100 very mean people on a train.

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK

Some of whom may have had wives who had cancer and were just finding love again?

LAURIE/GLORIA

No.

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK

Does a mudslide hit the train? Or a storm comes and tosses two teenagers from different social stratas into each others arms, only to have the boy go to Iraq? Then the girl could get cancer. That could work. There has to be a role for Richard Gere, I promised him.

LAURIE/GLORIA

Um….he could be my dad?

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK

Is your father a widower looking for love again?

LAURIE/GLORIA

No. You just said my mother called you.

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK

It’s not going to sell if she’s still alive. What do you think suits her best, Parkinson’s, cancer or Alzheimer’s? It’s got to be one of the big three. We could give her a stroke if we stretched it, but Gere is not big on dribbling, so…..

LAURIE/GLORIA

I’m still not sure why you’re here.

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK 

Clearly, it’s because you suck. Haters online said so.

LAURIE/GLORIA

Well that is bullshit! My Klout score went up two points yesterday. I got an email.

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK

Nails on a chalkboard….

LAURIE/GLORIA

Tee Bee reviewed FAKE FIRE. Would you trust someone who reviewed fake fire? The Perfect Ambiance? She’s a pansy. She’s not used to real life things! She’s used to watching processed fire. And she better have paid for that book!

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK 

You need to understand that I’m here to show you what’s right. And you can’t take that.

LAURIE/GLORIA

I just really want to eat my English muffin and finish my coffee.

HOST (V.O.)

This morning, Number One New York Times bestselling Author Nicholas Sparks, Scribe of The Notebook arrived with a plan on how to turn around the books of Gloria Motaro. But she wanted to clear up a few matters first. Unfortunately, she is still not prepared to listen to what Number One New York Times bestselling Author Nicholas Sparks, Scribe of The Notebook, has to say.

LAURIE/GLORIA

(looking at the ceiling) Who is that?

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK 

That’s the man who we placed in your attic four days ago. He confirmed that there are bigger issues here, like your drinking problem.

LAURIE/GLORIA

That was years ago!

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK

Then why are you dressed like a lady alcoholic now?

LAURIE/GLORIA

I get dressed…often! Sometimes. I was answering email this morning. I was busy. Ask him! (points to ceiling) Where is he going to the bathroom?

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK

We checked with the mailman. He says you always look like that. At noon. You’re not ready to hear the truth. You’ve convinced yourself that everything you write and touch, in your little ”Gloria’s world” is perfect. Love it! Illegal alien children go well with vomit! I’m telling you the problems. You need cancer. I can’t help people that can’t help themselves.

Number One New York Times bestselling Author Nicholas Sparks, Scribe of The Notebook stares directly into the camera and looks like a widower who just lost his wife to cancer but open to the possibility of loving again. Possibly Kate Hudson, or Lauren Graham.

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK(CONT’D)

 I have the right to do the right thing. And the right thing for me is to get out of here.

HOST (V.O.)

I do need to use the restroom.

Suddenly, the doorway darkens, and the light is blocked out. Both Laurie and Number One New York Times bestselling Author Nicholas Sparks, Scribe of The Notebook, turn to see a hulking blonde figure in a terror stance, bold and fierce and frightening. A hand from the figure is outstretched.

HULKING FIGURE

I’m Tabitha. Give me your keys. I am taking over. Your mother was right, Gloria. Your hair does look like shit. And it stinks in here. There’s hair all over your robe.

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR NICHOLAS SPARKS,
SCRIBE OF THE NOTEBOOK

Do you have any donuts, or English muffins left over? I’d like to try and get out of this town alive. That is, if I don’t find love…first.

End scene.

The Potty Mouth at the Table (05/2013), by Laurie Notaro

__________________________

Laurie Notaro was a columnist for The Arizona Republic before she got fired for writing a joke about George W. Bush in 2002. Since then, she’s been busy playing with her dog, trying to find an anti-frizz hair product that really works and writing some stuff. She failed typing in high school and still looks at the keys after writing nine or ten books.

I was driving to Adelanto listening to some comedy radio show. There’s nothing in Adelanto. At least nothing anybody wants. Just a collection of old cracked streets and faded one-story businesses. The people on the radio show were asking the audience:  What would people find in your drawers if you died unexpectedly? Your closet? They weren’t interested in the collection of Christmas sweaters or the stacks of family albums—they were interested in the dirty things, the things you don’t want anybody to see or know about. The naked pictures. The sex toys. The raunchy.

I started thinking about it. What would people find if I was at work and dropped dead of a heart attack? What? It didn’t take long for me to realize that there wouldn’t be squat. No naked pictures of ex-girlfriends or of me with my junk hanging out. No grainy sex videos. No devices. I just have a few guitars. A stack of journals no one cares about. An orange ceramic Buddha.

It would be an uneventful death.

I could easily see some burdened asshole throwing all of it into a raging fire and not thinking twice.

I used to get semi-nude pictures from some girl who claimed to be a model. It was very random. I never got her pattern down. I’d be at work or getting some gas and my phone would go off and there she’d be in a fancy bra. But after I took a look (or two) I’d delete them. I didn’t want anyone going through my phone and finding pictures of some chick in a lacy thong. My luck, I’d forget my phone at work and that’s exactly what would happen. And then all hell would break loose. I’m paranoid as it is. I don’t need that shit in my life.

When I lived in Vegas I waited tables with a guy named Eric. He was cool, liked his drink, and was newly engaged to a girl named Dawn who had a thing for speed. I knew tweakers. I’d grown up in a town where speed was the drug of choice. Eric didn’t have a clue. But I didn’t say anything. That was his girl. I’d just broken off a relationship with a girl who was loaded with drama. What did I know about wholesome, functional relationships? Nothing.

Eric and I both worked the lunch shift, so after work we’d go out and have a few cocktails. There was a cool little bar across the street called The Swizzle Stick Lounge. It was a locals’ place that poured deep drinks. At the time, we were both discovering the wonders of whiskey. We stumbled out of the Swizzle Stick more than a few times. Wild Turkey. Jack. Maker’s Mark. Dawn would hang out every once in a while. She’d show up with her girlfriends, all hopped up on speed, drink like a fish, and walk a straight line when it was over. Eric didn’t put two and two together.

“She’s awesome, bro,” he’d say, his eyes happy and heavy. “What woman out there can drink and hang with her man all night long? No one! She’s awesome!”

And then, just like that, poof, they were done. Dawn packed up and moved out. The details were sketchy. Apparently she had told Eric that she needed time to think about whether or not she wanted to get married. It sounded like bullshit to me. It sounded like she was too young and too high and didn’t want to get tied down. Happens all the time. Especially in towns like Vegas.

Right after she moved out, Eric told me about the dildos he found. Not just one, but five of them. The first one he found wedged in the corner of a futon in the spare bedroom. “I couldn’t believe my eyes,” he said. It took him a moment to comprehend. He couldn’t even touch the damn thing. He got a towel and picked it up and threw it and the towel away.

“Dude,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t even know. I just bought that futon from my brother, so my first thought was that it was my sister-in-law’s. But then I said no way. That’s not her. So I started looking around and found the other ones. I never knew she was into those. I guess you really never know someone, even if you think you do.”

I didn’t know what to say. What do you tell someone who just found five dildos, one of them wedged in a futon he bought from his brother, and the remaining four in a small pink purse that also has a bag of speed in it? Nothing. You just nod and say, That’s crazy.

“And the speed?” he continued. “What’s up with that? Was she into that, too? It would make perfect sense. She hardly ate. Never slept. And when she did sleep, she’d sleep for hours. I’m talking like sixteen hours.”

“That’s crazy.”

It wasn’t long before Eric found another girlfriend. He was one of those types who didn’t do single well. Always a girlfriend. Always a boyfriend. I met her before I transferred to another restaurant over by UNLV. She wasn’t a tweaker, but talked as if she was. She worked for the county, seemed to have her act together. Eric told me he’d learned a thing or two from the past and was looking for signs of drug and/or dildo use.

“I’ve learned,” he said confidently. “I keep a lookout. Got to. With Dawn, in the old days, I always wondered why the spare bedroom door was open. I never went in there. One time I came home early and she was in there with the door locked. She said she had locked it by accident. Bullshit.”

I’ve never dated a woman who was into dildos. Or: I’ve never known of any dildos. The girls I’ve dated have always been more of the vibrator variety. When I was in my early twenties I was seeing a girl who liked watching porn. That was her thing. She was constantly pestering me to watch one with her. It would be fun, she said. It would get us in the mood. What kind of fucking man doesn’t watch porn? So one night I was drunk and gave in. It was one of those amateur numbers. Poor lighting. No script. Everything was fine until the camera zoomed in on the dude’s nuts. That was it. I was done. I was drunk and all I wanted was food and sleep. I didn’t need a close-up of some dude’s balls and some pervert from Texas sitting next to me licking her chops.

“Well, that was cool,” I said, and got up and staggered to the kitchen.

“I knew you’d do this!” she hissed. “You’re no fun.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Fuck this, man!”

We didn’t last long. I knew we wouldn’t. She said it was because our signs weren’t compatible. I thought it was because we were always drunk and miserable and didn’t know how to conduct ourselves in a civil manner. Oh, and the fact that she was moody and hated the world and everything in it. I wonder what happened to her. I wonder if she’s married, has a couple of kids roaming around, giving people the stink eye. Or maybe she’s single and tearing up the 40-and-over scene.

Ironically, I had met her in Adelanto—the ugly town I was telling you about at the beginning of this story. She had a small apartment right by the military base that’s now gone. This was twenty-two years ago. I wonder if she still lives in the area, if she’s traded in the porn for Sunday church. Or maybe she’s been making some porn of her own. You never know. You just never know.

The first time I had a full-blown episode of depression I was seven years old. I knew that this was odd, but I was used to oddity. My sister had taught me to read when I was two, so I had become a parlor trick prodigy, marched in and out of rooms at my elementary school and made to read aloud to the “big boys and girls.”  I had the vague uncomfortable sense that I was being used to shame these kids, so I tried to underplay my performance. In return I was petted, praised, invited to eat my lunch with the huge sixth graders and generally protected.

None of that early success protected me from what became a deep, adult-sized, heart-clenching, chemical depression that descended over a series of days and weeks into something my father, citing Winston Churchill, called The Black Dog. The funk came from a distinct cause. My best friend at the time was bullying me. I don’t mean she was hitting or shoving me around; the bullying was more subtle and insidious. She decided whom I could or couldn’t be friends with. She told me what to do and how to dress.  She showed me pictures of people in the flames of hell and, since she was Catholic and I Jewish, coolly informed me that this was where I was headed. She gave me a bottle of violet perfume and ordered me to wear it every day, and if I skipped a day, she glared at me and gave me dirty looks across the classroom. (To this day, the scent of violets makes me sick.)

It was, in short, the kind of emotional slavery not uncommon among children. I felt enslaved to this girl. She was a perfectly nice child in every other regard—we’re still friends to this day—but she was going through a bullying period, and I was a convenient target.  I saw no way out. Her behavior was, I realize in hindsight, a miniature performance of something my mother enacted every day, and so my whole being revolted and started to shut down. I could not be bullied from all sides, and the woman I adored most in the world was already trying to control my every twitch and mood. There just wasn’t enough room in my life for another tyrant.

First I stopped eating. Whatever bothered me as a kid went straight to my stomach. When I was especially upset or nervous, I threw up. For some reason this happened nearly every time we went out to dinner, so I’m surprised there wasn’t a picture of me on the front door of every restaurant, with a warning label under it.

“You’re a nervous girl,” my mother told me when I was four or five. We were crossing the street. She had been yelling at me, that flat-out hysterical screaming that parents sometimes indulge in.  Then she looked at me more closely and stopped. She said, “You’re a nervous little girl. I’ll try to stop yelling,” and I was grateful that things were going to get a little quieter.

My mother was the first to notice that I had stopped eating. I did nibble on buttered toast in the morning before school—cut into triangles, and soaking up little pats of oil. I ate it with what I called my coffee, in reality a cup of milk flavored with a dash of my parent’s morning brew. I gave away my bagged lunches to the enormous fifth and sixth graders and became even more popular, because my mother tried to tempt me with every kind of delicacy—rare roast beef sandwiches on rye bread, home-made potato salad, fresh fruit slices, bags of potato sticks. I gave away everything but the potato sticks. I remember my mom begging me to drink a milkshake. I turned her down.

At dinner I sat at the table, a mute sufferer, trying to avoid the food as if it were an arsenal of weapons being fired at me. I didn’t bother to push the food around on my plate or hide it in my napkin. I just said, “I’m not hungry.” My mother imitated my sad face. She pretended to have buck teeth, which I had before braces, being an inveterate thumb-sucker. She made a goggle-eyed buck toothed morose face and asked, “Are you depressed?”

The relief of having a name for my condition was indescribable. “Yes,” I said.

My father raised his eyebrows.

My big sister told my mother for the hundredth time, “Leave her alone.”

I thought about the fact that I was depressed. Depressed sounded like a condition, like diabetes. It sounded curable. It did not seem like a fundamental character flaw, which is what I had assumed to be the root of my problem. I went around for a few days musing on this. Then I found my mother in the garage cleaning something, and cornered her.

“When I’m older,” I asked her, “can I see a psychiatrist?”

She had the doubly surprised expression of someone trying very hard not to look surprised. “All right,” she said.

In the meantime I had to keep on going back and forth to school every day, trudging beside this same best friend, my little slave-driver. I measured my happiness by her smiles, and my misery by her dirty looks. I wore the violet perfume, which smelled to me like decaying black licorice. I kept my head down, did my homework. I was heartsick all the time. I felt like someone at a gallows, doomed and filled with dread. It was my first encounter with a lifelong demon, and it was mighty. I figured between this moment and that magical future time when I could see a psychiatrist, I was on my own. I just had to get through the days from here to there. But now I had a focus, a gap in the eternal black cloud. I was like Dorothy on the yellow brick road, the wizard a long way off.

My teacher that terrible year was a wonderful and, in my eyes, dazzlingly beautiful young woman named Miss Radutsky. My mother called her “The Halvah Princess,” because she was the daughter of a man who owned a famous company that manufactured halvah, among other things. Miss Radutsky had blonde hair and a Dr. Diamond nose, a radiant smile and long French-tipped fingernails. She didn’t hesitate to play favorites. Once, I stood on a long line with all the other second-graders to ask how to spell a word—we didn’t have our own dictionaries for some reason, and in those days there was no such thing as classroom computers. If you couldn’t figure out a word you just stood up and waited on line, like you were waiting for the bus. At the end of the line sat Miss Radutsky doling out the correct spelling. When I finally got to the head of the line, she pulled me onto her lap, and hugged me. Back at my seat my best friend turned her head away. She wouldn’t speak to me for the rest of the day.

Miss Radutsky noticed and separated us. Now my friend had to glare at me from across the room. The distance did not diminish her power over me. If anything, it magnified the effect of the dirty look, the way a high-power telescope will magnify the burning of a star light-years away. Miss Radutsky did even more than that, I later learned. She went to the principal and made sure we were never put in the same class again.

Then, in the early spring, something miraculous occurred. And that is the real point of this story: Miracles do happen. Even to depressives and people in the midst of nervous breakdowns. Maybe especially to them. I’ve seen it happen over and over.

I had a new thought. As usual, I was brooding on my situation, the ongoing misery at school. I was turning off the water in the bathroom after washing my hands in the sink, and the following thought came to me: I don’t have to have friends like this.

The depression went away as if I had turned it off with the flow from the faucet. I felt an incredible lightening of my spirit, a looseness, freedom. I actually laughed out loud. It was such a remarkable, simple, beautiful thought. I didn’t have to be friends with this girl. I didn’t have to care what she thought. In fact, I never had to play with her again. Anyone who has come back to sanity after a long period of mental illness will know what I mean. This return had the flavor of the miraculous, the glory and glow we imagine belongs only to heaven. For the first time in months I was able to draw a full breath.

The next morning I walked to school with two different friends who lived close to my house. My former best friend glared wildly at me, but this time, I thought it was funny. Funny and a little bit sad.

I wish I could write that this first, early depression was my last, but alas it was only the first in a long series of battles. The poet Rilke once wrote of his own depression “I feel a great power drawing near.”   One clear thought saved me at the age of seven. At seventeen, I had to change my life completely. Other times I have simply outlasted , or tried to starve or medicate or outwit the beast. I think of that seven-year-old self, and her touching faith in psychiatry, which not even my own psychiatrist shares. Before the age of four, my only memory is of wearing a red coat in a department store, holding my mother’s hand, a red spark among the other coats. It is an image, not a thought. But at four I became ill with a virus and when that was over I remember coming back into my body with a thump, a recognition that I lived inside this body and was stuck with it.  The struggle with depression was my second coming. I was stuck with this body and this brain. Who knows what further incarnations lie ahead—but I suspect in the end the faulty tools of body and brain will wear out, and in the moment of leave-taking I think—I like to think—I will have another instant of freedom and clarity and lightness, like that moment of shutting off the water in the faucet. And then I’ll be on my way.

This story, I swear, has a happy ending.

I’ll start here, though it’s not the beginning: My father is banging on the wall with his cane.

This is what he does when he needs help.  He lives downstairs from us, but most days his legs don’t work well enough to get up our back stairs, and his hands shake too much to dial a telephone.  So with my mother temporarily in nursing care, when my father requires assistance, he stands in the back staircase and bangs on the wall with his cane until I come down. He has one of those necklaces he can use to call the paramedics, but he usually doesn’t wear it, and even if he did, the paramedics are not going to fix him some spaghetti or run out to buy him bananas* or make his answering machine stop beeping.  His wall-pounding stamina is impressive.

When I get downstairs, my father is bleeding.  It’s his nose.  His apartment looks like a crime scene.  A small wicker trash bin sits next to his chair at the kitchen table, overflowing with bloody tissues.  Clearly he’s been moving around the apartment, because there’s a trail of bloody globules all around the kitchen island, including on the counter.  There is blood on the telephone.

“How long has this been going on?” I ask.  “Why didn’t you call me sooner?

“Oh Jesus Christ,” my father says.  “Maybe an hour.  I thought it would stop.”

When I was a kid in Catholic school, we had a girl in our class whose nose bled almost daily.  It was like she had a stigmata in her nasal passages.  Our teachers used to have her lie down flat on some desks pushed together, and they would put a frozen knife alongside her nose (they kept one in the school cafeteria just for her, and different students would have to go downstairs to fetch it).  This being pretty much the extent of my knowledge about bloody noses, I make my father lie down flat and put an ice pack on his nose.

Blood begins bubbling out through his mouth, spilling down his chin like a vampire.

I call 9-1-1.  The first thing they tell me is not to put him on his back.

This officially confirms that everything I ever learned in Catholic school was a lie.

The paramedics are coming.  My father is sitting upright now, on the side of his bed.  His room looks insane, as usual.  My father is a hoarder.  My mother is able to regulate his hoarding except in two areas of the house: 1) The chair he sits in at the kitchen table, reading magazines, where he keeps stacks and stacks of old issues and pulled-out pictures/ads, all of which are piled under the table and spread across the tabletop, and 2) His bedroom, which has about three clothing racks pushed into the middle of the small space, baked beans and cereal boxes under his bed, and empty cookie jars—which he collects—crammed like sardines on every flat surface.  On the floor are endless Hefty bags of clothing.

When my father was a younger man—until his mid-80s, really—he used to troll Marshalls and TJ Maxx for sales on men’s clothing and then take the clothes to the Italian men’s club where he had hung out since I was a toddler, selling the clothes to his friends at a small profit.  “Michigan Avenue John,” they called him, because my father has impeccable taste; he brought them cashmere socks, Polo sweaters, designer tweed sports coats.

He stopped driving about eight years ago.  When that happened, I began carting him to his club, and then later, after my mother finally got her license in her seventies, she took over.  Then he lost interest.  Most of the men he knew best were now dead.  Plus, my father didn’t like people seeing how bad his walking had become.  He would still go to the discount shopping venues because he didn’t know anyone there, but without the club for him to pawn his wares at, the Hefty bags full of unworn clothing with the tags still on began piling up.  My mother made noise about garage sales or donating the clothing to charity, but whenever she tried to remove a single item from his possession, he would pitch a fit.  He had, at her last count, more than two hundred button-down shirts, although in the past couple of years I don’t think I’ve seen him wear anything other than a white undershirt with stains on the front.  I don’t think it’s always the same undershirt, per se, but with his shaky hands, they all accumulate stains pretty fast.

“These sweatpants,” my father says, about the maroon pants he’s wearing.  “They’re a large, aren’t they, not an extra-large.”

I bought him these pants for his birthday, which was also the day my mother got into the car accident that caused her exodus from our home, and prompted my parents’ longest separation in more than fifty-five years.  She broke her leg in three places.  She had surgery, ended up in the ICU, eventually recovered enough to move to the hospital rehab wing, wasn’t making progress quickly enough to stay there, was transferred to a nursing home near our house, developed pneumonia, was told she needed a second surgery but couldn’t have it until her lungs recovered, eventually had the second surgery, and was promptly forced to go back to the beginning of her recovery timeline, it being another six weeks before she could even put weight on her damaged leg.  When I am not cooking for my father or doing his laundry or going to the pharmacy to fill his prescriptions or putting his pills into his morning and evening medicine containers, I am at the nursing home, bringing my mother items from home and trying to cheer her up.  One of her best girlfriends died of cancer during the time she has been incarcerated in that fucking home.  Also, my father will not come to visit her, because he refuses to leave the house.  My mother seems depressed.  My father is depressed too, but he is always depressed so in his case this is nothing new.

“You don’t take an extra-large,” I tell him.  “Your pants are always falling off.  Mommy told me to buy you a large.”

“These pants are too tight,” he says.  “You have to exchange them for a large.”

I’m willing to bet that Land’s End isn’t taking back a pair of sweats that my father has spent an hour-and-a-half bleeding in, but I don’t mention it.

The paramedics show up.  I feel embarrassed about the state of my father’s room.  The thing is, if you were a paramedic and arrived to find a ninety-one-year-old man living in a room like this, you would think some kind of elder abuse was occurring.  My father’s room looks like Harry Potter’s fucking cupboard under the stairs.  What kind of people would allow an old man to live in these conditions?  Whenever the paramedics come, I half-expect the Department of Children and Family Services to show up at my house the next morning to put my father in foster care.  I half-expect to see myself on the nightly news, my Cruella De Vil sweatshop-for-elders exposed.  I imagine myself trying to explain to the newscasters that my father will not let my mother and me clean his room, but now, standing in the blood-splattered hallway, watching the paramedics try to fit into my father’s hoarder’s lair, this no longer seems like a reasonable excuse.

“I want to change my pants,” my father is telling them.  “These are too tight.  My daughter keeps buying me a large when I wear an extra-large.  I’ve been dropping weight.  They say no, but I know I’ve got the stomach cancer.”

The stomach cancer.  My father has been insisting for years that he has the stomach cancer, although he has been tested and retested and, truth be told, this is the healthiest his stomach has ever been.  He spent the ages of 20 through 70 with a violently hemorrhaging ulcer that thankfully got him out of WWII (for which he was training to drive a tank), but then it went on to try to kill him about once a year throughout my childhood.  When medical science revealed the link between ulcers and bacteria, he was put on antibiotics and cured, although he still insists on drinking a shake of vanilla ice cream, bananas, and milk* every evening and every morning, as this was the concoction he used to favor “for his ulcer.”

So my father is not only Harry Potter, living in the cupboard under the stairs, but now I’m letting him die of cancer, too, and purposely torturing him with too-tight pants.

My son, Giovanni, keeps coming down the stairs, peeking around the corner, and I keep urging him to go back upstairs and watch TV…I don’t want him to see his Papa gushing blood.  At last, my husband haps upon the scene, home from work, which saves me from having to take Giovanni with me to the ER.  It is quickly decided that my husband will accompany my father, and I will stay here and clean up the mess and get Giovanni to bed. I have two other children—twin girls in seventh grade—but of course they’re at a friend’s.  I try to convince Giovanni that he should stay upstairs while I’m cleaning, but I’ve been downstairs for awhile already and he wants to be with me, so he follows.  The blood, at this point, has hardened into a sticky, gelatinous kind of wax.  I attack it with spray cleaner and bleach wipes, crawling around on my hands and knees and scrubbing violently.  It smears and expands before it releases.  I’m going through bleach wipes as fast as my father used tissues.  I try to make this funny for my son.  I make up a rhyming song about being an old man with a nose that gushes blood like a faucet.  Giovanni laughs.  ER trips are a part of his reality.  Not that long ago, he and I took my parents to Dapper’s, a shitty Greek diner that is about one of the only places on earth into which my father will still set foot, and before we could even get inside, my mother lost her balance and fell backwards and hit her head on the concrete with a thawk that still resonates in my bones.  Two female paramedics showed up and let Giovanni play inside their ambulance while they were attending to my mother, who rode off with them on a stretcher while I took Giovanni and my father home.

I scrub the blood for about half-an-hour.  It’s in strange places, as though my father’s head had suddenly spun 360 degrees, á la The Exorcist.  Thankfully there is none on the ceiling, but that’s about the extent of the good news.

Like Giovanni, I too am inured to this sort of thing.  Blood scouring is not even remotely the most disgusting thing I have ever done for my parents.  In 2007, my father broke his pelvis and then contracted pneumonia in the hospital.  Just after being released—over Christmas Eve and Christmas, before we could get in-home help—he developed diarrhea as a side effect of his antibiotics, and my mother, husband and I spent the better part of two days cleaning and wiping and re-diapering him, which was a three-person job since he had no ability to move whatsoever.  Most of the time we were doing this, my father was screaming at the ceiling, begging god to kill him.  My mother has also had two knee replacements, two hip replacements and diverticulitis, all of which has required a certain amount of assistance toileting and random grotesque tasks like stuffing an open wound with feet of gauze and then, the next day, removing the gauze like a worm coated in bloody slime.  During one bout of diverticulitis, she also had to wear a colostomy bag for three months while part of her colon healed.  After seeing the bag a couple of times, I drew a line and simply could not assist her with the maintenance of it, and she had to bring in help she really couldn’t afford.  I’m pretty certain that I couldn’t maintain my own colostomy bag, should I ever end up with one, and it is now my belief that unless you live in a cardboard box under a viaduct in a cold climate, paying someone to deal with a colostomy bag so that you don’t have to is easily the best money you could ever spend.

Giovanni seems to be kind of enjoying the weird, gory turn our night has taken, but an hour later when I’m snuggling him before bed, he starts to cry.

He wants to know how old he will be when I die.

Remembering this now as I sit here, writing, I’m having a hard time thinking of what comes next.  What comes after I murmur placating answers to unanswerable questions and tickle my son’s back until he calms?  There’s so much more I meant to get to.  Like how, a few weeks later, with my mother still not home, my father started hallucinating people talking in his bedroom, and how he managed (for the first time in two years) to get up the stairs into our apartment to “warn” us of the evildoers in our midst.  Then again, that part of the story probably requires backing up to a week or so earlier, to my father hallucinating a man on the front porch staring into his window.  And maybe that part of the story requires you to know that my father has been sleeping with his lights on for several years, because he’s convinced there are mice in the house and that they crawl on him when he’s at rest.  Once he told my mother that they had nibbled on his toenails in the night, even going so far as to ask her if his nails looked any shorter to her.  Recently, he wanted my husband to turn his couch upside down so that he could find the mice in their nest, which he insisted was inside the upholstery.  We happen to have a cousin whose business is pest control, but no amount of visits or testimony from said cousin can convince my father that the house is rodent-free.  I also have two overweight cats who frequently come down to visit my parents and would scare the living fuck out of any mouse, yet their presence also fails to reassure.  This has been going on for maybe five years.

In my mother’s two-and-a-half month absence, I have taken over the task of talking to my father’s physician on a regular basis.  (This doctor was, for years, my physician too.)  He prescribes an antipsychotic for my father, who is already on antidepressants, and the hallucinated intruders mercifully go away, though at the time of this writing my father is still sleeping with the lights on.

Also worth noting:  When I asked my father’s physician whether he could write me a script for a few Lorazepam to pop on an upcoming airplane trip, he instead wrote me a three-month prescription for a total of 90 pills.  “You have,” he said, “a lot on your plate.”

***

I promised a happy ending for this story, but by now you’ve probably figured out that there is no happy ending for my father.  The man is ninety-one-years old.  Almost everyone he ever knew has preceded him in death—six older brothers, his parents, all of his close friends except for one, who has had both legs amputated and can no longer go out either.  Although my father doesn’t suffer from the kind of dementia that plagued his mother (who outlived five of her sons), perhaps, I sometimes think, he would be better off that way.  His mother, in the end, thought she was a young girl back in Italy, and would sing songs in Italian and clap her hands.  My father, on the other hand, lives in chronic pain and has to wear adult diapers and has uncontrollable bleeds and cannot quite accept that he has neither stomach cancer nor a mice infestation in his room.  He lives surrounded by bags of unworn clothing and cookie jars with nothing inside them.  He won’t wear a hearing aid but is so deaf that his contact with the rest of the world has already been effectively severed, as only my mother and I are patient enough to stand there screaming at him—and sometimes we aren’t patient enough either, and merely talk to one another over his head.  There is only one way for his story to end because there is only one way for any of our stories to end.  His road to that end has already veered into dark territory, and the only question now isn’t whether things will improve but how much worse they’ll have to get before he is released from the indignity of what his life has become.  And how is it possible that my mother and I still fear and dread that end?

All told, my mother spent two-and-a-half months away from home as a result of her car accident, which happened, coincidentally, on my father’s 91^st birthday.  She had been heading to Costco to buy some roasted chicken and cream puffs, those being my father’s favorite things.  She attempted to turn left into the parking lot, but before she could reach its haven her car was hit by a speeding taxi cab zooming down a bridge.  She was hit so hard that her vehicle spun entirely around and ended up facing backwards in the other lane.  Her leg was shattered in three places, and the car was completely totaled beyond repair.

My twin daughters were in the car.

My daughters weigh approximately 80 pounds apiece.

Madeleine was in the back seat.  Kenza was in the passenger’s seat.  The death seat.

The taxi hit the car on the passenger side, completely smashing it.  The airbags deployed.  An airbag alone can, sometimes, be enough to kill an 80-pound person.  The passenger side airbags in my car have long been disabled, ever since my daughters have been old enough to sit up front.  But in my mother’s car, we never did this.

My mother’s airbag, it turned out, was old, and semi-defective, like a half-deflated balloon.

The brunt of the impact happened at the front of the car, because my mother, seeing its approach, froze in fear and hesitated just enough—just enough—to prevent its full force from hitting Kenza’s door.

Madeleine, in the backseat, was on her phone, and when the collision happened, she threw it in the air in fear.  It hit her in the face and bruised her nose.

Kenza got some bruises on her leg and the side of her face from the defective airbag, but was otherwise left unscathed.

I got the call about the accident from my daughters.  “Mommy,” Madeleine said into the phone, “Nana got in a car accident.”

I raced to the site and there was glass all over the road.  The taxi driver’s passenger was injured and was being taken away in an ambulance.  Paramedics were trying to get my mother out of the car.  I can’t say I remember much about that.  I was rushing to the totaled car as if with blinders on, unable to see anything but my daughters.  I couldn’t stop hugging them.  I couldn’t stop thinking of the way the ground dropped into oblivion and my stomach felt like I was falling down an elevator shaft when I heard the word “accident” from my daughter’s mouth.

During the ensuing two-and-a-half months, with my mother away, my life became a comedy of stress.  I fell behind in every manner of work.  I had no social life.  I barely saw my children because I was always rushing off to the ICU, the rehab unit, the nursing home.  Women in my neighborhood apparently found my life so chaotic that one attempted to organize an effort to cook meals for my family and drop them off, but this made me so profoundly uncomfortable that I refused to allow it, which probably made me look like an asshole.  I kept saying things like, “It’s not like I’m going through chemo.”  I said—which is true enough—“If I really get that tired from cooking, we can order out.”  I said that they should save these kinds of community efforts for people who really need them, but I also might’ve said that I have a very hard time accepting help, and that I’m a control freak.

Something else I might have said: This is nothing; my daughters could have been dead.

There are circumstances that are a pain in the ass.  Half-an-hour on your hands and knees scrubbing blood off the floor.  Suddenly having not three dependents but five, two of whom weigh more than you do and do not live in your immediate household—but here I must add that my parents have always been absurdly good to me, and took care of me with every patience in my childhood, my father once saying of my vomit as a baby, “It’s gold.”  For the most part, I can forgive myself for not feeling the same way about his blood, or my mother’s gaping wounds, or either of their waste when I’ve had to care for them over the years.  The way we feel about our children is simply not the way we feel about our parents, and that seems to be one of the cosmic jokes of life: that if we are lucky, we will be loved so wholly and unconditionally by our parents that we will know how to turn around and bestow a similar love on our own kids—but that no matter how our parents love us, rarely can we love them as purely in return.  We hold them to higher standards and roll our eyes at them and feel burdened by them and say things like, Are you really going to wear that?  And later, our own children, whom we love as though we could explode the very world with the force of it—they will do the same to us.

There are circumstances that change your world, that undo you, that leave you never the same again.  My daughters could have died in that car.  They could have gotten head injuries that would have irrevocably changed their futures.  They could have come away never walking again.  They could have, they could have…

Maybe “could have beens” are pointless in this world.  My father’s ulcer could have waited just long enough to rear its head so that he would have been shipped overseas and died in his tank on some European battlefield, in which case he would’ve never met my mother.  I could never have been born, which would mean my son would not exist, and my daughters could have been adopted from China by some Entirely Other People, and would maybe be born-again Christians in Naperville right now, immersed in Suzuki piano lessons.  Or maybe their referral to their new adoptive family would have waited one month, two months longer had we not been paired with them when we were, and one of them would’ve contracted some bug and died in a Chinese orphanage before her first birthday.  What good are could have beens?

Maybe there is no happy ending to this story.  Maybe my parents are just depressingly old and sick, and I’m stuck here bearing witness to how we all end.  Maybe my son shouldn’t have to spend his time in hospitals and nursing homes and listening to me sing impromptu nursery rhymes about blood.  Maybe I’m just fooling myself.

So many things, when you break them down, are really perception.  Once, a friend of mine called me from another continent and incurred a 45-minute international phone bill to bitch to me about having received a bad haircut.  A year-and-a-half ago, another close friend dropped dead while getting ready for work in the morning; she had thrown a blood clot to the brain as a result of ovarian cancer.  On the spectrum between bad haircuts and dying alone on the floor, an array of daily complications dwell.  We all live with this truth, and yet most days, it’s too much to look at.  We are consumed by ordinary dramas, by what self-help books would call “the small stuff,” because honestly that’s where we live most of the time—because most events are not life and death—and it can feel impossible to face all these in-between moments with relentless gratitude.  So instead we fall prey to irritation.  This is part of being human.  It isn’t…well…it isn’t normal to live our lives bursting with glee that we haven’t just keeled over.  That we aren’t stuck in the middle of some genocidal war zone.  That our children aren’t on respirators.  We live where we are, and thank the stars that where we are can be pretty miraculously mundane.  And if we are incredibly, almost obscenely lucky, we will end up having what people call “a good run,” and make it to 91.  But of course, what does that mean?  What kind of place is this world, really, when the best of all possible scenarios is to end up like my father?  What does it mean to face that not only is death a part of life, but that suffering is too—the integration of illness and bodily fluids and deterioration amidst our average comings-and-goings?  We Americans hear a lot about how other cultures understand this better than we do.  That they don’t sweep their elderly under the rug.  That they celebrate the dead.  That they don’t avert their eyes.  Is that their greater wisdom, or do they simply lack the luxuries that would enable them to do otherwise?  I don’t have the answer to these questions.  All I know is that no parent on the planet likes to hear their child cry.  All I know is that here in the States we spend a lot of time trying to “protect our kids,” and that sometimes what we’re protecting them from can start to seem like Life Itself.

***

I’m on my hands and knees, scrubbing my father’s blood from the floor.  I think of that taxi, speeding down the hill.  My daughter, in the passenger’s seat.  I’d said goodbye to her with no special sense of significance.  We were talking cream puffs and chicken.  Now here I am, singing, There was an old man, blood squirted from his nose/La, la, la/And all the neighbors said it was like a garden hose/La, la, la.

My son laughs, squealing.  Later he will cry, as all children do at one time or another, wanting to know when I will leave him, totally unable to comprehend that hopefully, by the time I do, there will be other people who surpass me in his heart, onto whom his worst fears will now be directed.

So much in life comes down to choice: the choice of how to see that which we cannot choose.  I am on my hands and knees, scrubbing blood from the floor.

And for the moment, this is happiness.

______________________________________________

*The John Frangello Shake, which my father has been drinking “for his ulcer” for as long as I have been alive, is comprised of one half a banana, vanilla or Neapolitan ice cream, and milk.  Although my father has now been ulcer-free for twenty-one years, he still takes his medications with this shake every morning and night.  His dependence on the medicinal qualities of The Shake is so intense that if he happens to run out of bananas, ice cream or milk, he cannot take his medication.  Therefore, you are liable to get a phone call at midnight asking you to go fetch bananas as though they were heart medication.  Given that some of my father’s actual medications include things that he will, in fact, drop dead if he doesn’t take, this leaves us all hostage to his need for bananas, ice cream and milk unless we want his death on our heads.  My husband and I have taken to just stocking up on extras every time we pass a store.  Our home at any given moment resembles a banana plantation.

It was ten a.m. and already the temperature was ninety-seven degrees. Waiting at a stop light in Scottsdale at a very affluent intersection, I could see the heat rising off the asphalt like a moiré. Arizona heat, even in its infant stages before the temperature hits one hundred degrees, is unforgivable. It makes you feel like a piece of meat about to be thrown on a grill. Even I was sweating, sitting in my air-conditioned car that hadn’t yet been able to recover from the hours it had been baking in the driveway since sunrise.  I had nothing to complain about, however, because directly across the street on the corner was a short man holding a giant sign for a shoe and luggage repair shop in the strip mall behind him. His head was tucked under the crook of one arm, trying desperately to shield himself from the relentless, white heat.

I pitied him. Nobody should have to stand on the side of a busy intersection in this heat—which was only going to get worse. You see this a lot in Arizona. People doing what they can to scrape by and send a little home to the families they left behind in less lucky countries. It’s times like these that make you glad you were born in the United States, my father’s voice suddenly piped up in my head. Greatest country in the world.

I nodded in agreement. He’s just trying to support his family, doing whatever he can, I thought. And the guy is so short—the sign is just a bit smaller than he is. Not only is he struggling in a strange country, but he’s a mini man. Very tiny. Bet he gets in a lot of fights. I wonder why he’s so short. So little. Maybe that makes it easier to get across. Do coyote smugglers charge by weight?  That could be a benefit. A little silver lining on the illegal cloud. Frankly, however, I would never have children with someone that small. I wonder how small his toes are. No bigger than Good and Plentys, probably. How could you respect a man with such marginal toes? Kind of impossible. I would always be like, “Let me see your toes again. It’s like they’re Tic-Tac toes. Are there even nails on those things?”

And then the light turned green and I drove off a mile toward my doctor’s office, where I spent the next hour and a half in the waiting room watching pregnant ladies rub their bellies while I squirmed because everything I had just shaved was starting to grow back. After the necessary was done, I ran out of there as quickly as I could, because any time I can make it through the hall of an ob/gyn’s office without someone asking when I’m due is a victory for me.

A victory that required a bagel. With cream cheese.

I WAS ITCHY.

So at around noon, I found myself stopped at the same red light in the hot intersection I had stopped at two hours before. And there, directly to my right, was the short immigrant man shielding himself from the sun with the luggage repair sign and wiping his brow on the sleeve of his black T-shirt. It was then that I noticed that the man was not a man, but a boy. A little boy out in the sun at high noon, standing on a corner in one of the richest cities in our lucky country while the heat broiled him.

When the light turned green, I pulled forward slowly until I was only a few feet away from him. And sure enough, my suspicions were confirmed—there was no mistaking it. He couldn’t have been older than eleven or twelve. And he looked miserable. I drove twenty more feet before I became fully enraged.

“That is a little boy!” I yelled at no one in my car. “A little boy standing on that corner holding a sign on a Tuesday at noon! Here we are, on one of the highest real estate corners in Scottsdale and a child is out there working in the street. This isn’t India! He should be in school, not standing out there in the heat for the five dollars he’s going to make from that luggage repair shop. And no one, not one person, has stopped to do or say anything about it since I drove past the first time.

“That is ridiculous!” I seconded myself. “I’m not going to stand around idle while this type of thing goes on under my nose! I am going to do something!”

“You are?” I whispered to myself.

“I am!” I answered.

And then I flipped my car into a U-turn and headed back toward the intersection by the strip mall. Just then I remembered that I had a twenty-dollar bill in my pocket. “Today is the day that a little boy doesn’t have to work out in the sun,” I said aloud, pointing to no one in the passenger seat, and then pulled into the next gas station.

“I am going to do something!” I nearly cried with glee. “I am going to help a little illegal immigrant boy! And I am going to tell the luggage repair people exactly what I think of them hiring a little boy to stand in the sun all day long for what probably paid pennies an hour. What kind of people were they? Who goes and picks up a little boy and makes him stand on a corner all day in the sun when he should be busy being a child, laughing at rainbows and chasing butterflies? No. There was no way I was going to let them get away with this outrage, with this atrocity. They needed to know that what they did was wrong, that is was unacceptable, and that someone had noticed and decided to do something about it.

When I turned into the parking lot, my plan was to verbally accost the luggage repair shop people first and then deliver twenty dollars of American freedom and a bottle of water to an overheated little boy, but then I realized I had a problem. I didn’t know where this kid came from, but I had my suspicions that it was not close by. I roughly knew the area of town where the day laborers gathered in hopes of finding work—they usually met in the parking lot of the Home Depot closer to downtown, a good forty-five minute drive from where I was. So that’s like an hour and a half round trip for me to take him all the way back there. At least six bucks in gas, seven if I put the air conditioner on high. Which I would have to do, I mean, it was only going to get hotter, and I didn’t want to say to a newcomer to this country, “Well, it’s just going to be hot in this car a little while longer until I drop you back off in the parking lot at Home Depot.”  Plus, I was meeting a friend for lunch, and I didn’t want to show up all sweaty.

Or with a new, small-ish friend. How would I explain that? Doctors Without Borders? I mean, I donate, but, I’m not, like, part of it. I don’t have a T-shirt or anything. Or a hat. I should have splurged for the hat. Hindsight. Damn me. I do use the free return address labels to pay my bills though, does that count? Besides, there was clearly nothing wrong with him, not even a scab as far as I could see.

And the last thing I wanted to answer was the inevitable question in front of my friend: “No, I am not your new mother. I found you on the street, remember? Y Tu Mama Tambien en Home Depot. I know I am an American lady, but I am not Sandra Bullock. I don’t even like football. I’m sorry, I don’t. But it is a very good way to get to college, young man.”

So that was settled, I decided to talk to the kid first, give him his rescue package, then yell at the luggage repair people. That seemed sensible. After all, I couldn’t drag a kid who probably didn’t even know where he was going around all day with me as he moved all the a/c vents toward himself. Nope. The lecture on morals would have to wait until after I handed over the water and the money.

Confident in my decision, I got out of the car and just as quickly got right back in.

Maybe this kid is just little for his age, I realized, maybe he really just is short with teeny tiny nailless toes, maybe he’s a perfectly willing, minute-in-stature adult who would stand on a street corner while his kidneys shrivel because it’s better than the circus. How would I know?

I will ask him, I decided, before I do or say anything, I will ask him, but that just provides another problem. I’d taken Spanish for a total of six years, but never got beyond Spanish 102 and retained little of what I once knew. Pulling out my trusty iPhone, I solved the problem in three seconds flat, and frankly, it didn’t even come close to ringing a bell: Cuantos años tienes?

How old are you?

Cuantos años tienes?

Cuantos años tienes?

Cuantos años tienes? I said over and over again in my head as I opened the car door.

Cuantos anos tienes?

Then I stopped suddenly. If he says anything aside from ocho and movie titles, I’m lost, I only know ocho, and the only reason I even know that is because we used to have a ghost in our house who used to move the tuning dial on the radio to the Spanish station every morning. We’d be woken up by the same commercial for mattresses that yelled out a phone number without mercy, ocho ocho ocho-ocho ocho ocho OCHO!

I don’t have time to memorize Cuantos años tienes? and numbers one through eighteen, although I figured that should be self-explanatory, as in ochoteen.

“Problem solved!” I said, making the sound of snapping fingers in my head. I may not know his language enough for a reply, but I will indicate that he should answer by holding up his fingers. They must teach kids how to do that in every language when they’re small.

I practiced in my head: Cuantos años tienes? then start flashing your fingers.

Excellent. Excellent! I would say, getting very excited.

I closed the car door and started walking across the parking lot toward the corner, the twenty-dollar bill folded up in one hand and the bottle of water in my purse. Surprisingly, I was not the only one on the sidewalk; several people stood nearby waiting to cross the street, so I really didn’t look out of place as I approached the little boy with the luggage repair sign.

I stopped in front of him and pulled my hand out of my pocket, palming the twenty. And then I summoned up all the nerve I had been telling myself I had for the last ten minutes and stood there for several seconds before the boy’s eyes met mine.

“Cuantos años tienes?” I asked slowly, flashing the five fingers on my left hand.

His eyes grew wide. He said nothing.

“Cuantos años tienes?” I said again, and flashed my fingers louder, but his eyes just grew wider even still. I could tell by the terror that spread over his face instantly what was going through his mind.

Ah-ha! I thought to myself. The luggage repair people have covered all of their bases! I get it! If a strange person says anything, they told you to be quiet! Don’t answer or the police will take you away!

“It’s okay! It’s okay!” I said, trying to reassure him and making hand movements that in no way indicated age or requested to see his ID or passport. They were simply shaky hand movements, which I was sure, had the undocumented shoe been on the other foot, I would have understood as: “I am here to help you, young man. I am not moments away from deporting you back to your oppressed and futureless homeland.”

However, since we were lacking the proper avenue of communication, the look on his face shot from simple fear to utter terror, and in turn caused me to panic instead of turning to my iPhone for a helpful translation.

“It’s okay,” I tried to reassure him again. “I just wanted to know how old you are!”

Then I pulled the bottle of water out of my purse for some unknown reason. I suppose I felt that would prove that I was a helper with honest intentions, or maybe because I figured border patrol wasn’t exactly known for handing out refreshments on a particularly scorching day.

Now the people waiting for the crosswalk signal were turning to look at me, most of them ready to bolt in case I started to harass them for their passports, too.

“I’m twelve!” the boy suddenly said.

And true, technically it’s only three words, not very many, but enough to know that a contraction and a number was perfectly spoken in English without a trace of any dialect or accent. Better spoken than any immersion school could produce, I noticed. And undoubtedly, better than my iPhone Spanish. Plus, I thought, I don’t really know how big twelve-year-olds are, but certainly, they’re bigger than this. There has definitely been some malnutrition happening here or, at the very least, the lack of a daily vitamin on someone’s part.

“Are you sure?” I asked him, positive I was about to foil the script the luggage repair people had laid down to cover their trek into the terrain of child slavery.

“Yes,” he said.

Undeterred and still heartily suspicious of a young boy standing on a street corner in the middle of the day completely unbothered by this little detail, I surged forth, determined to finish the mission I had embarked upon.

“Why aren’t you in school?” I queried, positive that this curveball was about to break the scheme wide open.

He shrugged. “I’m on spring break,” he replied, his expression of terror melting into one that consisted mainly of newfound annoyance.

“It’s Easter,” he added, stretching his neck out in the way a pre-pubescent does when they consider an adult to be on the fat side of stupid.

I nodded and looked down at the water bottle in my hand. Oh, what the hell. I was already here. “You want some water?” I said, stretching out my hand to pass him the water, as my other hand with the twenty tucked into my palm went  slowly back into my pocket.

“My mom just brought me some,” he said, holding up, not a bottle, but a Tupperware jug full of water.

“So that’s their store,” I said, nodding over toward the strip mall. “Luggage repair.”

“And shoe repair,” he added, pointing to the sign in front of me.

“Wow,” I said, still nodding. “That’s great. I should get these reheeled, don’t you think? Probably. I don’t know. I shuffle a lot, I wear out the insides first. Do you know anything about that?”

He looked me straight in the eye and shrugged.

“Okay then, goodbye,” I said as I hurriedly walked away but for some reason, not back toward my car, but forward so that I would have to go to the other side of the parking lot, cross it and make a complete circle before I got to my car again.

“Hasta luego,” he said, as I walked through the gravel landscape of the bank on the corner, over several curbs, through the ATM drive-through, and over the hot, hot, hot asphalt parking lot.

As I passed the glass door of the luggage repair shop, I was never, in my life, so glad that I hadn’t taken it upon myself to deliver a lecture about hiring undocumented children to work on hot street corners, as if our country was one big shoe factory instead of being so full of opportunity and promise.

But I thought I knew one thing almost for sure. As soon as the tires of my car had screeched out of that parking lot, a sweaty twelve-year old boy most likely threw a huge sign at his mother and said, “I’m not going out there again. It’s hot and a fat white lady just tried to buy me with twenty dollars and a bottle of SmartWater! I want a real vacation!”

On the bright side, I’m just glad I was never in a position to have an illegal alien in my car, because I know I would have gotten pulled over for driving erratically while I tried to fairly position the air vents toward each of us, despite the fact that I was probably sweating more, and consequentially, would have then been arrested for human trafficking. That, and I was relieved that I didn’t have to pay for another person at lunch.

I do know, however, that several months later, after ordering a burrito in a drive-through at 11:30 p.m. on a Thursday and pulling out my money to pay for it at the window, I looked at the decidedly ten-year-old boy who was working the cash register and taking orders behind the glass, put five bucks in the tip jar that was taped to the window ledge, and said absolutely nothing. Even when he said “Gracias.”

Excerpted with permission from The Potty Mouth at the Table (05/2013), by Laurie Notaro

__________________________

Laurie Notaro was a columnist for The Arizona Republic before she got fired for writing a joke about George W. Bush in 2002. Since then, she’s been busy playing with her dog, trying to find an anti-frizz hair product that really works and writing some stuff. She failed typing in high school and still looks at the keys after writing nine or ten books.

Well, Library Boy,  I’m surprised you had the stomach to show up for this, given the—well, maybe you should explain.  Anything you’d like to tell the readers about the person who wrote this book called The World’s Strongest Librarian?  Like, oh, I don’t know, about the librarian in Tennessee who can deadlift more than you can?

Hey, you know who’s really interesting?  George Saunders.  I’ve been reading his books for years, and I have to say, Tenth of December is his best yet.  Honestly, I’m as surprised by the fact that Saunders continues to improve as I am with just how good the book is.  It’s a strange one, but perfect.  My favorite in the collection is called “My Chivalric Fiasco.” It contains this line:

And Wrested me from that Place, and Shoved Me into the Street, kicking much Dirt upon my Person, and rip’d my Time card to Bits before mine Eyes, and sent it fluttering Aloft, amidst much cruel Laughter at my Expense, especially viz. my Feathered Hat, one Feather of which they had Sore Bent.

You could never guess at the events which lead to this quote.  And that’s Saunders to a T.  To a T, I say.

Fiction, right?  Short stories, right?  I’ve got to say, I’m surprised.  The other day at the library, I watched you listen to a guy yap about how fiction was a waste of time for about ten minutes.  How come you didn’t enlighten him with Tenth of December?  I can only assume that you find fiction useless.  

Hardly.  Let me ask you something.  Imagine that I tell you the most inspiring story imaginable. It is full of truth and courage and love and all those good things that make people say often-untrue things like, “This book changed my life!”   But this one, it’s truly uplifting and galvanizing and makes you want to be a better person.  Nod if you’re following me.  Okay, so because of this book, you start a charity and the charity helps a million—no, a billion—people.  Now suppose that I then tell you that this story, the most inspiring story you’ve ever heard, the story that helped you teach a million—no, a billion—orphans to read.  Then suppose I tell you that the story was fiction.  Were you less inspired because of it?  Do you find these orphans and take their books away?

You know, in Devil In The White City, a man is described as being “Elephantine, tactless, blurting.”  Sometimes I think he was talking about you.  

Hey, if you liked Devil In The White City, you’ll love—

I didn’t say I liked it.  I didn’t say I—

—You’ll love The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum.  Did you know that one of the founders of forensic toxicology was named Charles Norris? Chuck Norris?  How great is that! But let’s keep talking about fiction.  Let me give you three different examples from three different books from three different time periods.

Don Quixote was published over 400 years ago.

Huck Finn came out in 1885 in the US.

Lonesome Dove came out in 1985.

Each of these books is about a pair of characters.  By the end of each of these books I’d say that the readers knows the characters as well as it is possible to know someone fictional. As you follow each pair on their journeys, you react to the things that happen to them, and the things they say and think.  Those reactions can teach you something about yourself, fictional or not. The friendship of Augustus McRae and Woodrow Call was so real to me, that I found myself thinking, “Wow, I hope I’ll have friends that I’m still in touch with in 30 years.  It was so real that I started getting back in touch with good friends who I had lost track of.  That was because of a fictional story of a fictional cattle drive.  Real enough for me.

So why did you write a memoir then, and not a novel? Or a short story?  

I think I’m best at describing things that I can see.  Things I don’t have to invent.  I just don’t get the urge to write fiction the way I do with non-fiction.

What was the best part of writing this book?  

It took a hideous amount of work, but I can truly say that this is the best book I could have written.  I don’t know how I could make it better, I’m so proud of it, and being able to say that is a great feeling. Also, I’ve been told that this book contains, I’ve been told, “The very best ode to libraries that I’ve ever read.” I hope that’s true, because that made me very happy.

What was the hardest part of writing a memoir?

Knowing which stories to include.  When you write a memoir, you have to decide which periods of your life you’re going to portray.  Then you have to choose the episodes that best represent who you were at the time.  And nobody looks good all the time, so how do you represent the lows as well as the highs, without getting too dreary…. Happily for me, even though this is a memoir, I’m not always at the center of it. I connect all the dots but I don’t always have to be the focus. I get to step aside and shift the focus to books, to libraries, to authors I love and people I care about. The biggest surprise I had was when my mom, bless her heart, said, “You’ve made me out to be way nicer than I am.”  When I asked her if she wanted me to go back and make her a little crueler, she let it go.

What helped you decide which stories to tell?

I read a lot of memoirs while writing this book.  I realized that I wasn’t nearly as messed up as most of the people I was reading about.

So you were worried what people would think about you?  

Not really.  If there’s an upside to having really bad Tourette’s Syndrome, it might be that there is always something more immediate than what someone else is saying or thinking about me.  I have to live minute to minute, and tic to tic, constantly trying to figure out how to make the next few seconds better.  It forces a constant perspective on me that I don’t think I’d have otherwise.

Wow, so you’re like a total expert on memoirs?  

Hardly.  But I wrote one and I love it.  And I can’t tell you how surreal it is that my book is now going to be sharing space with so many of the authors I adore. Also, I can’t tell you how excited I am to get to go on a book tour and talk about all kinds of books, not just my own.  This is a chance for me to try and coerce everyone who hears me into trying my favorites. Books remind me of everything and everything reminds me of books.  It’s a nice way to live.

What is the most interesting book or object in the library stacks at your branch?  

Okay.  We have a wonderful ESL collection.  Not too long ago I found a pair of underwear on top of it.  Something can be interesting without being good.

Hmm…this is probably the kind of thing that author Terry Deary had in mind when he recently said that “Libraries have had their day” and are “a drain on taxpayers and authors.”  If the library has simply become a place to discard your underpants, is he right?  

Well, there are other things that happen here.  For instance, once a woman locked herself in the special collections area.  A library authority calmly explained to her through the glass door that she needed to come out.  She heard him out, then yelled, “I will not be your concubine!” And another day someone grabbed a vase of flowers and drank all the water out of it. Also, my library has over one million items that circulate like mad and we put on more than 2,000 programs every year.  Stuff like that helps balance out the occasional pair of underwear.

So recently I saw you sign an advanced reader’s copy for a flirty young woman and you immediately apologized for your signature.  Has your penmanship discouraged people from asking for your autograph?

Looking at my spastic scrawl, I felt like I had let her down somehow.  I was also disoriented by the flirting.  I don’t get hit on very often, but when I do, it’s generally by a man.  It’s not fair.

You’ve said that you’re kind of uncomfortable with the amount of attention that you’re getting.  Why?  

Hey, you know who’s great?  Mark Twain.  And Kurt Vonneugut.  And David Foster Wallace.  And Cervantes.  And Mary Roach.   And Steven Dobyns and Geoff Dyer.  And Cormac McCarthy and Harper Lee and Melville.  And–

____________

Josh Hanagarne is a 6’7” giant known as the World’s Strongest Librarian. A librarian at the Salt Lake City Public Library, he battles his own case of Tourette Syndrome and works to help others. He believes in curiosity, questions, strength, and that things are never so bad they can’t improve. Josh’s popular blog, World’s Strongest Librarian, currently gets more than 80,000 visitors each month. Josh lives with his wife Janette, a professor of history at Eagle Gate College, and his son Max in Salt Lake City, Utah.

My first novel, In Open Spaces, came out in 2002. It was eleven years in the making.  The journey had been long and arduous. During those eleven years, I went through the usual doubts, questioning whether or not I was good enough. I hated telling people I was a writer, only to have them look at me with a skeptical expression, inevitably followed by the question, “So have you been published?”

Seeing my book on shelves and reviewed in newspapers thrilled me.  I was living in San Francisco at the time, and when I woke up one Sunday morning and sat down with the paper, flipped it open to the Book Review section, and found my name on the bestseller list, it was one of the highlights of my life. I felt as if all of my perseverance and stubborn determination had finally paid off. So of course I’m not the least bit embarrassed about my happiness in this instance.

What is embarrassing is thinking about what came along with that excitement, a phenomenon that has caused me to cringe time and again ever since. It’s called the ‘I’m a published author now so everything I say is fascinating!’ syndrome. In some ways, an inevitable development. Most people who get published have worked for years to achieve their goal; they revere their literary heroes and convince themselves that published authors are worthy of whatever idolatry comes their way. But the other thing that feeds this beast is the fact that there are people out there who will support your theory. This is one area where the birth of the Internet has become something of a mixed blessing. Before the Web, mid-list writers were celebrated in small, intimate gatherings at book festivals, or at public readings. They were content with the occasional fan letter, or the (very) occasional run-in with a true blue reader who recognized them on the street.

In Open Spaces came out right in the midst of the dot com boom, and among the many sites that were born during this era was Readerville, which brought together readers and writers for lively discussions about every aspect of the book world, from covers to fonts to books that had been made into films. I found this site just after my novel was published, and it not only gave me an accessible place to expand my audience, it also provided a forum for me to spout my brilliance on a daily basis—which I was more than happy to do.  The positive thing about it was that it gave me some confidence about expressing my opinions.  The negative thing about it was that it gave me some confidence about expressing my opinions.  I didn’t grow up in a home where this was done, especially among the men. Most of my male relatives are silent, stoic, even timid. So I found a certain freedom in finally feeling comfortable telling people what I thought.

But of course there was a downside.  One of the more unpleasant aspects of these websites is that people form alliances. I had my little following, and they laughed at my jokes, supported my arguments, sniped at people who sniped at me. Comment boards provide an easy way to be mean-spirited without having to deal with the look on someone’s face when you say something hurtful. I became someone I probably wouldn’t want to hang out with today. Someone who was very pleased with himself. And of course it came back to haunt me.

The details about what happened could take up a whole book. I wound up getting married to a fellow member of Readerville and moved across the country. Two months after the wedding, my (now ex-) wife’s only child was killed in a motorcycle accident. By this time, we had spent less than six months together in the same physical space. Most of our relationship had taken place online. So in truth we barely knew each other, and the strain of this awful tragedy proved to be too much. I ended up leaving, and most of the residents of Readerville turned against me, condemning me for abandoning my wife at her most crucial time of need. Part of me wondered if they were right. A larger part of me felt that they weren’t.  They didn’t see how this event affected every aspect of a relationship that hadn’t even had time to develop. My ex and I tried getting back together again about a year later, and it didn’t last much longer the second time. Since then, I’ve been able to reconcile myself to the fact that the relationship wouldn’t have lasted no matter what had happened.  So it was some comfort to me when my ex-wife wound up reuniting with her husband, who shared in her deep grief.  And I’m happy to report that we’ve been able to remain friends.

The aftermath of this period was one of complete deflation.  At the time of the marriage, I had been single for almost twenty years.  So the failure hit me hard. All the bravado was gone. On top of that, nobody wanted to publish my second novel, which was a huge wake-up call. All along, I had assumed that once you got your foot in the door, you were in the door! In Open Spaces had received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, it was reviewed in the New York Times, and it had sold enough copies to surpass my advance by a wide margin. But I couldn’t find a publisher for novel number two, even with the high-powered agent I had landed thanks to my friends at Readerville. The self-doubt that plagued me before I was ever published came back with a vengeance. And the public skewering I had endured at Readerville just added to a growing belief that I had brought this on myself, that it was all some kind of grand karmic payback.

So what’s happened since?  It’s a long story.  Eventually, I did find a publisher for novel number two, a full five years after the first book came out. By the time it hit the shelves, my mistrust of social networks kept me from doing any promoting online, and my absence from that world likely had a dramatic impact on sales.  The need to utilize the Internet in today’s book market seems undeniable.  And as much as it goes against my ‘it should be the work that matters’ mentality, I know that being stubborn about this stuff probably doesn’t make sense anymore.

So I try to keep two things in mind. First:  It’s not real.  Or for the most part it’s not real.  Some of these people really are my friends. I know who they are. And I get a lot of valuable information and insight from them, especially on Facebook. But ultimately it’s not a community that I can rely on for intimate support, or for my entire social life. If I take these relationships too seriously, I’m in trouble. If someone attacks me for my opinion—as happened not long ago when I disputed something that a currently-hot author had posted—it really means nothing. These people who suck up to the latest queen bee or alpha male are just feeding the beast. Maybe they’ll figure it out someday, maybe they won’t. But for me, what matters in the end is my own behavior.  How I treat people. I’ve decided not to use the Internet as a foxhole anymore, lobbing grenades at those I don’t like. It’s cowardly, and the thrill it provides is brief and dirty. I don’t feel good about it later. And I believe it comes back to me in the end.

Yes, I can enjoy the opportunity to express myself. And maybe it’ll help me sell a few more copies. Ultimately, though, it seems that my fate in the marketplace is largely beyond my control. I can toot my own horn, and maybe a few people will provide a little harmony, but once the book is out there, there’s not a whole lot I can do or say that’s going to make much difference.

Looking back, I’m actually grateful that my first book was only a modest success. It scares me to think how obnoxious I might have become if I’d had a whole herd of people rooting for every word I posted on Facebook. I know from the jolt that I got on Readerville that this kind of constant attention would have fed my addictive personality in grossly unhealthy ways. I needed a break from the drug, and I’m glad I took some time off to reassess. I also feel that, at the time of my first publication, I was ill-equipped to handle the kind of negative feedback that someone who is hugely popular probably receives on a daily basis. My dependence on the Internet during this period was complete; my entire self-image was built on feedback I was receiving from people whom I didn’t really know.

Thankfully, I’ve managed to find my way back to the real world.  I now rely on friends I can see and touch, people I can look in the eye and argue with in-person. In this kind of world, disputes get resolved. Friends make an effort to understand your behavior rather than jumping to conclusions based on a few short sentences of cold text. I have a new novel coming out soon, and I’ll do what I can to promote it online. I’ll continue to post on Facebook and Twitter in hopes that it might help get the word out. But that will be the extent of my life online. And if I’m ever fortunate enough to find myself with a huge bestseller, I would hope that I now have sense enough to remember that, as Raymond Carver once said, It’s all gravy. It’s not the food. I already have the food. And that’s enough.

Thanks, Caroline for letting me pepper you with questions.

Your new novel, Is This Tomorrow, is about 1950s paranoia, a missing child, and the difficulties outsiders have in fitting into a community. It’s also your first novel not set in the present. So, did all that historical research make you want to break out into hives?

I’m obsessed with the 1950s. It was a time of paradoxes, where there was the dream of the suburban paradise and the economy was booming, and yet everyone was terrified of Communism and the atom bomb, and there was a great deal of paranoia about anyone who was different in any way. Sort of like today’s paranoia, in many, many ways, and unfortunately some 1950s views about women have not changed all that much.

I loved doing the research. I posted on Facebook and Twitter that I wanted to talk to anyone who had grown up or lived in the 1950s and 60s, and I was deluged! I talked to a guy who was one of the first male nurses in the 1960s, who told me doctors not only smoked in their patients’ rooms, but every room had an ashtray. I talked to a 1950s cop, a master pie baker (you want cold hands if you want to make a great crust), and many more. I even hired three research assistants, who gave me information I didn’t even realized I needed.

Come on, tell us what your favorite 1950s recipe is. And give us your favorite 1950s nuclear attack fun fact.

You mean besides overnight salad, where you douse a head of lettuce in a cup of mayonnaise, a cup of oil, and leave it overnight in the fridge to marinate? I love the meatloaf train–you make the meat into a train shape, cut carrot circles for the wheels, and cut peas in half to make heads for the tiny passengers in the windows, which are also made with carrot sticks. I found a cookbook that was actually called Meals Men Love! Apparently, men love steak and the only cooking they can be trusted to do is toss a salad that a woman has already cut up and put in a bowl.

In the fifties, people were told they could survive a nuclear attack. Radiation? Just wipe your feet before you come back in the house. And if you’re out in all that fallout? Put a newspaper over your head. It’ll protect you.

How come you have this blog, CarolineLeavittville, where you interview other authors? Tell the truth, do you do it so you can kiss up to authors more famous than you are? Or because you want something from them?

Holy moly, could you be more offensive? I know how hard the publishing business is, and I have always felt that all writers are in this together, and I wanted to offer help and support. Plus, what could be more fun than talking to authors you admire? I’ve been helped tremendously in my career by other writers and I think it’s important to pay it all forward as often and as much as you can.

How come you call Algonquin the gods and goddesses?

Because they are. Because I worship them. Before I was with them, I had 8 novels out and no sales. No one knew who I was and my 9th novel, Pictures of You, was rejected by my then publisher as not being “special enough.” When I asked if I could show them something else, they said, “We don’t think it will be special, either.” A friend of mine, who adored her editor at Algonquin, talked to her editor about me, and three weeks later, they bought the book and my life changed.

And Algonquin publishes extraordinary writers like Gina Frangello, Johnny Evison, Lauren Grodstein, Bill Roorbach, B. A. Shapiro, Heidi Durrow, Tayari Jones, Jill McCorkle, Amy Stewart, Hillary Jordan–I know I’m forgetting some people, so forgive me.

Wait, you think you are as good as those authors?

I didn’t say that. I can only hope to be half as good.

Ah, that brings me to an interesting question. Recently, David Sterry asked you how you silence the voice in your head that tells you “you suck.” Is This Tomorrow is a May Indie Next Pick. Do you still think you suck?

You really have to ask that? You don’t see the industrial strength Valium at my side? If I had an inkling how to silence that terrible voice, I would. I always hear it screaming at me. But maybe it’s a good thing to always feel that insecurity. It drives you. It makes you dig deeper.

In the vein of that voice, I have to ask: you’re not seriously writing another novel are you?

I am. I swear I am. I sold it on the basis of a first chapter and a synopsis to Algonquin and my teenaged son named it, Cruel Beautiful World. It’s set in the moment when the peace and love movement of the 60s began to turn ugly, and it involves a murder. It’s slated for publication around 2015, if I don’t have a nervous breakdown first.

______________

CAROLINE LEAVITT is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Pictures of You, which was also on the Best Books of 2011 from the San Francisco Chronicle, the Providence Journal, Bookmarks magazine and Kirkus Reviews. Her 10th novel, Is This Tomorrow, is a May Indie Pick and was called “riveting” by Vanity Fair “Hot Type.” She teaches writing privately and online at Stanford University and UCLA. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York magazine, More magazine, and more. A book critic for The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle and People Magazine, she lives in Hoboken, NJ with her husband and their teenaged son.

“How’d you get in here?” Ava asked, reaching over to turn down the music. No one, except for her, locked doors in the neighborhood. She had her kid wearing a key around his neck like an amulet. Other kids were allowed to run free to wander in and out of everyone else’s houses, something Ava never could quite get used to. It wasn’t that she had any- thing to steal—truthfully, she had so much less now—but still, there was Brian, miles away, breathing down her neck with a custody threat, telling her he got a lawyer and she’d better get one, too, because he was going to file to revisit their agreement. But, in fact, she had started lock- ing her doors the moment the movers left, two years ago, and maybe that was what made the neighborhood suspicious. “Don’t you like kids? What’s the matter, do you think they’re going to wreck your house?” a neighbor asked, but how could she explain what she was afraid of? “Your lock is easy,” Jimmy said. “All it took was a bit of wire.” “Don’t break into my house again,” she said. She didn’t know if she was angry or not, but she didn’t like the way it sounded. Easy to break into.

“Lewis is at the dentist,” she said. She had given Lewis money to take a cab (it wouldn’t cost much), and by the time Lewis was finished and safely home, Ava would be at work.

“I know. He told me at school. I’m meeting him at my house later.” She nodded at the box in his hands, and then glanced at her watch. No matter what kind she bought, the mixes never turned out right. Quick and easy, the labels always said, but the cakes were always dry and powdery, and what good was quick if it was also tasteless? Well, baking was something to do, and they had some time. She didn’t have to be at the plumbing company until five today. It was her day off, but she took an emergency evening shift she couldn’t afford to turn down, not if she didn’t want to go back to retail, which paid less, gave her fewer hours, and had no chance of advancement. It was only for an hour tonight, too, typing letters about 14K gold toilets and colored tubs that Richard, her boss, said had to be ready to go first thing in the morning, but even the small extra pay would be something she could tuck in the bank. “Want to bake?” she said, and he looked at her. “Boys don’t cook,” he said, abandoning the box on the counter. “Can we play checkers instead?”

“Sure. Why not,” she said.

She set up the board on her dining room table, giving him the red pieces. She didn’t really like checkers all that much, but she always seemed to be playing it with the kids. She would make sure they beat her so they’d feel good. Today, though, she wanted to take her mind off her problems, so she concentrated and without really meaning to, she won the game.

“Well, what do you know!” she said. She looked over at Jimmy, and then, shocked, saw that he was blinking back tears.

“Why, what’s this?” she asked. “It’s just a game. And you beat me ev- ery other time.” She handed him a handkerchief she kept in her pocket.

He rubbed fiercely at his eyes. “I always win,” he said. “I’ve never, ever lost.”

Ava leaned forward on her elbows. “You can’t win all the time,” she said. “I wish you could.” She thought of Brian, saw him moving on a checkerboard toward her. “King me,” he’d say.

“Don’t tell anyone I cried.”

“Who cried? Did someone cry here?” She got up, smoothing her dress. “I have to get to work,” she told him. “And you have to scoot.”

They put the pieces back in the box, and then he waited at the table for her to get ready. He was in his red jersey and green plaid shorts, his Keds scribbled over with Magic Marker. He watched as she rustled around the living room, looking for her purse and the little veiled hat she sometimes wore because she thought it made her look more profes- sional. Sweat beaded along her back. She’d wasted her whole morning and some of her afternoon running to a lawyer to talk about Brian’s custody threat. It was five years since Brian had left them, barely send- ing money, barely calling, and even though the divorce had been his idea, all of a sudden he was telling her that she now posed a psychologi- cal and physical danger to their son. She had had to scramble to find a lawyer she could afford, a man whose name was actually, ridiculously, John Smith. He worked out of a tiny overheated office, without even a secretary, and he seemed so indifferent she wanted to shake him. “This is just nonsense, isn’t it?” she said to the lawyer.

“The law is never nonsense,” John Smith said.

She told the lawyer how Brian used to have a drinking problem, one that started after he left her, and that he had called her drunk a few times. She talked about how he’d abandoned his son—and her—after things at his job went bad. He hadn’t even seen Lewis in nearly five years, so how could he possibly think about wanting custody now? She spilled all the details of her life, and the whole time, John Smith didn’t say a thing. He just leaned back in his chair, making a tent of his fingers, waiting until she was finished, and then he shrugged.

“Circumstances change,” he said. “And so do people. You said he has a full-time job, but you only work part-time, which puts him in a more stable financial situation than you. It could look like a better environment for a kid.”

“You’re joking. My environment is just fine.”

“Is it?” He rolled his pen between his fingers. “You said he thinks you have a lot of men coming over. Can you prove you don’t? Can you show that your bills are paid right on time?”

Ava thought of all the bills she kept in a shoebox, the careful way she went through them every month. She had a whole separate bank account of money she was saving so she could buy her house instead of rent it, and she made sure to put something in it every week, even if it was only ten dollars. “I have savings. I have a house.”

“Correction: you rent the house. You don’t own it. And banks don’t like giving mortgages to women.”

“But I will own it,” Ava said stiffly. She thought of how hard it had been to convince the realtor to rent her the house, how he kept asking her if there was a man who could cosign the lease. She might have to fight to get a bank to give her a mortgage, but fight she would.

“But you don’t own it now. And if you can’t prove your finances are sound, we may have a problem. How’s your son doing? Does he have friends? Is he doing all right in school?” He shuffled papers on his desk, waiting for her response, but she knew, suddenly, that he wasn’t going to be able to help her, and she knew she was still going to have to pay him for his time. “You want to think about all this, Mrs. Lark,” he said.

She came home, feeling sick, her head splitting like a seam. Jimmy had distracted her, but now she had to get to work, and worry hung on her like a too-heavy winter coat.

“Ava,” Jimmy said, and she snapped back toward him. She felt his eyes on her, trailing her as she grabbed up her purse.

“Call me Mrs. Lark, Jimmy.”

“Mrs. Lark,” he said, even though they both knew there wasn’t a husband around, that she was no more a Mrs. than he was. She waved her hand. “I have to get to work,” she repeated.

She knew what she had to do. She had to make that company think she was good enough to hire her full-time at regular hours, with bene- fits, instead of just three days a week or whenever they needed her. She had to pay the bills, including the useless lawyer’s bill, and the rent on this little house. It was the only one in the neighborhood that was a rental, smaller and older looking than the other homes, an anom- aly that hadn’t been razed when the new development had sprung up (Brookstone Family Homes!) because the owner refused to move, and by the time he died, the other houses were all built and occupied and the Brookstone company was long gone. If it hadn’t been a rental and in bad shape, she’d never have been able to afford it, but because it was, she could never feel quite secure.

Ava passed by Jimmy to get to the card table, where she opened the top drawer and retrieved some of the extra pin money she kept for gas. She pocketed the money and rubbed at a smear of dirt on the wall with her thumb. Until she could afford paint, soap and water would have to do.

“Mrs. Lark.” She looked over and Jimmy was shifting his weight from foot to foot, staring at her again. She was a grown woman with grown-up problems and suddenly she was in no mood for Jimmy’s quiet devotion, for the way his eyes followed her around the room.

“Lewis will be home soon from the dentist,” she said. “You can wait for him at your house.”

Jimmy’s nails were bitten and raw and she wanted to brush his hair back with her hands, wash his face with a cloth. She wanted to bend down and tie his sneaker laces tight, and wash the Magic Marker from them, bleaching the shoes until they were white again. She could see some of what he had written on his shoe: Hep cat. Cool. He was too young to be either. She pointed at his laces and watched while he did the job himself, making tight little double loops like rabbit ears.

The lawyer had asked her if Lewis had friends. Most of the other kids kept their distance, but maybe that was because Lewis was so smart. He could have been skipped ahead two grades if he didn’t keep bring- ing home bad marks in school. The teachers kept telling her how he wasn’t living up to his potential, that he kept disrupting the class with his questions. “Aren’t you supposed to ask questions?” Ava had asked, and Lewis’s teacher had sighed. “His job is to listen,” she had told Ava.

From the time he was little, Ava had tried to make sure Lewis would be successful in life, buying him books, reading to him, teaching him to read when he was three. Education could prepare you for anything, she thought. But when she sent him off to kindergarten, it wasn’t long before she got a call from his teacher. “He knows how to read,” the teacher accused. She told Ava to cut it out, that Lewis being so far ahead of the other kids was bad for both him and the other students. “Every- one should be on the same page,” the teacher insisted. Ava disagreed. The more you knew, the better things would be for you. She kept taking him to the library and encouraging him, and Brian even bought him a set of Collier’s Encyclopedia. Every night, Lewis looked at the pictures in a volume, and read what he could. She still remembered the look on his face when, shortly before Brian had left them, and Lewis was just in first grade, Brian gave him one of his old briefcases so Lewis could carry a volume to school with him. Lewis was so proud, so excited, about learning! But she was no match for that school, or for his new school when they moved to Waltham. “The teacher told me to just do the work she gives me,” Lewis said miserably. Lewis entered second grade and then third, and the teachers were calling her not because Lewis was so far ahead, but because he was behind. She had to sign his failed science paper on the solar system. “But you knew all this,” she said astonished. “You told me last night what all the planets were made of,” and Lewis stayed silent. She began to find half-done homework crumpled on his desk in his room, which she would carefully smooth out and put in a folder. How could he be reading The Odyssey from the library and get a D on a multiple choice test about Huck Finn? How could he read the encyclopedia every night, marking off the sections when he was done with them, regaling Ava with facts at breakfast about how there were three different kinds of volcanic eruptions and you could tell which was which just by the lava, and still fail science? It made her feel panicked, because what would become of him if he couldn’t get to college? There was no family business for Lewis to go into, no money to cushion him. The thought of him having to nickel-and-dime it the way she did made her want to weep and she’d be damned if she let him join the army. With college, he could have a profession. He could be someone.

At least Jimmy and Rose seemed smart, too, and she hoped they might influence him in a good way. Lewis and Jimmy did homework together all the time, the two of them sprawling on the floor of his room. She heard him excitedly talking to Rose about The Wizard of Oz, a book they both loved. But still, Lewis brought home report cards peppered with Cs.

He had good friends, Jimmy and Rose. That was something, wasn’t it? The Three Mouseketeers, they called themselves, the moniker from that Mickey Mouse Club program they all watched some days at five on her temperamental little black and white Zenith, banging on the top of the set to stop the vertical hold from swimming. Rose was the odd girl out, in more ways than one, pale as paper while the boys tanned like peanuts, her hair a pour of ink down her back, while the boys’ shaggy cuts were sandy brown. Jimmy and Lewis were now in Miss Calisi’s sixth-grade class at Northeast Elementary. Rose, at thirteen, went to MacArthur Junior High on Lexington Street, but different schools didn’t stop them from playing together. They were always riding their bikes around the neighborhood, vinyl strips streaming out from the handlebars, a few of Ava’s old playing cards snapping along the spokes. They walked to the Star Market to check out the magazines and toys. They wasted time at Brigham’s, sugaring up on raspberry lime rickeys. It was a relief because she had worried so much about Lewis finding friends. “You know this isn’t a Jewish neighborhood,” the realtor had told Ava when he first showed her the rental house. He had tried to show her all these crummy little apartments, but she had moved twice already from apartments in Watertown. She wanted something that felt like home, something that felt like hers. She wanted a house.

She was so thrilled when Lewis had found Jimmy and Rose. Of course, they would be together, the only kids on the block without fa- thers and with single mothers. Ava was grateful, too, that Dot Rearson was so open-minded, and they were actually good enough friends to talk over a cup of coffee every once in a while. Dot didn’t share the same prejudices as some of the other parents. Oh, Ava had heard the remarks. Divorced and Jewish, what a combo platter. “You killed Christ,” one neighborhood kid had told her matter-of-factly as he ran across her front lawn, and Ava had stood there, shaken. It was awful enough that Lewis had to say the Lord’s Prayer in school every morning (“Just fold your hands and shut your eyes and think about what you want to do later,” she advised him), but when Lewis was in third grade, he had come home with an F on a test, and she was about to yell at him when she saw all the questions were about Christmas—about Mary, Jesus, and Joseph. Who was Jesus’s mother? She had gone up to talk to Mr. Powers, the principal, but all he said to her was, “I understand your peoples’ sensitivity,” like it was her fault.

Well, these kids were lucky to have one another. You didn’t have to be a genius to see Rose was besotted with Lewis. Ava couldn’t remem- ber how she had felt about love at thirteen, if love had ever unspooled her the way it seemed to be doing with Rose. How could you possibly feel so much when so young? Rose followed Lewis around, her head cocked as if she were waiting for him to say something to her. She looked at him as if she were breathing him in, her shoulders rising and falling. Ava knew Rose went into her room and daubed her mouth with Ava’s old DuBarry lipsticks, that Rose dotted Ava’s Wind Song perfume on her wrists, but Rose didn’t know that Ava set them out deliberately to make them easier for Rose to find. Once, Ava had seen Rose slide up behind Lewis while he was painting a model airplane. Rose lifted up her hand and held it just above his hair, as if she were blessing him, her eyes hidden beneath the palm frond of her bangs. He hadn’t noticed a thing. Ava, though, had watched and all she could think was, You poor darling.

She whisked into the den for her white gloves. Jimmy trailed after her, nearly bumping into her when she came back out again. “Jimmy,” she said and he grinned at her. Look at all of them, this round of wrong- headed love. Jimmy in love with her and Rose in love with Lewis. Lewis yearning for his father, and Brian in love with himself. Only Ava couldn’t imagine ever being that lucky again, to have the kind of innocent crushes these kids had, or what she most wanted, a love that might last. You have all those men, Brian had accused. He heard them in the background when he called, he insisted. He said someone he knew from Boston had seen Ava out on the town one too many times, dressed skimpily, with her shoulders and her bosom hanging out, and was that a way for a mother to act? “My pal said you looked drunk,” Brian had insisted.

Ava didn’t drink. And if she had men, she usually had them only for weeks at a time. It wasn’t long before they realized that Lewis was part of the deal and they didn’t want to be a father to someone else’s kid. They soon learned that despite her curvy hips (“Maybe you should wear a cowbell on them so we can hear you coming,” one man, an ac- countant who had asked her to dinner, had joked when he watched Ava walking), Ava wasn’t advertising anything but her heart, and the kind of relationship she was looking for was one that would end up with a ring on her finger.

A headache pulsed over her right eye. “Can you grab me a glass of water?” she asked Jimmy. He glided into the kitchen. Tonight, she’d come home and she wouldn’t think about how she hated and needed her job. She would put the lawyer out of her mind, and she would forget about Brian, looming like a storm.

Tonight, her latest boyfriend, Jake, was coming over. He was going to take Lewis and her to Brigham’s for ice cream, and she was thrilled about it. It was a school night, so Lewis had to be in bed by ten, but Ava thought a short first meeting might be just the thing for the first time the two guys in her life would meet. She didn’t give a damn what Brian thought, because this was something. They’d been dating three months already. Still, she had told Jake not to expect much, because when she had told Lewis about meeting Jake, he brought up his father, as if she and Brian were still married and what she was doing was a crime, and then he had gone into his room and shut the door. “We’ll get along fine,” Jake had said. She had never let Lewis meet the men she dated because she had never felt sure about them. But Jake was different. She thought that maybe this time, this one might last. He was the polar op- posite of Brian, which had drawn her to him. Maybe he didn’t look as good on paper because he was a musician and he didn’t have the steady job Brian had had, the money, but he was easygoing. Kind. He actually seemed to like and appreciate her just the way she was.

She’d let Lewis get a double-decker cone, and while she wouldn’t let him actually ride Jake’s motorcycle, how could he turn his nose up at getting to sit on it?

“Maybe we could play checkers again tomorrow,” Jimmy said. “I know what I did wrong. I shouldn’t have moved so you could double jump me.” He handed her the water, in a purple steel tumbler the guy from the Esso station had given her as a promotion even though she didn’t have the money to fill her tank all the way. She glanced at Jimmy. How could she not understand such loneliness when she felt it herself? “Is your mother at home? Who’s watching you?” she asked and he shrugged, a little offended. “I can watch out for myself,” he said. “I’m not some little kid. I’m twelve.” He stood up, stretching. “Anyway, she’s going to the church carnival after the beauty parlor.”

The beauty parlor. Ava remembered when she could afford to spend a whole afternoon being pampered, getting her curly hair permed so it wouldn’t look so untamed, adding highlights so it would glint in the sun, and adorning her toes with polish with names like Rosy Rapture or Midnight Plum. The beauty shop women used to fuss all over her, ask- ing endless questions about Brian, the one they were really interested in because he was so handsome, so charming to all of them when he came to pick her up at the shop. He’s a salesman, she wanted to remind them. He can sell anything to anyone, including himself. She ought to know. Now, she trimmed her own hair at home, pin-curled it herself, follow- ing the complicated diagrams in Ladies’ Home Journal, and made dates with Lady Clairol (Does she or doesn’t she? Well Ava certainly did, later scrubbing the dye spatters out of the tub with a stiff brush.)

“If you give me a moment, I can walk you home,” she said, glancing at her watch. It was nearly four. It would take her forty-five minutes to drive into Boston to work because of the traffic. She reached for her newspaper, glancing at the headlines. Communists and the pale baked- potato face of Eisenhower warning everyone about nuclear disaster. We have to be safe, we have to be safe. Over and over like a drumroll. She had seen Khrushchev on the TV news ranting about Stalin and all she had thought of was Lewis when he was five and how he had had a tan- trum in the middle of Better Dresses in Filene’s because he was tired of shopping and wanted to go home. The kids had duck-and-cover drills at school, curling up under their desks, their hands over their heads, wait- ing out a fake nuclear attack until the teachers gave the all-clear signal, and Ava couldn’t see how anyone would know it was all clear when radiation was invisible, and anyway, couldn’t it chew right through a desk, let alone a person?

Jimmy looked out the window. “I can make it home myself.” He had the same rangy build that Lewis did. Both boys could use some meat on their bones. He sighed, as if he were humoring her. “You can watch me from the window. I’ll be fine,” he said.

“You just be careful,” she said. “And wait a minute. I’ll walk out with you.” Last week, she was running catty-corner across the street to borrow some eggs from Jimmy’s mother, Dot, when she had heard the neighborhood women gossiping about a man hanging around the playground at school, staring so intently at the kids that a teacher had strode over to find out what he wanted, but the man had sprinted into the woods. The week before, the Waltham News Tribune had reported a car had swerved onto a curb in Belmont and frightened a little girl. A man had tried to grab her, but she ran away. The kids seemed riled up by the news, especially Jimmy, who kept asking Ava how much faster could a man run than a child? “What if the man was in a car? What do they do to you when they have you?” Jimmy persisted.

“That’s not going to happen, so don’t you even think it,” Ava told him.

“We should watch our kids better,” Ava had insisted to the other neighbors, but one of the neighborhood women had narrowed her eyes at Ava. “It wasn’t one of your boyfriends looking for you, was it, Ava?” “That’s not what her boyfriends are after,” someone had smirked and they had all laughed, except for Ava.

Well, things had calmed down. This is a safe neighborhood, people said, a good neighborhood. There had been no more reports, and if she still felt uneasy it was probably because all the gossip always seemed to lead to yours truly, Ava Lark, no thank you very much.

Ava grabbed her things, ferreting out her lipstick and swiping it on her lips. She held up one finger, to tell Jimmy to wait, and then she called Jake, just to make sure they were still on for tonight. “You bet, baby,” he said, “See you at eight,” and hearing his voice, rich as maple syrup, she pressed the receiver hard against her temple, and then she turned and saw Jimmy was watching her. “Come on, out we go,” she said. She led him outside, and then she locked up the house. (Fine! Let her be the only one to lock her door!)

It was so unseasonably hot. Everything looked wilted and spoiled in the heat. The tarry road buckled from the sun. Her car was dirty but she didn’t want to spend money to have it washed. Maybe it was some- thing she could do with Lewis, or with Jimmy and Rose, too. Make it fun, washing her car.

Jimmy was the only other kid who just had a mom, but Dot was wid- owed, and Ava knew that that was considered a step up from divorce, since it couldn’t be Dot’s fault that her husband had keeled over from a heart attack while mowing the lawn. Rose was only three and Jimmy barely two when it happened. Dot had told her that her husband had had an insurance policy so large that she would never have to work. The neighbors had brought casseroles and flowers for weeks, and they still invited Dot and her kids to dinner and to backyard barbecues and parties. But when they found out Ava was divorced, they didn’t invite her to any of their soirees, not even to the Tupperware events, which maybe wasn’t such a terrible thing since Ava didn’t have extra money to spend. The women saw their husbands’ eyes following Ava, and they noticed the way the men talked to her as if she were as exotic as a South American parrot. They were always asking her if she needed them to fix her gutters or take out her trash. “Anything I can do,” one of the men said meaningfully.

“Where is everyone?” Ava wondered aloud. Why was everything so empty and still, as if the air itself had stopped in place?

“Our Lady’s, probably,” Jimmy said. “I told you. The church carni- val. Same as my mom. You couldn’t get me there if you stuck bamboo shoots under my fingernails. The rides are junky and the hot dogs taste like rubber.” And then Ava remembered driving by the little parking lot by the church over on Trapelo, seeing how crowded with people and tables it was. “My mom won’t be back until after the church supper.”

Jimmy stared into the street for a moment. “Bye!” he said, and then he ran, all arms and pumping legs, her son’s best friend in the world. She was shamed to think that sometimes he was the best company she had. She watched Jimmy sprint out of her house. He tore out across her lawn, crossed the street, and veered to the left toward his home, two houses down, a yellow ranch house with white shutters. When he got to the door, he turned and waved with both hands, grinning.

Later, that’s what she told the police. How happy he was. How he smiled.

_______________

CAROLINE LEAVITT is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Pictures of You, which was also on the Best Books of 2011 from the San Francisco Chronicle, the Providence Journal, Bookmarks magazine and Kirkus reviews. Her 10th novel Is This Tomorrow is a May Indie Pick and was called “riveting” by Vanity Fair “Hot Type.” She teaches writing privately and online at Stanford University and UCLA. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, New York magazine, More magazine, and more. A book critic for The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle and People Magazine, she lives in Hoboken, NJ with her husband and their teenaged son.

Adapted from Is This Tomorrow, by Caroline Leavitt. Copyright © 2013 by Caroline Leavitt. With the permission of the publisher, Algonquin Books.

A Marker to Measure Drift is a haunting, haunted novel. Things get stripped down to essentials—food, water, where to sleep for the night, a state of solitary desperation brought on by the most profound kind of loss. Every line of this excellent novel rings true as Maksik leads us toward the catastrophe at the story’s core. This is one of those books that leaves you staring into space when you finish, dazed from the sheer power of what’s been said. —Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

On an island somewhere in the Aegean, Jacqueline, a young Liberian woman, veers between starvation and satiety, between the brutality of her past and the precarious uncertainty of her present in the aftermath of experiences so unspeakable that she prefers homeless numbness to the psychological confrontation she knows is inevitable. Hypnotic, highly sensual, exquisitely written, and extraordinary in its depiction of both pleasure and pain, of excruciating physical and spiritual hungers, A Marker to Measure Drift is a novel about memory, how we live with what we know, and whether and how we go forward, intact and whole, after the ravages of loss. It is beautiful, lacerating, impossible to put down. A breakthrough work from a prodigiously gifted young writer.

To receive this title, please sign up now!

Subscription Options

Select —– U. S. Domestic : $9.99USD – monthly International : $19.99USD – monthly

But Gregory Spatz’s voice, in the eight previously published stories now collected in HALF AS HAPPY, is wonderful. He is as observant, as trenchant, as sympathetic towards his characters as any writer working today, and the stories, while mostly not happy, are exuberant and full of life. They flash backward and forward, filling in histories and details of the characters’ past lives and relationships; why the characters find themselves just here, just now. Because they are so layered, so full of the archaeology of the characters’ lives, so sharply observed and fully rendered, they are novel-like in their satisfactions. This can make them a little tricky to talk about – but a deep pleasure to read.

In the story “No Kind of Music,” a couple has broken up, and the husband, Patrick, at first, feels some excitement about his new singleness. Spatz handles the passage of time – from before the story begins, to the present in a few sentences packed with detail: “He’d lost weight, cut his ponytail, got new glasses, capped his teeth and learned to smile more at strangers. But after time… when the charm of new loss had expired… he found himself more or less the same as ever.”

“More or less the same as ever” could be a defining motto for the characters in these stories. Spatz seems to be saying people are who they are. They may change outwardly, or their circumstances may alter, but who they are is imprinted in their DNA.

In the title story, the narrator watches his wife, who’s on a diet that has veered into anorexia, disappear. We’re told he liked to watch Heidi swim, but there “was less and less of her to watch… The bones in her ankles and feet had begun showing again and there was that pleasing, flaring, egg-shaped concavity about each of her collarbones and indented around her hips, as well – things he had loved about her years ago, before they were even married, and which he had forgotten because of how long they’d lain hidden under new layers of her flesh, flesh he’d loved, as well, though differently.”

It’s a beautiful description for the rhythm and vividness of the prose and as a depiction both of what’s happening to Heidi and of a husband’s keen eye and affection for his wife. They are a long-time couple, together more than 20 years, having found the middle ground necessary to a marriage: it’s most livable place. “They’d been here before – were always one way or another returning to this ironic middle ground of semi-amused playfulness and understanding which was also somehow never quite amused or understanding.”

Another aspect of a long-term relationship – of humanness – Spatz explores here is secretiveness. When the husband drives Heidi’s best friend Siam to the airport after a visit, Siam makes her sexual interest in him clear. It’s also clear he won’t tell Heidi partly because it would damage the friendship and the marriage if he did, but also because the moment belonged only to him.

Secrets – secretiveness – play a part in other stories as well.  In “Any Landlord’s Dream,” a couple grieving differently for the loss of their first child, rents a house. “The house had its secrets: some they came to know, most they didn’t.” The wife “had her secrets, too – she’d always had. It was what had drawn him to her most irresistibly,… purplish marks like smudges under the skin that erupted unaccountably and disappeared just as mysteriously… And the eyes… doll-like, recalcitrant, vaguely sad even when she was laughing: what did that mean?”

Even the physical world holds secrets. In a paragraph that spans centuries, Spatz gives us the history of the house, a history unknown to its occupants, present and past. “Two men had died here; three marriages were broken; eighteen children grown to adulthood; twenty six makes of car had parked in the garage or on the paved area outside, and two RV’s. Nine signed bank notes. Twelve rental agreements. No boats.” The house is unknowable. The paragraph, compact and beautiful.

Spatz’s descriptive style is exuberant overabundance. He wants his readers to see and smell and taste everything, creating worlds that are vivid and memorable. Occasionally, the exuberance is a little over-the-top, as if he’s afraid we might miss something. In “No Kind of Music” we’re told Patrick’s wife has left him and “taken up with a man four years younger than herself who had a carbon and titanium contraption for a left leg (to Patrick it looked part gazelle, part Cyborg with a short, springy ski-foot thing at the end of it, more like a small inverted suspension bridge than a foot.)” The description opens out, then opens out again and becomes ultimately distracting. A descriptive detail about a secondary character takes over.

Similarly in “String,” the last story in the collection, we encounter “…lame tennis matches on Mason’s weed festooned clay court, whacking at each other tennis balls so dead and bald they looked more like mushrooms than any kind of sporting goods. Hit hard enough, one would occasionally pop wide, emitting an eggy smell of rubberized glue, ancient pine needles and chilly spring rain.” It’s an acute and finely rendered description, but it’s a lot of weight for a tennis ball to carry.

“String” is the strongest piece in this collection. It’s the story of an event – a highway prank by two young boys – that connects a number of people for life. It’s deeply engrossing, roomy enough for a novella or a novel, though the ending is a little too quick and neat.

These stories are about long marriages that endure or don’t; about parents and children and siblings; about friends. They show ongoing lives. This is from “No Kind of Music,” but it could be about any of the stories here: “He watched the curtains spin inward with the breeze that carried the same lavender, pine-tree, hot tarmac and barbecue smells that had convinced him, lullingly, moments ago, that he was on the verge of something wonderful and/or that this was one of those perfect days you wait for and need to somehow hang onto, keep forever from passing. What had changed?  Everything and nothing.”

These are vibrant, richly described, indelible stories. Gregory Spatz is a masterful writer, working at the top of his game.

Your new book is titled not Do Animals Grieve? or A Few Big-Brained Mammals Grieve Once in a While but How Animals Grieve.  How come?

I wanted to telegraph what we now understand: a wide variety of animals mourn when a loved one dies. Scientists have known for years about elephants who stroke the bones of the dead, and chimpanzees who become greatly distressed at the body of a loved one.  And very recently, we’ve learned from up-close observations new details about how these big-brained mammals and others, like dolphins, grieve in the wild.

But animal grief goes well beyond that. Farm animals like cows and ducks grieve when they survive a close relative or friend, and certainly so may the animals we share our lives with, ranging from horses and rabbits to cats and dogs. I deploy somewhat conservative criteria for grief, so that an animal has to show an altered behavioral routine from the normal, plus some kind of evident distress in his or her body language or actions, for me to claim that grief is occurring. Even so, I have found an abundance of examples.

A few readers have remarked that the book should come bundled with a box of tissues. Is it really a tearjerker?

Some passages are sad, yes. When we learn about dolphin mothers who tirelessly push the small bodies of their infants before them in the water, unwilling to let them go, or about a rescued sanctuary duck who pines for his best duck friend of 4 years by sitting at their favorite hang-out pond alone, it’s natural for empathy to well up.

At the same time, there’s a strong current of love running through the book, a current that I find incredibly uplifting. Animals grieve because they love, and the stories in my book are as much about shared love as about solitary grief.

There has to be a limit, though, right? Some of the more cognitively simple organisms aren’t likely to be capable of mourning others. Take for example fish, or insects like bees. You’re not saying they grieve, are you?

Right, I’m not. But funny you should mention those particular organisms, because I’ve been thinking about just those two lately. New data from a science journal show that some fish are more complicated behaviorally that we’ve ever thought: grouper and coral trout not only hunt cooperatively with other fish of their kind, they may also gesture with their heads to indicate to their hunting partners where prey is located. Okay, that’s not showing emotion, but doesn’t it make you wonder?

As for bees, I witnessed an interaction outside my window at home a few weeks ago that impressed me. I saw that one of the plump stingless carpenter bees that frequent our front yard had been caught in a thin spider web. This bee struggled to free itself but could not. Just as I was thinking I should help release it, up flew another bee, hovering closely in the air near the first. It seemed to be observing (or at least somehow sensing) the situation. Then it flew off. Before long, this bee or another tangled its body with the first, apparently attempting to physically pull the trapped one free from the web. This didn’t work, but it was clear to me that I was watching a rescue attempt. (I then intervened to gently free the bee using a rake handle.)

Please don’t revoke my status as a card-carrying scientist. Scientists need to be skeptical, to test well-crafted hypotheses. I’m not suggesting that we’ll definitely find grouper grief or bee grief if we look. Still, I think we should look!

How are people responding so far, to these messages in your book?

The book launch has been excellent fun, including some surprises. Talking with journalists from Brazil, Croatia, and Ireland has pleased my anthropological, cross-cultural sensibilities. And certainly I never expected to be invited on the Howard Stern radio show. I’m doing a lot of radio right now and the call-in shows are particularly fun.

Probably the coolest thing of all is that some readers feel moved to write me letters about their pets’ grief or their observations of animal emotion in the natural world. That means more to a writer than people may know and I answer each person, though slowly at times. It’s like Bruce Springsteen always says at his live concerts – he and the E Street Band can only take things so far, the rest is up to the audience. Being in concert is his true goal: to be in synch with the people who come to the show. I’m a Jersey Shore native and huge Bruce fan, and his words resonate for writers too. We want to connect with readers, and when we have tangible evidence that that’s happened, it’s so gratifying.

Dolphins and ducks; fish and bees: you’re an anthropologist! Humans are animals, yes, but isn’t our ability to think and feel completely unprecedented in the animal kingdom?

I walk a fine line in the book. I don’t want to set humans apart as somehow more evolved (a concept that makes no scientific sense), as superior (an old idea that I hope is falling away) or as conflated with other species (Anthropology has taught me a thing or two).

But every species is unique. Elephants don’t mourn like we do, because they don’t engage in the same linguistic, symbolic rituals around death that we do. We can flip that statement, though: We don’t mourn like elephants do, because we don’t use sensitive trunks and feet to investigate the body of a loved one, nor do we tenderly stroke the bones of our loved ones after their death. Does it make sense to say that one method of mourning is more evolved or superior to the other? No.

Wait a minute. Humans don’t do anything that’s meaningfully different when they mourn, compared with other animals?

Well, that I didn’t say. Other animals mourn for their kin and friends, in a kind of tight circle of grief immediate to the individual. Wild elephants in Kenya have been seen to mourn matriarchs from other families, leading scientists to posit a more “generalized” grief response in elephants than in most species.

But as far as we know, we’re the only animals to mourn for those of our own kind we’ve never met, or to grieve on a mass scale. I think, with sorrow, of the children and adults who died last year in the Newtown, Connecticut shootings, and remember that every single person I came in contact with that week was grieving in some way for those people we do not and will not know. This grief is not contained within national borders but spans the globe.

You’ve also pointed out that humans dance through our grief, paint through our grief, and write through our grief. We turn sorrow into art. Do you read books in the grief genre?

In preparing to write my book, the first such memoir I read was C.S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed from 1961. Lewis describes what he misses most about his wife: “exactly the thing I can never get,” as he puts it—“the old life… the tiny, heartbreaking commonplace.” He laments the awful but inevitable dimming of his real, living wife, into a sort of phantasm of his memory, a part-imaginary being.

Sonali Deraniyagala’s Wave is the most recent grief book I’ve read. It’s a stunner. I’ve longed to write a letter to Deraniyagala, but it’s terrifying to think that I might be misunderstood, coming as I do from a perspective steeped in grief of apes and dolphins, cats and dogs. From her home in London Deraniyagala flew for a beach holiday to her native Sri Lanka with her husband, two young boys, and parents; there, in Christmas 2004 tsunami, she lost all of them. Now, 9 years later, she writes her love for them, for Steve, for Vik, for Malli, for her mother, for her father. I have no words for her loss, or her bravery.

Next on my to-be-read memoir pile is Shannon Polson’s North of Hope. About the aftermath of losing her parents to a grizzly bear attack in Alaska’s wilderness, it looks to be very moving, and like Lewis’s and Deraniyagala’s books, echoes something I noted earlier about my own book—these grief stories are steeped in love.

As we conclude this interview, let’s return to animals. What do your findings about animal grief mean for the way we treat other species?

They mean a great deal, I think. I just still myself sometimes, and soak in what it means that animals mourn their loved ones, and feel their lives so deeply. I think of the chimpanzee confined to a biomedical laboratory whose friends suffer and sometimes die around him. I remember the dolphins killed in a Japanese cove, or confined to an American theme park tank for our amusement, leaving their own survivors behind. I sit down to eat with my family, and we don’t consume cows, who sorrow when their babies are taken away (again, and again) to the slaughterhouse. We don’t eat pigs, lambs, goats, chickens, or turkeys either.

Another thing I do is to seek out one or more of the many rescued cats my husband and I share our lives with— and hold their purry wonderful selves closer to me. Animals give us so much.

_______________________________________________

BARBARA J. KING has taught Anthropology at the College of William and Mary  since 1988.  Originally focused on primate studies through her observations of wild monkeys in Kenya and captive apes, she now takes up intelligence and emotion in a wide variety of animals. She writes for NPR’s 13.7 Cosmos and Culture blog and the TLS. In Gloucester County, Virginia, she lives with her husband and many cats. Besides cat rescue, she enjoys attending her daughter’s college choral concerts and reading as much fiction as possible. Her website is www.barbarajking.com

Her book How Animals Grieve is available from University of Chicago Press.

I’ve been getting them since I was a baby. At six months old, my mother rushed me to the hospital with a fever, the inside of my mouth covered in blisters. My gums were purple, the sores were everywhere. I was so pale and listless, she thought I might be dying.

I’m thirty now.  I’ve had these outbreaks my entire life.

I have herpes.

More precisely, I have herpes simplex 1. There are two common strains of the virus, and both can cause oral and genital herpes, but herpes simplex 1 usually causes cold sores instead of genital sores. I’ve never had an outbreak of genital herpes, and from reading forums online about the virus, I should count myself among the lucky. Both forms are transmitted through direct contact, and sometimes that contact is sexual (and  condoms don’t prevent transmission). Because I was so young at the time of my first outbreak, nobody knows how I got the virus. An infected playmate’s Sippy cup. A sloppy kiss from a relative. (Both an aunt and an uncle of mine get cold sores, and I’d be lying if I said I never suspected them.)

I’ve treated my cold sores with lysine. With Campho Phenique. With isopropyl alcohol. With hydrogen peroxide. With wet tea bags and dabs of honey. With Carmex, Blistex, and Vaseline. Lately, I spend twenty dollars on miniscule tubes of Abreva that get lost in my purse and only last a couple of days apiece. Worse yet, I think my sores are developing immunity to Abreva; it doesn’t work as well as it used to. I don’t know what I’ll try next, and I feel desperate about those choices already.

People in my online forums often admit to desperation. They’ll try anything, they say, punctuated by numerous exclamation points.  Oil of oregano is the big fad right now. Also, hemp oil. Some take Valtrex, a prescription medication most often used to treat genital herpes, but which is said to help minimize or even prevent the oral kind. I’m thinking about trying it. My cousin’s wife just earned her license as a nurse practitioner, and she treats her cold sores with Valtrex. The side effects list is long and includes weight gain, but I’m hoping she’ll pass me some free samples. I’m hoping I don’t have to get it from the pharmacy myself. I live in a small city, and I never know whom I’ll run into. My husband thinks this is an exaggerated fear in modern medical times. But people still give me looks and, sometimes, a wide, mortifying berth.

Which is why I love my friend who just sent me this, found on someone’s Twitter feed:

woke up with a cold sore, here is an example of how i feelz:

At the herpes forums online, people commiserate with narrative. They’re about to meet their significant others’ families when they get one. They’re about to give a presentation at their company. “My skin is a walking disease,” someone posts. “They ruin my life,” posts another. Some people admit to canceling dates, even whole vacations. Some call in sick to work.

I teach at the local private college, and I’m tempted to cancel class when a cold sore flares up.  Beneath the unforgiving fluorescent lights of the classroom, I try to dispense my knowledge of source integration and MLA citation, sure that my students are staring at my oozing wound. Sometimes, when the sores reach their later, dried-out stage, they crack and bleed while I’m lecturing, and I have to figure out a reason to turn around, write something on the white board, and slyly wipe my mouth with my sleeve. On more than one occasion, I’ve thought of just addressing it directly, pointing straight to my face and saying, “Let me tell you about my cold sore, guys…” Recounting the story of six-month-old me in the hospital. Passing out literature that explains I’m not a slut.

Because that’s the assumption we make when we see a woman with a cold sore. In high school, boys would see me in the hallways and ask whose dick I’d been sucking. Strangely, my blistered mouth didn’t turn them off. As soon as the sores healed, they’d ply me with liquor at parties and solicit me for blowjobs. After a while, I complied more often than not because it seemed easier to confirm their suspicions about me, easier than getting defensive, which would have earned me a whole different kind of ridicule. This is one way I learned how to give one thing so I wouldn’t be asked to give another. My mouth instead of my vagina. A trivial secret instead of an important one.

When I see a woman with a cold sore, I have to stifle the urge to approach her.  To gently ask her where she’s at in her life. To tell her that whatever it is, it’s going to be okay, though I have no proof that it will, and furthermore I don’t generally believe that it will.

I can mark my life in cold sores. Major events, marred. I defended my graduate thesis with a particularly garish lesion on my lower lip, so large that part of it was really on my chin. When I stepped into the hallway so the committee could deliberate my academic fate, another professor saw me and pointed at my face. “You’re nervous,” he said, teasing. In the pictures from the bar where a group of us went to celebrate, I’m covering my mouth with a pint glass, pretending to toast my successful defense.

When my father died six months ago, I worried that I’d have a cold sore at his wake. All week leading up to it, I slathered on the Abreva and took two or three Benadryl at night, hoping to shake the nightmares of his heart attack that kept unspooling like scratched videotape, hoping to calm my skin and sleep the shock away. In the numbness thickly layered atop my sorrow, inaccessible in those first days, I turned vain. I couldn’t bear the idea of shaking people’s hands at the funeral home with a herpes outbreak; for my image-conscious father’s sake, I wanted to be elegant and composed, a daughter ready to manage an estate, a task with which I, an only child of divorced parents, had just been saddled. I went to Macy’s and bought a new printed dress with a high, demure neckline. I bravely put on eye makeup. All day long, I shook hands and comforted devastated others. I didn’t cry once. I was, in some circles, accused of being frigid.

The next morning, a massive sore bloomed on my lower lip. It was so big and ferocious, so persistent and unresponsive to the usual remedies, that I still have a shiny, red spot:  my first cold sore scar.

The outbreaks haven’t stopped since.

For me, grief is dynamic, a prism of shifting light, full of complementary colors that pair the most unlikely of emotions and impulses. Euphoria and despondency. Acceptance and rage. Meaninglessness and purpose. It has changed the pitch of both my wailing and laughing. It contains too many truths to see at once, so many that I stumble into contradictions on a daily basis, the open doors of intellect leading to connected, but vastly different rooms. At my best, grief allows me curiosity. I’m interested in it. I stalk its permutations ferociously, a tiger in tall grass watching a herd of wildebeest, trying to isolate one for a meal.

Estate management, on the other hand, is a mostly linear process of single answers. Medical and credit card bills. Houses and businesses. Lawyers and accountants. Notaries and signatures. Things That Must Be Done In Order By a Certain Time. My phone, on average, rings twenty times a day with various 800 numbers. My husband and I have spent the entirety of our savings trying to offset the costs my father’s finances had no chance of covering.

Estate management doesn’t just exacerbate grief. It’s antithetical to grief.

At six months, I’ve basically run out the statute of limitations on openly grieving. Friends who lost parents before me warned it would go this way; the reservoir of love filled in the initial days and weeks would dry up in the ensuing months when everyone else had moved on and I hadn’t. A few weeks ago, we had friends over for dinner and split a few bottles of wine (I’ll take pretty much any excuse to split a few bottles of wine these days). One of our friends mentioned a family member with Stage Four breast cancer, commenting on how she didn’t look like she was going to die. How is that possible, the friend wanted to know. I went to the bedroom and gathered up some photos of my dad to show how normal he’d looked in the months before his diagnosis. Cancer is deceptive that way, I said. It can live underground a long time, like the cicadas about to explode from the earth this summer, in numbers exponentially multiplying like a cell duplicating itself in an organ.

It would have been fine if I’d stopped there. But I kept going back to the bedroom for more pictures. Here he is at about forty, I said, flipping through the photos like he was a newborn baby and not my dead father. This is us when I’m about five. Here we are at my high school graduation. Hey, do you guys mind if I smoke a cigarette? I usually never smoke, but I just, you know, feel like one tonight, I said, opening a window. I knew I was making our friends uncomfortable, but I was feeling too wild by that point to care.

All my life, my mother has told me to tone down the level of my feeling. To quit worrying so much. You’re going to make yourself sick, she’ll say.  And sometimes: You’re going to get a cold sore.

Losing my father has left me defenseless against them. As soon as one subsides, another sprouts. But at this point I’m almost getting used to them. And in a culture that relies on platitudes and Kübler-Ross grieving patterns (more linear structure, more single answers) to explain away in shiny-bright language how death makes us appreciate life (because, the unspoken part goes, we’re all going to die and don’t know when), I’m almost grateful for them. Cold sores render my pain visible and cast me out of social mores. It’s like I do have leprosy, so scared are people by the realities I carry everywhere, even on my face, in broad daylight.

Sometimes I’m still too embarrassed to lift my head as I walk down the hallway at work, or down the street with my dog. Sometimes I still wish I could disappear. But it’s like I tell my students as I stand there, exposed before them under the harsh fluorescents: You’re writing on behalf of the groups to which you belong, and we don’t always choose these groups. We don’t always choose to be women or teachers, lovers or mourners. We don’t always choose what we represent of this big, big life.

Emily Rapp is the guest. Her new memoir, The Still Point of the Turning World, is now available from Penguin.

Get the free official app. Subscribe for free at iTunes.

“You tall bigot!”

I stopped and wondered if these two words had ever been put next to each other. The odds were astronomical; even someone with my primitive math skills knew this. I laughed, which didn’t help the situation, which was this: A guy wearing a jaunty red neckerchief had walked by the reference desk, yelling about the “motherfucking Jews and lesbians on the Supreme Court.” I had asked him to lower his voice and voilà! Now I was a tall bigot…the worst kind of all.

“What are you, some kind of Jew?” he sputtered. I’ve never seen someone so enraged. I wondered what he’d do if he knew I’d been raised Mormon.

Maybe he was mad because he couldn’t find the anti-Semitism section. The library has a robust collection of what I call non-cuddly hate lit. This is one of my favorite things about working here: If you believe censorship is poison, here lies paradise. We have sections on anti-Mormonism, anti-Semitism, anti-anti-Semitism, anti-atheism, anti-God, anti-feminism, pro-gay…there’s something to offend everyone.

Moshe Safdie, the architect who designed the Salt Lake City Public Library, won numerous awards for his vision and technical derring-do. He thought big, appropriately, because a building that can hold 500,000 books is enormous. The number of items circulating each hour is rivaled only by the number of people napping in the corners. But nothing is as impressive as the way the building looks. I work in a beautiful building made almost entirely of glass. Seen from the air, it looks like the Nike Swoosh if it got frightened and began to cower.

An older librarian—one of the few other males—once said to me, “Whatever we deal with, coming here is always a visual reward.” This statement is poetic, accurate, and maddening. Because most of the time it feels like people show up just to fight about something with total strangers like me. Which is fine. I’m not here for the good company.

One of the reasons I work here is because I have extreme Tourette Syndrome.* The kind with verbal tics, sometimes loud ones; the kind that draws warning looks. Working in this library is the ultimate test for someone who literally can’t sit still. Who can’t shush himself. A test of willpower, of patience, and occasionally, of the limits of human absurdity.

A patron recently took exception to a series of throat clearings I couldn’t suppress. As he approached, I put on my customer service smile and readied myself for one of those rare, mind-blowing reference transactions that I hear about from other librarians. Instead this man said, “If you’re going to walk around honking like a royal swan, you don’t belong in the library. I’m going to call security. Somebody needs to teach you a lesson.”

I stood up. I’m six feet seven inches tall, and I weigh 260 pounds. “Is it you?” I’m not confrontational, but I don’t lose many staring contests. I’m good at looming when it’s helpful. He walked away.

I also work here because I love books, because I’m inveterately curious, and because, like most librarians, I’m not well suited to anything else. As a breed, we’re the ultimate generalists. I’ll never know everything about anything, but I’ll know something about almost everything and that’s how I like to live.

Earlier today a young woman asked me to help her find a book about how to knit lingerie. This is the sort of question library school recruiters should feature in their dreary PowerPoint presentations, not claptrap about how we’re the “stewards of democracy.” They would definitely attract more males to the profession. When I arrived in my library department two years ago, the alpha male was a sixty-six-year-old woman.

On our way to the lingerie section—yes, the official subject heading is Lingerie, call number 646.42—I tripped over another young woman who was lying on the floor beneath a blanket, nestled between two rows of law books. I’m thirty-five years old and it both relieves and elates me to know I can still be surprised.

“I’m sleeping here!” she yelled.

I’m rarely at a loss for words outside the library. But within its walls I’m required to form sentences that no logical person should ever have to utter, for instance, “You can’t sleep on the floor at the library under your blanket.”

“I don’t snore!” she said, gripping her blanket with both hands, as if I might snatch it away.

“I’m sure you don’t,” I said. “That’s not the point.”

“Well, there’s no other point!”

This was an occasion when my need to be right didn’t feel that important. I made a phone call. Security interrupted her derailed slumber and led her out of the building. And stay out, I pictured them yelling, tossing the blanket after her, where it would be swept into traffic by a sudden gust of wind.

I felt a twinge of envy. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a nap. I’ll admit to often feeling sleepy in the library. Most of the time, in fact. The building was constructed with the ability to save power and warm itself, so the glass walls make it difficult to find an area that isn’t bathed by soporific sunbeams. I briefly considered lying down on the floor between Black’s Law Dictionary and the Morningstar investment guides. Someone would probably report me, but I might be imposing enough to buy myself a power nap. Then someone came to the desk for help and the plan ended before it began.

I really want someone to ask me a question that is not “How many times can I fall asleep in here before I get kicked out?” I really want this building to serve the purpose for which it was intended—as a breeding ground for curiosity.

I work on Level 3. If you’re on my floor you’re probably looking for information about Bigfoot; the healing powers of crystals, self-help, or psychology; you’re trying to expunge something from your record and need the law section; you need to lose weight; you heard that people make money on the Internet; you need to summon some pixies; you want to get into hat-making; you can’t sight your rifle; you’re sick of the Jews; you’re sick of the people who won’t shut up about being sick of the Jews; you’re looking for a Bible; or you’re cramming for the SAT. Unless you’re just looking for a place to sleep, in which case I’d direct you to any of the comfortable chairs laid out around the perimeter, out of my direct line of sight. And if you’re hooking up with your drug dealer, that’s usually conducted in the restrooms.

Later this morning, something actually happened that didn’t require me to wake someone up or tell him to watch porn at home. An African American man asked me if the Hutu tribe in Rwanda had any Jewish ancestry. What a fascinating question. We started hunting through the library’s incredibly expensive, underpromoted, and underused research databases. After an hour we realized that the question was bigger than we could complete during one session, but he had enough leads to pursue on his own. We’d forgotten that the rest of the world existed as we leaned over my computer and hurried to and fro in the stacks grabbing books.

As always, many patrons wanted to research their genealogy. I always wonder why. Were they trying to discover whether they might have an inheritance coming to them? Being kept from them? Researching the people who led to their own genetic impairments? I have Tourette Syndrome because of some combination of my parents’ crazy innards. His genes met hers and said, “Hey, let’s get stupid!” I can’t blame them for not knowing any better. If there’s a memo out there that says Never cross a Navajo and a Mormon or you’ll create a twitchy baby who will be a burden forever, they never got it.

At lunch, many of the librarians lurched up to the staff room and fell onto chairs and couches with their books and magazines. Librarians as a rule move about as well as the Tin Man did before Dorothy brought him the oilcan. Their heads often sit so far forward on their necks that they look like woodpeckers frozen in mid-peck. Their shoulders are rounded from answering the phone, typing, eating, and reading. Their hands at rest inevitably rotate into the typing position. They spend so much time looking down at computers and into books and talking down to people from their tall desks that it’s become an unnatural effort to raise their eyes to make eye contact during conversation.

I move quite well, partly because during my lunch break, I go downstairs to the library’s diminutive fitness room, wrap my hands in thin, well-seasoned leather strips to protect them, and bend horseshoes. I’m also working on the goal of deadlifting six hundred pounds, but I do that outside the library walls. The sound of six hundred pounds hitting the ground is serious. Dropping that much weight in the basement of the library would echo up to the top floor and wake everyone up. When I hit a snag, I call my coach, a man named Adam.

Adam is a former air force tech sergeant, an expert in hand-to-hand combat, and the sort of hard-ass who describes poor haircuts as “a lack of personal excellence,” even though his hair is currently poufy and awful and makes him look like a Dragon Ball Z character.

He has the entire poem, all sixteen lines, of “Invictus” by William Henley tattooed on his left arm.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

More on him later.

After lunch a teenage boy with chains crisscrossing his pants slumped into the library, limping as if he’d stepped into a bear trap. He needed some books for school, he told me, “Books that aren’t all gay and shit.” I’d love to have a sign demarcating that section. We probably need another one for the child abuse books. The teenagers love that stuff. One of our most popular books is a memoir about child abuse: A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer. I tried to read it once and was too unsettled by the second chapter to ever pick it up again. But the teens can’t seem to get enough of it.

I can always tell the kids who’ve been sent to the library to find a book from some teacher’s boring reading list. They trudge in with their eyes on the carpet, breathing hard with annoyance. Many of these kids will do anything to avoid talking to us. Many of these kids have never said anything to me besides, “Yeah, I have to read this book called Johnny Tremain.” Kids who want to read Pelzer’s book practically jump on top of my desk in their eagerness to read about a child being mistreated. We should probably just give up and order a hundred more copies of A Child Called “It.”

After helping the kid find the not-gay section, I watched another patron vomit into a garbage can.

“Pardon me, sir,” I said. “Could you make it to the restroom?”

“I’m fine here,” he said.

I did lots of dusting. I focused on the tops of shelves that only the very tall can see. I helped a delightful elderly woman with an unidentifiable accent create an e-mail account on the public computers. When I asked her what she liked to read—I can’t figure out how to quit asking this question of total strangers—she said, “I enjoy the nakedest of romances.”

There was some excitement in the afternoon. We had a break in a two-year-old mystery. Someone has been waging a war against the harmless 133s. Occultism. Crystals. Sylvia Browne. Summoning pixies safely—yes, there is apparently a wrong way to do it. Energy fields. Enneagrams. Aleister Crowley and Anton LaVey. Angels. Satan. These books have been vanishing.

One day a shelver spotted a shelf that was wrenched open at the bottom. In the hollow underneath it was a bunch of Wicca books and the timeless classic Witch in the Bedroom: Proven Sensual Magic. When we looked under the other shelves, we found a couple hundred books that had been hidden. We pretended to be outraged—this was censorship!—but it was hilarious. I wanted to know who was doing it, and how.

When we put the books back on the shelves, they vanished again. Replacement copies disappeared as well, sometimes within an hour. I’d taken to patrolling the perimeter every ten minutes, determined to apprehend the crooks and thank them for entertaining me so well—and to remind them that there were a few Sylvia Browne books on the shelves that they’d missed. We found no one.

But today a shelver saw two men raising the bottom shelves! They escaped. We investigated and found dozens of missing books. Now we’re trying to figure out how to entice the shelf-secreters back and trap them. I suggested leaving some books about Stonehenge and the Mayan calendar strewn about as bait. I long to shake the hand of the man or woman who scuttled Accepting the Psychic Torch out of sight, out of mind, out of reach, in the dust below the bookshelves.

I can’t imagine the monks in the libraries of yore dealing with this nonsense. Waking people up, encouraging them to view porn, vomit, and procure drugs elsewhere. Sure, those monks had to condemn Jews and lesbians, but they didn’t attend patron education workshops because there were no patrons, only themselves. Beyond the occasional visit from a grand inquisitor, they were left alone to use the libraries as they were meant to be used.

The purpose of libraries—to organize and provide information—hasn’t changed. They’re billed as the Poor Man’s University. (Many librarians also bill them as the Poor Man’s Day Care or the Poor Man’s Urinal.) I love working here because the reasons behind libraries are important to me.

The public library contains multitudes. And each person who visits contains multitudes as well. Each of us is a library of thoughts, memories, experiences, and odors. We adapt to one another to produce the human condition.

Libraries have shaped and linked all the disparate threads of my life. The books. The weights. The tics. The harm I’ve caused myself and others. Even the very fact that I’m alive. How I handle my Tourette’s. Everything I know about my identity can be traced back to the boy whose parents took him to a library in New Mexico even before he was born.

The library taught me that I could ask any questions I wanted and pursue them to their conclusions without judgment or embarrassment.

And it’s where I learned that not all questions have answers.

Excerpted from The World’s Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette’s, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family, by Josh Hanagarne. Copyright (c) 2013 by Josh Hanagarne. Reprinted by arrangement with Gotham Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.

_________

Josh Hanagarne is a 6’7” giant known as the World’s Strongest Librarian. A librarian at the Salt Lake City Public Library, he battles his own case of Tourette’s Syndrome and works to help others. He believes in curiosity, questions, strength, and that things are never so bad they can’t improve. Josh’s popular blog, World’s Strongest Librarian, currently gets more than 80,000 visitors each month. Josh lives with his wife Janette, a professor of history at Eagle Gate College, and his son Max in Salt Lake City, Utah.

All That Is wastes no time making this final point clear, quickly moving through the theater of war in the Pacific to a reverent description of a Japanese battleship sailing toward certain annihilation:

“Through the green water of the harbor, late in the day, long, dark, and powerful, moving slowly and gravely at first, a bow wave forming, gathering speed, almost silent, the large dock cranes passing in silhouette, the shore hidden in evening mist, leaving white swirls of foam trailing behind it, the Yamato headed for sea.”

On the American side, Salter narrows his lens on Phillip Bowman, a handsome but undistinguished Naval Officer whose post-war career through four decades of New York publishing provides the ballast for All That Is. Bowman begins as unmolded clay, his personality and cares shaped by the individuals who pass through his life: gregarious sailors and Harvard dandies, Virginia landowners and British dog trainers, Lords of Literature and sensual divorcees.

Salter establishes character through dialogue – even tangential roles merit a speaking part – and further defines the characters in All That Is by how they acquit themselves in the face of death. This approach comes full circle from Salter’s debut novel, The Hunters (1956), a narrative of kill-seeking Korean War pilots in which death stalked the bravest and most selfless aviators while the reckless, the cowardly, and the just plain lucky were rewarded with survival. Over a half-century ago, in The Hunters, Salter wrote:

“There was a way to live and a way to die. He was supposed to show them that. It was what you had to demonstrate to be a leader.”

Following a lifetime of perspective, All That Is instead presents death as a level equalizer, a fate that can be summoned in the voice of an anonymous Spanish street singer or through allusions to poetic greats: “And for death, as Lorca said, there is no consolation, which is one of the beauties of life.”

One the profound beauties of All That Is comes from watching a writer so late in years offer a measured and composed take on the unavoidable end. Through a powerful show of noblesse oblige and the ultimate exhibition of the literary cliché “show don’t tell,” Salter upholds the task of leadership set forth in The Hunters and demonstrates how to stare down fear and unknowing. By following his calling. By doing his job.

Despite the shadow of mortality, All That Is never devolves into something black or morbid as Salter simultaneously takes the opportunity to indulge a deeply nostalgic celebration of life. There are immediate personal parallels – like Salter, Bowman was born in a terrific storm and Bowman’s favorite uncle in All That Is ­bears an uncanny resemblance to the beloved uncle in Salter’s memoir, Burning The Days (1997), straight down to the hair on the man’s arms and the story of the brain tumor that led him to run off with his secretary.

In that memoir, Salter wrote that words and memory are both a person’s country and their true measure of value, and with All That Is Salter returns to those things that have meant the world to him. Fluent language, languorous travel, sexual largess – the author takes tangible pleasure in reliving each of these moments as he sets them down forever on the page.

There are fabulous galas and barefoot days by the shore; times of family and times of solitude; talk of books, talk of theater, talk of art. Describing a work by Francis Bacon, Salter writes that within the figurative painter’s art: “There was all that had happened in the world during one’s life.” With so many stories to tell, Salter’s prose in All That Is takes on a digressive, avuncular quality, allowing summative constructions and wandering asides that are unlike the precise compression of his best known novels, A Sport And A Pastime (1967) and Light Years (1975).

Rather than hew to formal plot arcs, Salter has typically turned his flyer’s eye to the bell-curve of relationships, whether at rise or plateau or descent. A Sport And A Pastime traced the rush of erotic exploration as far as commercial lubricants and creative positioning could carry a mismatched pair, while Light Years measured the growing distance between the partners in an ideal marriage, their lives in perfect orbit save one fatal flaw – the sexual connection no longer held them in sync.

In All That Is, Bowman becomes his most substantial during the heart-pounding stages of new affairs, and Salter affords his protagonist the opportunity to explore multiple passions with all the arrogance and awe of the author’s 1970’s-swagger. As a novel, All That Is exists very much out of time – the narrative spans from WWII to the pre-internet/pre-cell phone era, and when date-markers do invade (such as a jarring mention of the Kennedy assassination at the tail end of a Spanish tryst), the effect is like someone checking their watch while letting you leaf through their photo albums.

While Salter can hardly be blamed for staying within his comfort zone, All That Is would have been a more potent artistic achievement had the narrative mastered a greater balance of risk and control and dared to grapple with all that really is – up to and including the point where a proud and competent man adapts (or doesn’t) to major changes in technology and demographics. Salter’s nostalgia for bygone eras bathes Anglo-European dominance in the whitest light, writing of privileged Virginia as “a place of order and style” and referring to the postwar American South as a region where “Decency, that was a word you lived by.”

Though sexually-liberated, Salter’s angle on New York (and the country as a whole) remains culturally limited: in All That Is, a few black women pop up as cheap sexual objects, South America remains a totally foreign territory, and the author holds ethnic encroachment at bay by rendering it invisible. Meanwhile, the sexually desirable women in Bowman’s life tend to lack professional competence and discipline while the smartest and sharpest women are inevitably homely or game.

Largely, those quibbles can be brushed off with an understanding that the author has selected the memories he holds the closest, and there’s a characteristic defiance in Salter’s refusal to conform to modern agendas. Even so, late in the novel All That Is suffers a nasty blot during a spiteful and an atypical episode where Bowman (then in his fifties) seduces a young college graduate, abusing his position in the literary world to press himself on a woman he knew as a teen.

Narrative in fiction is blameless – the events set down on the page exist outside moral judgment – but an author’s handling of those events is not, and Salter presents this sequence as if Coetzee had written Disgrace in reverse, with all the empathy-building life experiences leading up to a crowning moment where the protagonist uses his significant power advantage to prey on a much younger woman. Defiance dies hard, and Salter’s Hefner-proud treatment of the affair brings a quality of risk that’s mostly absent from All That Is, but it’s stubborn and controlling risk, that of a retired pilot cornering at 80mph on country roads, forcing his family to white-knuckle the ride just to prove he can.

This contrarian streak stands at odds with one of the truest gifts of the novel: that new work can revive all that came before. As a prophetic bit of career-foreshadowing, throughout The Hunters random chance and a personal code of honor prevent the most capable pilot from racking up the recognized “kills” that bring awards and acclaim to his more callow peers.

At the Millennium, as The Modern Library, Time Magazine, and others compiled canonical lists of the Century’s great novels, Light Years was consistently passed over for works by John Updike, Richard Ford, Richard Yates – worthy contemporaries, with the primary slight being that Salter was so routinely left out of the conversation.

Even before All That Is, a groundswell of appreciation followed Salter’s most recent book of short fiction, Last Night (2006), bringing renewed attention to his earlier collection Dusk (1988) and reminding readers why Light Years and A Sport And A Pastime carry into the 2000’s as such vital works. As did Last Night, in specific sentences All That Is reveals an eye for light, space, and order that Salter still renders with elite precision:

“On a Sunday morning when the heat of the day had not yet begun but the light was dazzling all along the beach, the surf in a line almost violent in its brightness, they sat near the dunes with sections of the paper, reading in contemplation, feeling the sun.”

All too often, the outpouring of respect for an author comes in memoriam, too late for the artist to take any contentment from their career’s reach. With All That Is, as he opens up the country of his words and his memories, telling the story that’s less a story than a life, Salter has assured the ability to see his legacy to the last.

___________________________

Excerpted from the collection While We’re Waiting, by Mark Belair.

Your first novel is about the relationship between an aspiring female astronomer on Quaker Nantucket in the 1840s and an ambitious black Azorean whaler she’s tutoring in celestial navigation. That must have been a breeze!

Is this a question?

I’m just wondering if you are from Nantucket, or an amateur astronomer or something?

Nope.

A sailor? A math whiz? A history PhD?

No. I knew nothing about any of it. That’s partly why it took me most of my adult life to research and write.

What was the other part?

I missed the “How to write a novel” memo.

Which one?

The one that says, “Keep going until you have a beginning, a middle, and an end.” I researched until I knew everything about 19^th century Nantucket Quakers, whaling, race relations on Nantucket, and how a chronometer works. But then I just kept writing the first few chapters over and over.

But isn’t the book about a real person? Didn’t that make it easier?

It actually made it harder, I think. The book is inspired by the life and work of Maria Mitchell, the first professional female astronomer in America. But it’s not about her. I borrowed the setting and her goal (discovering a comet), and some of the circumstances of her life, then combined them with a fictional character and plot. Her love interest, Isaac Martin, is a complete fiction, as is her brother, Edward, and most of the other characters in the book.

So it’s a 19^th century interracial love story? 

Well. Yes, technically. But it’s really about a woman coming to terms with her own desires. I guess I’d say that female desire is sort of a theme here—and not just physical. The desire to contribute fully to society, the desire for emotional connection, the desire to be part of a community of like-minded—

So it’s like, Fifty Shades of Grey Dresses? On a whaleship? That sounds awesome!

Well, no… I mean, yes, that’s EXACTLY RIGHT. Print that.

Is this book for women? There’s a woman on the cover.

I’ll tell you what I tell my four-year-old daughter: stories are just like colors, toys, and flavors. They are not for boys or girls. They are for everyone. The end.

So why is there a lady…

Can we move on?

Sure. Let’s talk about your background a little. The back of your book says you were an MTV producer. Can you introduce me to Beyoncé? Please? I can pay…

Sorry, I can’t. I worked mostly on “pro-social” initiatives, mostly on shows funded by The Kaiser Family Foundation. We tried to empower young people to make healthy, positive choices about sex and avoid STDs and unwanted pregnancy.

Oh. [Pause]. Okay, moving on. You must have an MFA.

Nope.

I thought you had to have an MFA to publish a novel.

Guess I missed that memo, too.

Anything else you want to say about the book?

I hope you like it.

______________

AMY BRILL is a writer and producer who has worked for PBS and MTV, and has been awarded fellowships by the Edward F. Albee Foundation, the Millay Colony, and the American Antiquarian Society, among others. She lives in Brooklyn. In 1996, Brill took a trip to Nantucket and saw the girlhood home of astronomer Maria Mitchell, which planted the seed for what became her debut novel, The Movement of Stars.

Then, one night when he was eighteen years old, tragedy struck. Storm had been turned out into a field at the farm where he lived in a herd with other geldings. An accident of some sort must have occurred, for in the morning, Storm was found to be severely injured. Examination revealed a compound fracture in his hind leg, too extensive for successful treatment. Right there in the field where he had spent his happiest days, Storm was put down. And right there he was buried.

Horse people will recognize, Mary says, how unusual it is for a horse to be interred in the fields where he had lived. Mary still expresses gratitude to the farm’s owner for affording Storm such a burial.

The evening after Storm’s death, Mary walked out into the field alone. Approaching the large mound that now covered the horse’s remains, she placed on the ground his favorite flowers—flowers he used to eat.

“I heard the horses grazing around me,” Mary says, “and was, as always, comforted by their presence. Slowly, at least six of the group stood around the mound, stopped grazing, and looked at the grave. I realized we, the horses and I, had formed a circle around the fallen Storm.”

To Mary, this event felt eerie, all the more so once she realized exactly who the encircling horses were: Storm’s companions, the geldings who were part of his herd. The geldings stood with lowered heads, which implied a straight-ahead gaze. “If horses hold their heads high,” Mary explained, “they are scanning far away. But Storm’s group clearly was at the right visual angle for looking directly at the burial site.” Other horses, nearby in the field but new to the farm and not part of Storm’s herd group, did not join the circle. None of the gathered horses ate the flowers Mary had placed on the grave, and she had brought no other treats. Whatever drew Storm’s companions to his burial place, it wasn’t the hope of food. In spontaneously forming a circle at his grave, Storm’s herdmates began a vigil of sorts; Mary found them still there the next morning.

A cautious person, Mary acknowledges that many interpretations of this behavior are possible.

“I choose to think,” she says, “that I was allowed to share a circle of mourning for our mutual, loved companion.”

Mary’s story about Storm became a catalyst for me, as I was unfamiliar with horses either personally or in my work on animal emotion. To horse people, I soon found out, the notion of a horse circle, or indeed of equine grief, was anything but new.

At one time, Janelle Helling managed a ranch in the Colorado mountains, with twenty or thirty horses in residence. One morning, the herd failed to make its way to the barn-corral area for feeding as it usually did. A mare had foaled during the night, and the newborn was too weak to stand. “The rest of the horses were circled around the mare and foal,” Janelle recalls, “and would not let us get near them. The horses refused to be herded away from acting as a barrier between us and the mare and foal.”

That barrier was protective in nature. In that area of Colorado, mountain lion, bear, and coyote are indigenous, so perhaps the horses were hypervigilant for predators. But they clearly had people on their minds too. Only when Janelle arranged for a trailer to collect the mare and foal could the barrier be breached and the foal given proper medical attention.

As the trailer bearing the mother and infant headed back to the barn, the other horses followed closely.

The foal survived, so fortunately this anecdote does not qualify as a grief story. And this horse circle differed in character from the quiet, still, one that formed around Storm Warning’s grave. Here, the horses made a blur of motion, some moving clockwise, others counterclockwise. “Trotting, wheeling, kicking, galloping hoofed chaos,” Helling recalls. She is certain that no predator, or person, could have breached that moving circle. Could the protective intent of this horse circle suggest a new possibility in relation to the geldings who surrounded Storm Warning?

Perhaps they had intuited a connection between Storm and the mound that had appeared in their field, and by encircling it they meant to protect that spot and thus Storm himself. Could the horses somehow have thought that Storm might reappear? Or were they in fact mourning him?

The fact of the horse circle cannot in itself answer the question of what went on in Storm’s companions’ minds. But the anecdote does help to refute what some naysayers insist: that what we interpret as horse grief must instead express a feeling of vulnerability caused by separation from the herd. On this skeptical view, “grief ” is an overstated claim, because the horses are only demonstrating the anxiety that besets a survivor in a herd-oriented species. Yet this “herd mentality” explanation doesn’t match up with what happened after Storm died. The surviving horses placed themselves in a specific configuration and expressed no agitation through their body language. Their group was intact, save one; they had no reason to feel vulnerable. Even though we cannot intuit precisely what the horses may have been feeling, it’s clear enough that something unusual was going on, beyond a concern for the self.

Responding to an article on horse grief by Kenneth Marcella in Thoroughbred Times, a reader described the events that unfolded after her thoroughbred filly lost her companion. This other horse, Silver, had died suddenly, and his body was visible to the filly. While Silver was buried, she was turned into a separate field. When she later returned to the field they had shared, she stationed herself on top of the grave and pawed the ground. Indifferent to offers of food and companionship, coming in at night only when forced to do so, she persisted in her behavior for almost two weeks.

Can the science of horse behavior help us understand this reaction? In his article, Marcella observes that an increase in horse longevity in the last fifteen years means that “equine buddies” now spend significantly longer periods of time together. Some horses who lose longtime friends may fall into outright depression. This is what happened with Tony and Pops, two workhorses who had known each in years past and met again at the time of their retirement. Once they rediscovered each other, these two were rarely apart. After Pops died, Tony lost weight, stopped interacting with other horses, and became lethargic enough that he lost muscle. His arthritis flared up.

In the horse world, this situation is often diagnosed as depression and treated accordingly, with anything from extra attention from human companions to doses of Valium. For horses, depression may exacerbate physical ailments such as colic, so breaking the cycle of mourning, falling sick, and becoming more depressed is potentially urgent. The introduction of a new companion may help, just as we have seen with other animals. One Thoroughbred Times reader told of her horse, who mourned when his pasturemate of twenty-three years died. For two weeks he stood in a spot, under a favorite tree, that he had often shared with his friend.

He would not eat. Only when a mare died during foaling, and he began to care for her orphan, did his behavior turn around.

I’ve next to no personal experience with horses, beyond admiring their grace and intelligence—though I did, during a fourth-grade class outing, fall off a horse and still retain a memory of that long trip to the ground.

Just as I remain impressed with the sheer size and power of horses, I have come to admire many horse people’s embrace of horse grief and their efforts to ease it.

Reprinted with permission from How Animals Grieve, by Barbara J. King Published by the University of Chicago Press. © 2013 Barbara J. King All rights reserved.

_____________________________________________________

BARBARA J. KING has taught Anthropology at the College of William and Mary  since 1988.  Originally focused on primate studies through her observations of wild monkeys in Kenya and captive apes, she now takes up intelligence and emotion in a wide variety of animals. She writes for NPR’s 13.7 Cosmos and Culture blog and the TLS. In Gloucester County, Virginia, she lives with her husband and many cats. Besides cat rescue, she enjoys attending her daughter’s college choral concerts and reading as much fiction as possible.

Is it really true that you wrote this book while living in a storage unit?

I wrote the monologue in the storage unit – Life in a Marital Institution (20 Years of Monogamy in One Terrifying Hour). The book I wrote in a couple of different houses and apartments, after the lease on my storage unit ran out.

How does one end up writing in a storage unit?

I was living in a very expensive coop apartment in New York City, when I finally accepted the material limitation that to pursue my dream of writing autobiographical stories, I needed more time, and to have more time I needed to lower my expenses. That meant selling my expensive apartment. I was on the board of directors of my coop at the time, and I had leased the storage unit to myself to use as an office, never imagining I would one day actually store myself there. Nor did any of my fellow board members. They assumed a storage unit was a place to store things, not people. So there was no provision in the lease against self-storage. The day I moved out of my apartment was the day I moved in to my storage unit. My former neighbors included Jerry Seinfeld and Keanu Reeves, so I don’t think they understood my strategic asset reallocation strategy. But I saved a lot of money, and I got a lot of work done.

What about your wife and kids?

I bought a house for them in upstate New York, where I lived Friday through Sunday nights.

Is that where you buried your son’s placenta?

Yes, in the backyard, under the Canadian rosebush. We wanted a hearty, flowering plant to remember where the placenta was if we wanted to go down there and meditate. Plus we’d used a Canadian rosebush to mark the spot in my father-in-law’s backyard where we buried our cat, so there was kind of a family tradition of using Canadian rosebushes to mark graves. The gerbil that died of a heart attack during the funeral is buried there too – my son had left him out on the family bed to play, and forgot to put him back in his cage, and his little heart popped in terror when our cats started circling the bed. But at least he didn’t get eaten. RIP, Hamster. (My sons hated the word “gerbil.” But they loved gerbils – they were much cleaner and more affectionate than hamsters. So they named their gerbils Hamster and Mouse. Evidently, Mouse wasn’t in the mood to play the day we buried the placenta.)

Was the placenta really five years old when you thawed it and put it in the grave, or were you exaggerating in the book for effect?

One of the ways you cope with having a placenta in your freezer for five years is you try to forget how long that human meat in the plastic tub has been sitting in your freezer where the Klondike bars used to be (before they got replaced by the organic frozen soy milk bars and the frozen vials of breast milk, for when your wife is late to return home to nurse the screaming kids) (and I do mean kids – they both nursed through kindergarten–or kindergarten equivalency: one of them was homeschooled).

Um, I don’t even know what to say to that.

We all do stuff that seems crazy to others. But sometimes, it really is crazy. That’s one of the ideas my book explores, along with the notion that sometimes you dive in to the crazy end of the pool to keep yourself from thinking, or feeling. Chaos is a very powerful narcotic. It keeps you from feeling anything other than shock and awe and anger and fatigue. There’s no time for sorrow in the foxhole of domestic battle. I loved my wife, still do, always will. But there are things you love that you can’t live with, like a five-year-old placenta, or the fact that a five-year-old child still breastfeeds. Sometimes I couldn’t believe how painful it was to be in my marriage, or even that I was in it. I would think, This must be a hallucination. Evidently, it wasn’t. I was really me. She was really her. We were really us.

Speaking of unusual marriages, let’s talk about your sister’s wedding in the hospice. Your book explores two separate but related storylines: your twenty-year-marriage, and a day in the last days of your sister as all your family gathers to say goodbye. What was going through your mind as your sister said, “I do” on her deathbed?

“I’m so glad they’re not going to have children.” Seriously. The groom looked like Cousin It. The last thing I needed were nephews with hair to their ankles – and ankles with tattoos. Although that would have been a small price to pay had my sister experienced a miraculous recovery. That said, I was very grateful to my future brother-in-law for giving my sister love and comfort in her last days. There are very few guys who would sign on for that – they’d known each other maybe a year, I think, and she was dying when they met at Happy Hour on the beach. He knew what he was signing on for. Or he thought he knew. Like a lot of marriages, you really have no idea what the future holds. No idea at all.

Why did you decide to write about your marriage?

To understand it, and ideally save it. I mean, when you open your freezer and see a five-year-old human organ, then walk down the hall and open the bedroom door and see five-year-old humans breastfeeding in a bed that the four of you are supposed to share, you get confused. I couldn’t understand what I was in – why I chose to be in it. So I wrote about things from the perspective of a man who made unconventional choices, as opposed to being the victim of an unconventional wife, hoping I would reveal to myself exactly why I was choosing something that was so hard for me to accept – causing a lot of drama, and trauma.

And what did you discover?

That people thought the story of my crazy marriage and perhaps even crazier family was very funny, and sometimes even moving. I gave up trying to understand it for myself, at least through monologues and memoirs.

How do you make death and near-death and near-philandering and other weighty topics funny? The publisher Judith Regan called it “the funniest book I’ve ever read.” Variety reviewed your show as “gaspingly funny.”

Much as I’d like to take credit, any writer who has a sister on her deathbed, telling him she’d rather die than be in his marriage – well, that’s funny. All I did was write it down, then remove the parts that weren’t funny–most of them, anyway. The same goes for having a wife who stores human meat in the freezer. Of course, there is tragedy mixed in both these events. And I’m interested in exploring it, but through a comic lens. To me, there is nothing more satisfying than exploring the highest stakes moments of our lives – death, marriage, temptation, divorce, childbirth – and finding humor. Well, maybe there’s one more satisfying thing. But that is much harder to get. And to attract it, you usually have to be a good worker. So I should probably get back to work.

_____________________________

JAMES BRALY is the writer and performer of the Off Broadway monologue Life in a Marital Institution, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, sold-out 59E59 Theaters in New York City, and transferred to the Soho Playhouse, before going on a 14-city national tour. Reviewed as “gaspingly funny” (Variety), “never less than excellent” (The New York Times), and “a masterpiece of storytelling” (The List), the show has played over 200 performances. Optioned for television by Meredith Vieira Productions, James is currently writing the teleplay adaptation. His autobiographical stories have been broadcast nationally on This American Life, The Moth Radio Hour, Selected Shorts, NPR, and Marketplace, and his personal essays have appeared in The New York Times, Redbook, Afterbirth (St. Martin’s Press) and Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood (W.W. Norton). James has performed autobiographical stories at The Whitney Museum, Symphony Space, and The Moth, where he was featured on the TNT National Story Tour and is the first two-time winner of The Moth GrandSlam storytelling competition. His full-length monologue, The Monthly Nut, was workshopped at The Barrow Group Theatre in New York City and is currently in development. His full-length monologue, Asylum, commissioned by Dixon Place, is in development as a television series with Meredith Vieira Productions. In his other lives, James writes speeches for global business leaders and teaches autobiographical storytelling.

Do you like asking yourself questions?

Hell no! I want to be asked questions. I want there to be a stream of people thrusting microphones in my face, snapping photographs, and asking me a thousand unanswerable questions which I simple deflect with a wave of my hand and a dazzling smile which reveal my perfect teeth as I keep walking, and pausing – occasionally – to sign autographs and wave and blow kisses. All to the music of Josh Ritter. So it’s kind of a swell but also poignant and about-to-fall-off-a-precipice feeling. Oh, and I’m also rocking some designer bling as I’m doing this. In high heels. Backward. George Clooney may be holding my arm too. Or Jonathan Rhys Meyers (since we share that bit about being expelled from school at the age of 16). I’d be heading off to a rally for some cool social-justice cause or to party hard, depending.

So why are you doing a self-interview?

I’m not. These questions are coming at me from a computer at a remote location where sits The Woman Who “O”wns the World, who is sipping sangria and talking to me via google chat.

How did you come up with this title?

I didn’t. My agent, Julie Barer did. She is very good at titles. She is probably also very good at writing books but has kindly left it to the rest of us. It used to be called A Bend in the Road. I liked that title very much since it contains pretty much everything I could say about the book. The omniscient voice (which is the road), the road that connects all the characters in this book, the road that is pivotal to all that transpires there, the road that is both shelter from and access to the political events beyond it, all this, and the road ahead for the characters and for the country. Journeys, road maps, what will remain (the road that had been walked before), the road that became (what happened there), the road that must be taken (while holding both the past and the future in balance). Not to mention all the connotations of the word “bend” – what is unseen, hidden, the shift of things. But then there was the problem that it harkens back to V. S. Naipaul’s A Bend in the River, and, alarmingly, a romance written by someone called Nicholas Sparks. So, On Sal Mal Lane. Which does contain all of the above but with more specificity, setting it in Sri Lanka, with those flowers, that lane. The original title helped me to focus though, so it served me well.

Do you like roads?

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is my favorite book, if that counts. It is one of the most true and uplifting books I have ever read. But roads in general, yes. I like traveling and collecting images and stories. I remember roads only because I remember what I have seen there though; I cannot read maps. It’s a sort of intuitive finding-my-way for me. And I love the people I meet everywhere along the road. Wherever I go.

Is there anywhere you are going on the road with this book that you are particularly thrilled about?

Seattle, Washington.

Why?

Because it is on the absolute opposite corner of where I am now in every way. It is a place I have never been in, never experienced. In fact, it is probably everything that I am not, literally and metaphorically: wide-open, fluid, laid-back. I like placing myself (and the book) in the wake of things that are in direct opposition to what I am about, including my politics. That is why I write, after all, to create the opportunity to do that. Besides, I had wanted very much to read at Elliott Bay Books when my first book came out and for one reason or another it didn’t happen. It feels a little magical therefore, to be going there with this book. A right time, a right moment, the right book, the right people both taking me there and receiving me too.

Must all your choices have meaning?

Always.

Everything? How about a shoe? Does a shoe-choice have to have meaning?

Probably more than most other things. Hence the many references to feet and shoes in my first novel, A Disobedient Girl (Atria/Simon & Shuster, 2009). Think about it. If you wear the wrong shoe with a dress, you will feel uncomfortable about your whole appearance. If you feel uncomfortable about your appearance, you will be too preoccupied with that to pay real attention to anything that is going on. If you aren’t paying attention (and feeling less-than about yourself), you will turn down the invitation to an off-site event. If you don’t go to that off-site event you will miss meeting Jonathan Rhys Myers. And if you miss meeting him you may never look as cool as you might have had you been walking down those steps in front of the paparazzi with Jonathan Rhys Myers. Ever. All because of that one stupid choice you made about your shoes. Try living with that, honey. That’s the kind of regret that will do you in. Every. Choice. Has. Meaning.

Did you read that in O Magazine?

I learned the hard way. Through experience.

Want to tell me about it?

No.

Okay then. You’ve mentioned Jonathan Rhs Meyers a few times. Do you know him?

No.

Would you like to know him?

No.

So why do you want to walk down the steps with him?

I like to accessorize.

Are you always this shallow?

Not when I write.

Aren’t you afraid people will only remember you as a shallow fluff-ball who likes dresses and shoes and parties and Manhattans (shhh, I heard), and pretty boys?

No. I am more afraid of becoming a serial bore by being, relentlessly, She of Depth and Seriousness. Those things have their place. But so do pretty dresses, and make-up, and high-heels, and hearts over the ‘i’s in your lover’s name, and imaginary movie-star moments, and soundtracks to ones life. And swings. And rocking your inner Beyoncé. And blasting “99 Problems” in your car because you are pissed off over not getting what you wanted from McDonalds.

As a feminist don’t you have a problem with rap lyrics that use the word bitch?

As a feminist I have the good sense to, as Jay-z puts it, “press fast forward,” or, when I feel like it, to turn up the volume. I also don’t have a problem with Barack Obama calling me pretty.

Did he?

Wouldn’t he?

Do you have an idol?

If I had to pick just one it would be my older brother, Malinda. He is tortured by his inadequacies, but he is gilded by his virtues. My favorite kind of character.

An American idol?

Cheryl Strayed.

Why?

Because she is complex. A broken-fixed essential corner puzzle piece in the fabric of the world I live in. She is a mother who can leave her crying son at home and take to the road to talk to strangers and thereby strengthens and transforms both his life and theirs. She is a wife who can say, “I’ll show you slut,” at 1 a.m. in a bar and you know she could but she won’t. She is a superstar who has hung on to the “OMG!” we all carry inside but most are too self-conscious to express.

Do you like people?

Yes. I’m one of those people-people people. You know the Lyle Lovett, “I love Everybody, Especially You” song? That’s me. I do. Unless of course I don’t like you. Which also happens, I’ll admit, and not infrequently. But generally, I feel a burning desire to know more about every person I meet, to identify the essence of their beauty somehow, because everybody has it – some spark that they carry that is their brand of beauty. Like jewels with feet. Some tiny ones, some big ones, some ruby chips, some veritable Kohinoor diamonds, but they are all there right in front of us and I’ve always been drawn to shiny, sparkly things.

Is your new book a shiny, sparkly thing?

My country was once known as Ratna Deepa – the island of gems. And like the star sapphires, cat’s eyes and rubies that are found in the deep brown mud of her rivers, the good of the people of Sri Lanka is similarly dispersed: hidden sometimes, flooded sometimes, deprived in drought sometimes, but it is still boundless and present. I write of that beauty in On Sal Mal Lane, and while I write, while I speak of it, I get to bear witness to that.

______________

RU FREEMAN is the author of the novels On Sal Mal Lane and A Disobedient Girl, which was a finalist for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and has been translated into seven languages. She is an activist and journalist whose work appears internationally. She calls both Sri Lanka and America home.

The Listeners 

God was not responsible for what came to pass. People said it was karma, punishment in this life for past sins, fate. People said that no beauty was permitted in the world without some accompanying darkness to balance it out, and, surely, these children were beautiful. But what people said was unimportant; what befell them befell us all.

The Herath children were different from all the others who had come and stayed for a while on Sal Mal Lane. It was not simply the neatness of their clothes, washed, sun-dried, and ironed for them by the live-in servant, or their clean fingernails, or the middle parting on their heads for the girls, on the side for the boys, or their broad foreheads and wise eyes, or even the fact that they didn’t smile very often, some inner disquiet keeping their features still. It wasn’t their music-making or their devout following of deities of all faiths who came and went through their house with the predictability of monsoon rains. It was the way they stood together even when they were apart. There was never a single Herath child in a conversation, there were four; every word uttered, every challenge made, every secret kept, together.

These things, discovered as the months wore on, came to bear upon a day of loss, a day crystallized into a moment that the whole neighborhood, yes, even those who had encouraged such a day, would have done anything to take back, a day that defined and sundered all of their lives. But let us return to the beginning, to the year when, in a pillared parliamentary building that had been constructed overlooking a wind-nudged blue ocean, a measure was passed under the title the Prevention of Terrorism Act. It was an act that built upon a previous one, an act declaring a State of Emergency, the kind of declaration that made adults skittish, elevated small quarrels into full-blown hatreds, and scuttled the best of intentions, for how could goodwill exist under such preparedness for chaos, such expectations of anarchy? The only goodwill to be had was among children unaware of such declarations, children like the ones on Sal Mal Lane, children moving into a new home that brought with it the possibility of new friends. Let us return then to the first days of that year, the days that filled so many people with hope for what the new family would bring to them. Let us pay attention to their words, to the way they enter this house, alone and together, close or from a distance, intent and wish inseparable. Let us return to observe the very first day that foretold all the days that followed.

On the day that the Heraths moved in to the last empty house on Sal Mal Lane, the one located exactly at the center where the broad road angled, slightly, to continue uphill, the Herath children happened to be learning hymns and hallelujahs from their mother. The children’s mother, Mrs. Herath, herself a staunch Buddhist, was given to taking on other faiths based solely on the musicality of their songs, faiths of which she partook like others tasted of side dishes, little plates piled high with crispy fish cutlets and vegetable patties. Right now she was going through a Jesus phase, having not yet discovered the chants of the modern Hindu sage Sathya Sai Baba. On the very first afternoon, even before she tended to her anthuriums and pride of Japans and other potted plants that had been brought over in an old borrowed Citroën, she sat at their piano and played while her sons and daughters, two of each, belted out “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” in perfect harmony.

In the house across the street, an old man, Mr. Niles, long confined to spending his days reclining in his armchair in languorous apathy, stirred. With some degree of exertion he pulled himself up to a sitting position and listened. Although he was, himself, raised in the Catholic tradition, it was not the familiar hymns that moved him, but the voices. He tilted his face this way and that, trying to untangle them, one from the other. He picked out four distinct voices: one imbued with refinement, the word endings clear and elegant, the notes held to beat; another sensitive and rich, the melody heroic; and a third that did not seem to care for timing and so was lifted with a too-soon, too-late delight that was refreshing. The last, a boy’s voice, he could not place. It seemed both dogged and resigned. Earnest, as though he wanted to please, yet not entirely committed to this particular form of pleasing, it wavered between ardent expression and the mere articulation of melancholy words set to music. Mr. Niles listened more intently to that voice, which spoke of a spirit that required soothing, curious as to what could trouble a boy so young. Unseen by anybody, not even his wife and daughter, each busy with her own weekend preoccupations, he listened through that afternoon, piecing together the unuttered feelings that lay beneath those angelic voices, conjuring up an image of each child and imagining a life for them in the house into which they had moved.

This house was very much like every other house down Sal Mal Lane, rudimentary if with a little style added by the verandas at the front and the back, both shaded by crisscross wooden half trellises, and the bordering hedges that rimmed all but two of the front gardens. At its heart was a large open space that Mrs. Herath had turned into a sitting room and whose focus was the upright piano. At the back of the house, Mrs. Herath had chosen to install her dining room, which, therefore, sat right next to the kitchen in defiance of the centuries-long tradition that dictated a dining table never to recall the kitchen in which food is prepared. The children shared two rooms, she and Mr. Herath shared a third, and the live-in servant, Kamala, was given the storeroom tucked next to a garage for which Mrs. Herath had found no good use since they did not own a car. Nobody down Sal Mal Lane, a dead end traversed almost exclusively by people on foot, owned a car except for Mr. Niles, who could no longer drive it, but this did not matter since all the neighbors felt able to ask for its use when necessary, and all the neighbors glanced with distant possessiveness at their empty garages and contemplated a future date on which they might convert them into fee-charging flats.

The real reason that Mrs. Herath had wanted this particular house, however, was the potential for a real garden that would meander wide on three sides around her home, the fourth side dedicated to a shared driveway. Unlike her neighbors’ properties, which were graced by plumes of dancing hibiscus, bunches of creamy gardenias, and bold thrusts of anthuriums, her own, untended for many years by a previous owner, seemed barren. In little more than a year Mrs. Herath’s garden would become a showpiece, decked with ferns, flowering bushes, and fragrant varieties of orchids that many of her neighbors had not heard of, she would become an authority on landscaping, and all the little flower thieves who lived down other lanes would flock to her garden in the early-morning hours and reach for her flowers like large butterflies. Today, however, her garden was depleted and the one person staring at it as he stood, hatless and scorched in the still, noonday heat, wondered why the children who had come to inhabit it, smartly dressed as they were, did not seem less pleased with their surroundings.

Sonna, the Bollings’ son, fourteen years of age, had spent the day leaning against his uncle’s gate, watching the activity across the street. He had arrived that morning dressed in his Sunday churchgoing clothes, though if someone had pointed out that he was trying to present himself at his best, he would have denied it. Sonna had come to assess potential, which, in his mind, meant one of two things: the ability to bully others or being susceptible to bullying. He had watched the children all day, his face arranged in an expression between scorn and disinterest, trying to gauge to which category they belonged. So far he had not been able to tell, and not even his uncle, Raju, who peered over the gate with him, had a definite opinion.

“Can’t tell if they are good or not till we talk to them,” his uncle said at last, hitching up his loose trousers as he went inside.

Sonna continued to watch. The boys were not muscular, they were lanky and long-fingered, their mouths full and at ease, which augured well for classifying them as victims. Yet there had been a steadfastness to their gaze when they had first seen him that confused Sonna. They had nodded, their arms full of bags and boxes filled with books, but had not smiled, which he took to mean that they, too, were able to judge character and had him pegged as a neighbor but not one they were likely to befriend. He spat into the ground. They were adversaries, those boys, though the source of their strength was not one that he could identify. The girls, too, had resisted the title of victim that he yearned to pin on them, they with their matching dresses and their laughter. They resisted it by not noticing him at all, though how was that possible? He was tall, good-looking, and strong— and standing right across the street from them! He had been standing there for hours. How could they not have noticed?

“Fuckin’ snobs,” he said to his uncle, who had come back out to ask him if he wanted some tea. “Think they’re too good for us. Probably only wan’ to talk to the Silva boys. Probably jus’ like them. We’ll see about that. We’ll see how they manage to live here without talkin’ to us Bollings. Think they can jus’ talk to themselves?”

“Maybe they are busy today, moving and all,” Raju told his nephew. To be proximate to Sonna when he was not happy was not something that Raju ever enjoyed; in the end he always wound up being clobbered for nothing he had said or done. “Youngest looks sweet,” he added, watching the little girl, who had abandoned her siblings and was skipping in the veranda, the rope smacking rhythmically both on the floor and on the ceiling above her. After a while she called out to someone they could not see, dropped the rope, and ran inside. Raju craned his neck toward the front doors of the house through which the children had disappeared, one by one. From inside came the strains of a piano being played.

“Din’ even smile once,” Sonna muttered.

Raju lowered his head, anticipating trouble. He tried to think of something soothing to say, knowing, as he had known on every other such occasion, that words would fail him.

__________

RU FREEMAN is the author of the novels On Sal Mal Lane and A Disobedient Girl, which was a finalist for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and has been translated into seven languages. She is an activist and journalist whose work appears internationally. She calls both Sri Lanka and America home.

Adapted from On Sal Mal Lane, by Ru Freeman. Copyright © 2013 by Ru Freeman. With the permission of the publisher, Graywolf Press.

This story will end with two women naked in a bathtub. Let’s say that, for now, it begins with a drive to Marfa, Texas. I was with one of my best and longest-time friends, Kaitlyn, on our way to spend an annual weekend getaway there. As Dallas faded into a haze in the rearview mirror, we half-joked that this time we were going to Marfa to find ourselves, our “center.” What we meant was that we were looking for some kind of fulfillment or self-sufficiency—maybe happiness is the word—but the joke was that, in reality, we would have preferred to bring our boyfriends with us…except that we didn’t have any. “Finding ourselves,” whatever that meant, would just have to serve as a consolation prize.

No. Maybe this story begins about six months earlier. It was five o’clock in the morning, sometime in August 2012. I was lying on the floor in my pajamas, crying. I couldn’t sleep again. I couldn’t stand the glow of the streetlights pulsing in through my living room’s wall of windows. I couldn’t listen to the sound of my own ticking thoughts for one more horrible second. I turned on the radio and ran a hot bath.

I crawled into the bath and let myself sweat and cry. I wondered how the water could possibly sustain me—if I drank it, for instance—or how it kept me from floating down to an invisible bottom far below the surface. I closed my eyes and allowed the bathwater to become the same familiar ocean I had sought out every night for weeks. The ocean was the depth and expanse of my despair, warm and interchangeable with my body. I imagined what it would feel like to drown.

I don’t know exactly what brought me to this point. A man had recently broken my heart, but it wasn’t anything especially unique. I also hadn’t spoken to my father in a few months—perhaps I would never speak to him again, because he’d smoked crack on my birthday again—but I hadn’t been thinking about that much, either. I hadn’t been thinking about anything in particular, just everything all at once. A valve in my brain was caught open. Every time I looked at my dog, I couldn’t help but cry at the thought of ever being without him. All of my food began to taste the same.

My friends knew that something was wrong, of course, but they couldn’t pull me out of it. Kaitlyn would take me to dinner at night and buy me a slice of  “smile cake,” a quatro leches cake. Ariel, another of my closest friends, would come over to watch movies. She would sit beside me on the couch, silent, present, available. She would watch the same movies—my favorites—over and over again. Sydnee would drive me around the lake, listening to music. Layla would call me from Houston in the afternoons, asking, “How is today?” And then the next day: “How is today?”

The support of my friends kept me going, without question, but it didn’t make me happy. I didn’t know how to reach back to them at all; I couldn’t figure how to connect. It was frustrating, and I hated myself for it. I felt selfish and ungrateful and, most of all, undeserving of their love, which only made things worse. I think, in my head, there were all these different kinds of love—parental, platonic, intimate—and I just wasn’t getting the right one.

Where does that idea come from, that love has different frequencies? I remember how I learned in church that the only really satisfying love was divine love that came from God. My mother would always remind me that parents had to give “tough love” to their children when she took away my Gameboy or told me I couldn’t spend the night with a friend. And in the mix of all these categorical loves, I somehow learned that platonic love, like the kind I had with my friends, was simply structural. It was important but not primary. It wasn’t intense or exhilarating. To love a friend too intimately would be to cross a sexual line, to be out of sync with society. Friends would be there to support you, I learned, but not, ultimately, to fulfill you. What I needed was a boy to love me; that was what I called “real love.”

“Real love” was what I had with Kendall, one of my first serious boyfriends in high school. He wasn’t a very good boyfriend. In fact, he refused to actually date me until after he’d already gotten me pregnant and I’d had an abortion. That night—the night after the abortion—I snuck out of my mom’s house to see his band play a concert downtown. I wore a sweatsuit for comfort. I found a leather booth along the back wall of the smoky club and fixed myself in a half-sitting, half-lying-down position. My stomach felt as if every organ had been removed and then placed back inside me, but in a different location. I could catch only glimpses of the band onstage through the crowd of shifting silhouettes.

As the last song ended and the band members said their thank yous into the mic, I hoisted myself onto my feet to cheer them. Just as Kendall came into view, glowing with his guitar in-hand, a girl ran up to him and embraced him. Then they kissed. In front of everyone.

I felt my blood pressure drop as I landed back in my seat. Cold sweat was forming on my brow. I wanted to lie down. I just wanted the room to be silent and as empty as my belly. No one in the crowd knew about the abortion. No one, it turned out, knew about me.

I thought that Kendall loved me because he sent me sweet text messages during class and sometimes invited me to the lake after school. We would eat sandwiches together and listen to music in the car. The houses of Lakewood clicked past the window like projection slides; here is one in the sun with red trim; here is one with white brick and ivy.

He was a junior, a year older than I was, and by my estimation much cooler. When we walked next to each other on our way to class or rode home together after school I felt happier than I’d ever felt before, and I thought it was because we were in love. Even after he kissed the other girl, after he later apologized and I accepted his offer to go out with him, and even years and years later, I thought that he’d loved me. I understood my happiness to be the result of a certain “kind” of love, the kind between a boy and a girl.

Perhaps this story begins much earlier. Perhaps it begins when I was seven years old, in 1995. I can hardly remember the moment now, but I can feel the pit it left in my gut.

That day I was at my mom’s house—a small house where she and I lived alone on the west side of Dallas—and as she was making dinner she told me that my dad was going to come by to see me for a minute. My dad had never come by before—or maybe he had, but if so I couldn’t recall it. I didn’t even think he’d seen our house before, so this was a surprise. I did see my dad on occasion, usually at his parents’ house, where I spent a lot of time, but I hardly ever got to go anywhere with him and I didn’t know where he lived.

When I heard Dad’s truck crunch onto our driveway I ran outside to meet him. The sun was slant in the sky by then. I was still wearing my first-grade uniform but had taken off my shoes, so I went across the gravel barefoot. Dad picked me up and hugged me. I smelled his familiar mixture of cigarettes and cologne. It made me think of all the places he had seen without me, and all the things he’d done. I imagined him perpetually driving fast cars and trucks across endless stretches of open road. I imagined him being up all night and drinking Dr. Pepper. I was, in a way, in love with my dad. I was in love with the mystery and freedom of him.

“Dad, are you gonna come inside and have dinner with us?”

“I can’t, Smelly, I’m sorry. I’m just stopping by for a second.” I’d thought that I would see him for longer, so I was disappointed.

“How come you can’t just stay for a little bit?”

“Well, I’ve got a plane to catch. That’s why I came to see you.”

“Oh. Where are you going?”

“I’m going out to Minnesota to live there for a while. I wanted to stop and say goodbye.”

I didn’t know yet that my dad did drugs. He was going to live at Hazelton, an inpatient rehab facility in Minneapolis, and he would be gone for a year. I didn’t know any of that. At the time, I only thought that Dad had chosen to go live somewhere else, and that he could decide not to leave if I talked him out of it. I remember the way my skin pricked and the bones in my face began to hurt as I started to cry.

“Dad, please don’t move there.”

“I have to, Smelly, I’m sorry.”

“Can I go with you, then?”

“You have to go to school.  And besides, what would your mom do? You wouldn’t like it in Minnesota. You wouldn’t have any friends.”

“Please, Dad. I don’t care about my friends. Can you at least wait and have dinner?”

I realized even as I spoke that nothing I said would keep Dad from leaving. There was a faint distraction in his eyes, as if he were looking just beyond me. I’m not sure how I came to sense so quickly and fully the magnitude of this ache, but in that moment I did. Love didn’t have any categories then, there wasn’t a “right” or “wrong” kind, and there was no difference between the kind of love I had for my dad and the kind I’d have for anything or anyone else I would ever come to love with fervor.

A few minutes later, Dad’s truck pulled out of the driveway, and I felt a burst inside as if I’d tethered my heart to it. That was the first time my heart was broken. It’s a very specific sensation, one that’s easy to recognize. I cried through the dinner I didn’t eat and long into the night. I howled for hours beyond the reaches of my mother’s comfort. That was the first day I knew real pain. Blinding, crippling pain.

I don’t know where this story begins. It begins with heartbreak, chaos, and misunderstanding. But here is where the story ends:

Kaitlyn and I had dinner at a fancy restaurant on our second night in Marfa. Over crisp glasses of sauvignon blanc we giggled about being on a “friend date” and searching for our centers. We continued to drink wine when we got back to our room, which was actually an elaborate tepee we had rented on an alternative camping ground. We turned on folksy music and lit the candles by the bed, pretending to be romantic. Once we had downed about three bottles, we decided it would be fun to take a bath in the claw-foot tub that was behind a wooden fence at the center of camp. We dashed out into the night with our towels, a candle, and the remainder of our bottle.

At first, of course, it was awkward. We each slid over to our own side of the tub and tried not to stare at the other. We burst into laughter once or twice amid forced conversation. At some point, however, I began to remember those nights in the bath by myself, months earlier. I remembered that former version of me—senseless, hollow, numb—and all of my other previous selves, the ones whose hearts had been broken, the ones who couldn’t sleep, and in that instant I felt somehow anointed. Love, as I had understood it, was wrong. It was not one way or another; it could not be defined. I could feel the ecstasies of love even when it was my own love reflecting back at me, off of a man who didn’t love me. I could feel it beyond the boundaries of language and grief. I felt love in the intimate reach of my friend, sharing the water with me, bringing me up for air.

What was that second manuscript about? The religious Right? He pulled it out of his briefcase and balanced it on his brown corduroy knees which lurched with the lurching of the train. What Are They Praying For? An Anatomy of the Religious Right. Genius title. He smiled with enthusiasm.

When he arrived at Penn Station, he crossed underneath Madison Square Garden, the crowd thickening around him as the New Jersey Transit trains emptied through the side tunnels. He came up on Seventh Avenue. It was a cold, blue morning, and he walked the twenty blocks uptown to his office, shifting his briefcase from one hand to the other every five or six blocks.

Nobody else was in yet. At his desk, he googled Macaroni and Cheese. By the time Jenny arrived, he was absorbed in a video clip of a woman demonstrating her own recipe.

“Thinking of doing a cook book?” asked Jenny.

Richard jumped. “No—I— Did you know you could make macaroni and cheese with bacon in it?”

“Sounds great.”

“You have to cook the bacon separately.”

Jenny laughed. “A few days at home and listen to you. Who knew?”

“Do you think it’s better baked in the oven?”

Jenny’s skinny arms were full of manuscripts. “Uu—mm… Ye-es.” Then with more conviction, “Yes, I do think it’s better if it’s cooked in the oven. But not if it gets too dry. It has to be a really melty, cheesy sauce. Then in the oven, the edges get just a little crusty and chewy.”

“So—” Richard was scrolling, “we need one with a good thick sauce… It’s a risk if I put in the bacon, isn’t it? Because maybe he’ll say that’s not how he likes it.”

“Is this for Tom?”

“Yeah.”

“Why don’t you just take him out?”

“You can’t go out everyday.”

Jenny didn’t say anything.

Richard gave her a big-hearted, persuading smile. “I really want to cook for him. I need to show him that I can. Not so much that I can, but just—that I’m willing to. Willing to make some kind of life at home.”

After a little silence, Jenny said, “Richard, right now we need to get into that editorial meeting. I heard something—the religious Right book? Watch out. There are people against that, and somehow they’ve read the manuscript already.”

Sure enough, the book was massacred in the meeting. It had a hidden agenda; it cast slurs on figures in public life; it was written by a paranoid conspiracy theorist who had no training in the field; it cited unnamed sources; it made several direct attacks on its potential readership.

Disembodied voices seemed to come at Richard from all around the table, strident, negative. Are these my colleagues? Richard wondered. He found it hard to recognize such unfriendly faces. Did they know his wife had died? That he had a young boy at home, all alone?

He heard Jenny saying that the author of the book announced himself as an atheist precisely in order to make his bias clear. It certainly didn’t mean he had no training in the field. She went on to say that religion was obviously an area of modern American life fraught with contention and that it was important to make available plenty of high quality work on both sides of the argument. Why not commission or find another book on the other side? A book anatomizing the agnostic, liberal position?

“But, Jenny,” Richard pointed out, “that’s what Boris Udick does.”

“He’s hardly on the other side, Richard.”

“Well, I can’t publish all points of view. I publish what I believe in. To be honest, I have a hard time believing there really is any other side.”

Jenny raised her eyebrows and looked around the table.

Richard was so surprised to find himself arguing publicly with his own assistant that he pulled back, considering. She has a plan, he told himself, to get us out of this meeting without having our book shot down.

“Okay, okay,” he mumbled. “Let’s do it your way.” He agreed to bring the book back for further discussion when he had a pair for it. He had other things on his mind. Bacon has a lot of sodium in it, he thought, and preservatives. And it’s fattening.

When he got back to his desk, Richard phoned Alice’s mother.

“Do you know how Alice made macaroni and cheese?”

“Oh, gosh, I’m afraid I really don’t.” said Mrs. Thompson. “I never cook things like that. It’s not much of a challenge, for the diners or the cook. Can’t you just pick up something like that in the freezer section? Stouffer’s? I could get it for you and drop it off?”

“It’s for Tom.”

“It’ll be in Fanny Farmer, you know. Or Joy of Cooking. I’d try one of those really basic cookbooks.”

“Did Alice use those?”

“Everyone uses those when they first get married.”

“I mean, does she have them—at the house?”

“They’d be in the kitchen,” said Mrs. Thompson. Then, with an it’s-dawning-on-me tone of voice, “Where are you?”

“I’m in New York, at the office.”

“And calling me about macaroni and cheese?” she hooted. “I hope your colleagues will consider it time well spent.”

“Maybe I should pick up those books while I’m here in the City?”

“I’m sure you don’t need to.”

Richard didn’t want to arrive home and not be able to lay his hands on the cook books. Where would he go to buy them on the Main Line?

“I’ve got a meeting,” he said. “Can you tell those titles to my assistant?”

“I’d be glad to.”

“I really appreciate it. I’m going to transfer you.”

Jenny bought the cookbooks while she was out for lunch. By the time she got back, the jacket design meeting for the George Washington biography was over.

“The designers are nearly there,” Richard assured her, joining her at her desk while she took off her coat. “I’ve told them it has to have a more contemporary feeling. It can’t be just another one of these enigmatic portraits with the powdered hair and the staring blue eyes. His face is too calm, too expressionless.”

Jenny pushed back in her uppity-sidekick tone. “Maybe that’s why he was such a success? How he handled all those passionate personalities around him. By being imperturbable?”

Richard took her on, rubbing his hands together with gusto. “We’re looking at the equestrian portrait again. It has energy—the strong, risk-taking military commander. And somewhere inside the commander, the glory-hungry boy who got four bullet holes in his coat and had two horses shot out from under him in the French and Indian Wars.”

She continued sceptical, and a little sour. “You think that’ll make a better contrast with this other book, by the woman who discovered the bundle of letters between Martha and George? Apparently she’s got all these new insights on the domestic side.”

Richard felt himself rise to it unequivocally. “What’s that all about, anyhow? I thought Martha burned all their letters?”

“Yup—all but two or three. But these half dozen turned up in an old sewing box at an estate sale in Virginia. Supposedly authentic. Now we get to find out just how much of a handful Martha really was.”

“Oh, honestly, Jenny.” Richard was incredulous.

“Well, she burned the evidence. Why else?”

Richard laughed. “I’ll continue to picture the quiet, loyal, home-loving wife. The perfect contrast to Abigail Adams.”

Jenny looked nonplussed. “The author is coming in tomorrow,” she said. She leaned towards her calendar, tracing dates with a finger tip. “I know he wants to see the jacket. And we need to move on this for the catalogue now there’s competition out there. We really need to sell ours ahead.”

“The author will have to wait. I won’t even be here tomorrow.”

“Did you explain to him about the copy editing?”

“Aa-gh. I’ll do it now,” said Richard. He started for his office, then spun around and said curtly, “Remind me what the problem is?”

Jenny breathed out heavily. Then she offered a faint, forgiving smile. “The copy editor made a lot of changes to the manuscript, and also corrections. I mean of historical fact: dates, spellings of names. The mistakes are a little worrying, Richard—about the whole book, I mean. I know that celebrity names sell books, and yeah, it’s stylish and has narrative drive, but he wrote it so fast.”

Richard was listening for her vaudeville voice, but he wasn’t sure he could hear it, so he answered her a little crisply, a little bluntly. “It’s his name on the book, Jenny, not yours.”

She tipped her head, acknowledging it. “I just don’t want another Laetitia Barlow situation.”

“Laetitia?”

“How she got so mistrustful of everyone? And would only talk to you?”

Richard turned a little red. “Trust me. This is not going to be in any way like Laetitia Barlow,” he said firmly.

Laetitia’s launch was at The Modern Café at the Museum of Modern Art, just a few blocks from Richard’s office in Midtown. He saw photographers outside as he approached along 53rd Street. The wind tore at his raincoat and his hair; his briefcase, fat with cookbooks, banged against his leg. He slipped in behind the brown steel uprights along the entryway and walked close to the plate glass window with his face turned to study the huge pop-art canvas inside until he could get through the door.

There were more photographers inside. Their lights fizzed and sucked as Laetitia threw herself at Richard, lips first, a perfumed wraith in a faux-blond wavy do; a bright red, tightly fitting wool suit; high red patent heels; and lipstick and nails to match. Richard fended her off with his left arm.

“Let me check my briefcase,” he said apologetically.

“God, that briefcase makes me jealous. One book is never enough for you. Obviously I’m going to have to write lots more!” gushed Laetitia. “You have such a hungry brain.”

She tailed him through the luminous, curving hallway to the check room, leaning in on him as he handed over the briefcase and his raincoat.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispered, smiling enormously at the coat check girl, then taking possession of Richard’s arm as soon as it was free.

“I’m sorry, Laetitia.” He turned a little toward her and looked into her blue eyes; the papery lids were perfectly outlined in black and smudged with silvery blue powder. Their unexpected softness appealed to him. “Obviously, there was nothing I could do. I’m really sorry.”

She squeezed his arm. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Tonight’s the night. Afterwards, I’ll spirit you away to my place.”

“I have to get back, Laetitia. I’m really needed now at home.”

She pouted at him campily, her mouth girlish and her eyes pleading. “Can we maybe just play it by ear?” Then as they walked toward the party, she said in a businesslike tone, “What time for our speeches? 7:15 or 7:30?”

Oh, god, thought Richard. Speeches. “Let’s watch the crowd,” he replied smoothly. “Once the room gets too full, people always start to leave. So—we need to catch them before they do.”

“This room won’t get too full,” said Laetitia. “Don’t worry about that!”

“What did you do? Rent the whole café?”

Laetitia waved a pale, dismissive hand. “I didn’t want that stale little cul de sac in the back. It’s like a conference center. And you see complete strangers milling around in the sculpture garden because the museum stays open late on Thursdays. Nothing but a little plate glass between us and them.”

Richard was impressed. He admired the sky-scraping tropical flower arrangements; the endless arc of the grey marble bar, lustrous with bottles, glasses, mirror, elbow grease; the tables running the length of the long room until they were end stopped by the enormous leafy photograph across the whole west wall of the café. Laetitia certainly knew how to create a big effect.

She smiled up into his face. “So what are you going to say about me? I hope nothing indiscreet?”

This playful foray was a little too much for Richard, but before he could reply, they were greeted by Larry Gelb, stocky and hairy with swinging gorilla arms and rubbery, spittle-spraying lips. “I always knew you were a real pro, Richard. Already back at the rock face. Good man! What an unexpected pleasure to see you here.” Then, beaming at Laetitia, “Doesn’t my client look marvellous, Richard? She’d cheer up anyone.”

Larry took both Laetitia’s fragile hands in his, waist high, and pulled her towards him as if they were going to jitterbug; then he smooched at her, wetly, close to her mouth, and pushed her away again still holding her hands, looking her up and down. “This look would sell anything, my dear.”

“Red, Larry; red is the color that sells. It’s Chanel. The most wonderful fabric.” She stroked the little pockets where they fit closely above her slim hips. “And all these details. Nobody does this kind of work—”

Larry turned to Richard and spoke in a confidential tone, “I took back our submission, by the way. I talked to Jenny. My timing could not have been worse! You’ll have to forgive me. Let’s give it six weeks, two or three months? I’ll come back to you. I’m sorry about your wife.”

Richard blinked.

“Kids okay?” Larry went on.

“It’s hard,” said Richard loudly, wanting Laetitia to understand. “The older ones are grown. They’re on their own. I think they’re basically okay, but I don’t see enough of them to know how they really feel day to day. The young one is—well, so far he seems determined to grow up overnight. I’m trying to figure out how to reassure him that’s not necessary.”

“It’s a big change for him. For you, too.”

“Huge.”

“What are you two talking about?” demanded Laetitia. “What big change? You took my new book back, Larry?”

Richard had a little sensation of shock. Laetitia didn’t know. There was a silence. “My wife—Alice—” He couldn’t tell her.

Larry took over gravely, like a newscaster reporting an assassination. “There was a car accident, Laetitia. Richard’s wife was—killed.” He put his huge hand on Richard’s forearm, “Two weeks ago?”

Richard dropped his head and stared at their faintly glowing reflections in the dark pool of the floor. This news didn’t belong here in the chattering, greedy crowd. He never brought his family life to New York. Alice and the boys were another world for him. A tear dropped on his sleeve. He was too slow to stop it.

“I wasn’t told,” announced Laetitia.

“I thought the message got out to everyone through the office,” Richard said quietly. “It wasn’t kept from you.”

“I don’t talk to your office, do I?” she said hotly. “I talk to you. And you never took my calls.”

“I just couldn’t keep up with my cell phone,” Richard explained. “I—I was—overwhelmed—”

Larry broke in, “Let’s get a drink, Laetitia. It’s a shame to find this out tonight, but don’t let it spoil your evening.” He pulled her away. She stumbled slightly in her high red heels, turning an ankle over, wincing, then struggling off without another look at Richard.

By the time he got back on the train, Richard was exhausted, and he felt a new kind of sorrow. His affair with Laetitia had preoccupied him for months, but since Alice’s accident, he hadn’t wanted to think about Laetitia at all. Tonight, the relationship seemed repulsive.

He sat hunched in the brightly lit train, his briefcase filling his lap. He was too tired to put it in the overhead rack or even on the floor under his feet. The dark roared past outside the shiny windows.

Larry says Laetitia ought to cheer up anyone. Just looking at her. And I could really use some cheering up, thought Richard. But she’s an affront to my family. To Alice.

Then he thought, It’s my fault. Everything looks completely different to me now. Laetitia had absolutely no idea.

Of course she’s focused on her success, on having fun. Of course she’s angry. She acts tough, but there’s a sensitive soul in there, because I’ve seen it. And she’s worked incredibly hard. Tonight, I made her appear self-absorbed to the point of childishness—in front of Larry.

She’ll probably go home with Larry and sleep with him. And I deserve it.

He sat pondering. Why didn’t I phone her and tell her what had happened? She always makes a point of poise and good manners, and at the very least I’ve been incredibly rude.

Our love affair was chic from beginning to end; the rumpled intellectual and the skilled maîtresse. It was a done thing—the done thing.

Beginning to end. Was it the end? She kept things lively, he thought. I counted on that. I used to look forward to work, knowing I’d see her.

He pictured himself twined in the arms of various time-consuming professional women over the years. As long as Alice was content at home with the boys, it didn’t seem to matter if he had these little intrigues at work. They were never part of my real life, he reflected. They were part of work, part of the New York world I left behind when I boarded this train.

He had gotten in the habit of feeling fine about it, spotting a girl at party and deciding he would miss his train, lunching with an author and agreeing to meet again for drinks in the evening. Surely it made no difference to Alice? She never knew about any of it.

But Alice’s death made Richard feel ashamed of Laetitia. And of all the others, too. I always meant to spend more time at home. Work was so demanding, so all-absorbing.

He felt hot and distressed. Real life and work; it was a terrible collision of two worlds, like Alice and the tree.

Work and women. Where was the line between them? The compartments in Richard’s complicated life were collapsing into one another. The distinctions seemed fake, made-up. I devised them to suit myself, he thought.

But work is important to me. His discomfort increased. Work should have remained clear of emotional tangles. The integrity of the intellect, the rigor, the years of conviction and seeking after truth now seemed soiled.

He silently argued the case for the defense. I’m good at publishing, and I’m successful. It’s an exacting profession. No amount of time spent on any book is ever enough. Especially with non-fiction where you have the responsibility to be accurate. To be right.

He had been saying such things for years, to everyone at home when he left, and again when he was late returning. No amount of time spent on any book is ever enough.

He tried to see the dark landscape rushing by outside the glass. But his own reflection stared back at him. There was no penetrating it. And the past was the same. He couldn’t reach it now; he couldn’t change it.

_______________________

Excerpted from +1, by Katherine Bucknell, with permission from Odyssey Editions.

Fiona Maazel is the guest. Her new novel, Woke Up Lonely, is now available from Graywolf Press.

Get the free official app. Subscribe for free at iTunes.

Baltimore-born Elisabeth Dahl has published short fiction, essays, and poetry but scored her debut novel,

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed Genie Wishes. The book has a modern, yet timeless feel, and I found myself wanting to be in the fifth grade again. You mentioned in another interview that you think of Genie Wishes as a breakup book—a breakup that is typical of girls around the fifth grade, when cliques begin to solidify. Did you experience a similar breakup during that time of your life? What was the hardest breakup you’ve gone through with another girl or woman?

Yeah. Like long division, dioramas, and lice, cliques are just a fact of elementary school—the upper grades, at least. I had a single best friend through those years, but the social storms that swept our class left other people marooned. So while Genie’s experience doesn’t match my own, it draws on what I observed back then.

My first major friendship breakup didn’t happen until my early twenties, and it happened because of my own shortcomings. I wasn’t a schoolgirl anymore; I had a job and a boyfriend, and I lived on a different coast from this friend. Even though the loss of this once-primary relationship wasn’t reflected in my day-to-day activities (it’s not like I had to find a new lunch table or cross her name off my binder), it left a hole in me. I felt responsible for the damage I’d caused. Beyond that, I missed her.

A few years later, we began to repair the damage. Now we’re close friends again. The hole has healed, and I’m much the better for it.

Genie, when faced with no longer being best friends with Sarah, acts with great maturity and calm. Surprisingly so, for a fifth grader. In fact, I was expecting Genie’s mother (who, in the book, passed away the year before) to play a larger role in Genie’s feelings about loss. Yet, Genie handles the situation so well, and her mother hardly factors into the emotions she experiences as her friendship with Sarah slowly unravels over the school year.

Was this composure a conscious decision? I found it odd at first, but then as I continued reading, I remembered also being less reflective at Genie’s age and living more moment to moment, from my birthday to summer vacation to the Fourth of July, etc.  I wonder if that is your experience as well.

It’s interesting that you ask about this. Originally, the book had a huge subplot involving the mother, who had bipolar disorder and had left the family and moved west many years earlier. Abrams was interested in the book generally, but they felt like this subplot detracted from what they considered to be the book’s strength, which was its portrayal of school life and friendship. So I gave Genie a mother who’d been dead long enough (and from a relatively uncomplicated cause—a car accident) that Genie’s grief would no longer be fresh. So in the end, it’s almost like she misses the idea of her mother more than her actual mother. You still see her processing her old grief sometimes, like when she discusses the “little mom shrine” in her room, or when she fixates on other people’s mothers and their attributes (highlighted hair, buttery leather gloves). But the early loss of her mother also gave Genie a bit of fatalism—or at least the sense that change is an inevitable part of life. Maybe that helps explain why losing her best friend isn’t as traumatic for her as it might have been for another girl?

Yeah, generally I think children—boys especially, but girls too—just aren’t built to reflect in the same way that adults do. They experience life in discrete units of time, just as you’re saying—from, say, Ice Cream Wednesday to Ice Cream Wednesday. But eventually time-markers like graduations come along, and these prompt greater reflection. When all the adults in your life are pointing out milestones in your life and asking you bigger questions, you do start to pay attention. You see this happen for Genie at the end of the book, around the elementary school graduation. That final chapter—first with the reflective conversation in the car with her dad while driving to the graduation party, and then with the cog design she sees and considers in relation to the passage of time—marks her graduation to being a more consciously reflective individual.

That’s an interesting comment about the book’s initial scope and the direction that Abrams wanted to take it. It’s so interesting in my own work to see a book evolve or change through the first and second—second and third drafts, so when I’m reading, I’m always wondering how a book started for a writer, and where it wound up. Was it hard to let go of the subplot, the kill your babies aspect of writing?

I feel the same way, Jen—I always want to know how books evolved from first draft to bound version, because if the work is done well, the editorial stitchery doesn’t show. If editorial feedback—from either my agent or my editor—feels sound, I’m more than happy to revise. Since, like you, I do freelance editorial work myself, I know firsthand that an editor can often see a text’s ideal final form more clearly than an author can. Besides, as the great and wise George Saunders pointed out at Baltimore’s CityLit Festival this month, excised text doesn’t have to be dead text; sometimes it gains new life as a spinoff project.

You are raising a son—so was it difficult writing from the perspective of modern a fifth-grade girl? Do you think boys and girls go through the same issues of belonging and identity at the same time, or did you have a different experience than that of Genie Wishes when your son went through the fifth grade?

It wasn’t that difficult. When I wrote the book, my son was Genie’s age, and of course I was spending lots of time with not just him but his classmates and their siblings. You can learn a lot in those everyday moments—waiting in carpool lines, getting snacks at the pool, picking out birthday presents, and so on. I quickly realized that, although the world has changed since you and I were kids, the emotional truths of growing up and being a fifth-grader, girl or boy, really haven’t.

Although Genie shares some of my son’s calmness in the face of change, in creating her story I drew more on my own experience as a fifth grader than on my son’s. I do think boys and girls, in general, experience growing up a bit differently. For instance, friendship is just a much bigger thing for girls, more tightly bound to issues of identity and belonging.

I must confess—I still read a lot of MG and young adult (YA) novels! Why do you think they’re so appealing to adults, and what do you think adult readers can take away from Genie Wishes?

I suspect that reading them gives adult readers a two-pronged escape. There’s the usual escape that can come with reading fiction—that propulsion into a new and different world. But adults reading YA may be getting a bonus flight as well: a flight from adulthood. I don’t know about you, but I was a very different reader as a child. I read more deeply and widely and far less critically. Maybe adults sometimes long for the readers, and people, they used to be?

Anyhow, there’s some really great MG and YA being written today. For instance, Rebecca Stead’s Newbery-winning When You Reach Me (2009) is one of the best books I’ve ever read, YA or not.

Until I started Genie Wishes, I’d written only for adults. This was my first attempt at writing for a younger audience. And the book is definitely for them, first and foremost. But I’m gratified that the adults who’ve read the book have found things in it to like as well. I’ve had adults tell me that reading Genie Wishes made them feel like a fifth grader again, in both joyful and paper-cut-painful ways.

Are there favorite books from your formative years that you used for guidance when writing Genie Wishes?

I remember reading everything from stories about poltergeists to nonfiction books about science. But one book really stood out for me: Judy Blume’s classic Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. I must have read that book fifteen times. Its direct, confessional style spoke to me in a way that other books—and people—hadn’t. I didn’t consciously think about Margaret as I wrote about Genie, but now that the book is finished, I can see that Margaret’s voice very much influenced Genie’s.

So you’ve written both MG and literary fiction; in fact, I’ve heard you read from your wonderful novel that’s on submission, and you show such range (and ease) in transitioning between the two. So how do you approach a MG or YA book as opposed to literary fiction? Is one more difficult than the other, or are they difficult in different ways?

No matter what I’m writing, my strengths and weaknesses remain the same. I’m always fairly confident about character and voice but rather miserably challenged by plot. But yeah, there are differences too. Writing for younger readers feels more playful than writing literary fiction, partly because readers are more accepting and slower to judge. And there’s not quite the same concern about a shrinking marketplace, the way there is with literary fiction. But writing for younger audiences necessarily restricts you; some topics and styles are essentially off-limits. With literary fiction, you can take on almost anything in almost any way you’d like—as long as you can make it work. (Aye, there’s the rub.)

What’s the best advice you can give to a writer who may be interested in branching out to the MG or YA genre?

To try it! (I suppose that’s more encouragement than advice, but I’ll stand by it.)

The community of YA publishers and writers is supportive and growing, with new imprints popping up regularly. There’s room for more of us in the YA world. And young readers are some of the most appreciative readers you’ll ever encounter.

A final technical note: Publishers, booksellers, and agents these days use YA to refer to books for ages 12 and up (roughly) and MG (middle grade) to refer to books for roughly ages 8 to 12 (that’s what Genie Wishes is). The terminology isn’t important until you start querying; take it from me, who learned the hard way.

Thanks so much for the interview, Jen!

_____________________

 You can learn more about Elisabeth Dahl and Genie Wishes here.

The downstairs clock chimed her back into the present, and the fantasy of such a contract, along with the new instruments it would inevitably supply, vanished like a cloud of celestial dust. Sticky with unease, Hannah went to the garret door, opened it, and listened. The house hummed with silence. Her father had either gone to sleep or gone out.

She rummaged around the desk for the quill and inkpot, then scribbled a hasty note on the back of a yellowed bill of sale: Mr. Martin: Come up to the walk. When she’d posted it on the door downstairs, she climbed back up three steps at a time, as if she were being chased, and tried to pick up observing where she’d left off. But the cloud cover had thickened into fog. The nebula— if that’s indeed what it was— had disappeared.

Hannah stayed next to the telescope for more than an hour, checking periodically like a mother with a feverish child, but the stars and everything else in the firmament ticked by invisibly. There was barely any wind, nothing to suggest an imminent change in the weather. A film of despair began to settle in her, lightly, like an illness just taking hold, as she contemplated her father’s decision. There was nothing she could do to alter it, short of attaching herself permanently to a male— any male— who would contract to marry her.

The idea that she had always been powerless over her own future, but not realized it, was excruciating. She’d been propelled toward mastery— over her emotions, over her equations, of the biggest and most minute parts of the Universe— for her entire life. Dr. Hall had demanded rigor, his teaching method requiring total expertise on one level before advancement to the next. Fractions came before geometry; simple maths before logarithms and algebraic equations. Until tonight, she thought she’d understood the rules that governed her life as well: work hard, sweep the skies, seek a contribution. Be rewarded. How could she have made so great a miscalculation?

Grinding her teeth, Hannah peered through the telescope again, desperate for something else to focus on. This time she didn’t hear the door to the walk open or close. When she heard Isaac’s deep voice at close range, she gasped, clapping her hand to her chest while trying to catch her breath.

“I’m sorry to be frightening you.”

“It’s fine,” she muttered, embarrassed by her display. She smoothed her skirts and squinted at the telescope. “What did you say?”

“I have inquire what you look for? You seem to await.”

“I look for changes. New things in the night sky.” She steadied herself and glanced in his direction. He wore loose pants and a shirt under a woolen jumper and cap, and the same scarf wound about his neck. Hannah shook her head.

“You’re underdressed,” she said. “Take the coat from the peg just inside the door.”

He obeyed without comment, moving across the walk at his usual pace. A boatsteerer might move faster, she thought. The speed of the hunt, the small boats rocketing over the grey sea, the whiz of the reeling line: without a swift hand he should have failed or been maimed long ago, not advanced to his current place. Yet everything took him three times as long as it ought.

He returned, coat buttoned up to the chin. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you look for this?”

“For knowledge,” Hannah answered. Was it not obvious? When he said nothing, she added, “The pursuit of knowledge is the highest calling.”

“Knowledge?” he repeated, as dubious as if she’d said there were little men winging about on the moon. His doubt— on top of her father’s, on top of everyone’s— was infuriating.

“Yes. What about it, then?” she snapped. As he stood there like a giant puppet, she wondered if the entire enterprise was a waste of time. Maybe there was merit to the claims that his race was inherently lazy, incapable of industry or intellectual achievement. She hadn’t ever thought it so, but then, she’d never really known any of them, had she?

He shrugged.

“It does not change . . .” He paused, fishing for the next word. “. . . certain things.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.” She glared at the telescope, hoping he couldn’t read her thoughts.

“How men are.”

She tried to parse his meaning from the thin sentence.

____________

AMY BRILL is a writer and producer who has worked for PBS and MTV, and has been awarded fellowships by the Edward F. Albee Foundation, the Millay Colony, and the American Antiquarian Society, among others. She lives in Brooklyn. In 1996, Brill took a trip to Nantucket and saw the girlhood home of astronomer Maria Mitchell, which planted the seed for what became her debut novel, The Movement of Stars.

Adapted from The Movement of Stars: A Novel, by Amy Brill. Copyright © 2013 by Amy Brill. With the permission of the publisher, Riverhead.

I was arrested on April Fool’s Day, 2001, for OVWI, “operating a vehicle while intoxicated.” I crashed my jeep into a chain-link fence and a tree, narrowly missing a telephone pole, while coming home from downtown Indianapolis. It was cold and wet outside and the tires didn’t grip. For a long time after the crash, I put the blame on the weather. The reality is that I was drunk, I was driving too fast, missed a turn and blacked out, but the car kept going. I woke up to a face full of airbag.  Opened the door.  Fell out.  Landed on the wet grass. My nose hurt from the impact, and the air stank of sulfur from the deflated airbag. I was twenty-two years old, drunk and depressed, sitting on the wet ground sometime after 3 a.m. I would’ve run away from the scene, but I could hardly walk.

I had been living life lucky. Every night drinking to excess. Trying to start the car, my foot slipping off the clutch like it was a wet bar of soap.  Taking the “right” way home, the one that made me least likely to run into a cruiser out on patrol. I was in my early twenties and already my hands would start to shake if I went too long in between drinks.

***

Some days I had lunch with Nancy, a skinny little white woman in her late thirties. She was covered in tattoos, a recovering alcoholic who worked the steps to stay clean. Attended meetings at least twice a week, sometimes more. If she was having a bad day, she would order a double shot of Jack, lift the glass up to her nose and inhale deeply. Then she would slide the whiskey over to me. Nancy said she liked to watch me drink, that I drank the way she used to drink.

Nancy never told me that I might have a problem. She understood that I was in a place where it didn’t matter what anyone said. She knew that I would have to hit myself with a hammer over and over again until I finally cracked, broke into tiny pieces.

One day she asked if I wanted to come see her boyfriend’s band play. “Derek plays trumpet and bongos,” she said.  “Tall, black, and bald.  Beautiful, talented, and stupid.”

Derek was close to forty. He had been a stand-up comic, a chef, a struggling actor. He’d played in a number of bands and was trying to “make it work” with this latest one. The last group he’d played with had just begun to taste success, and then he’d gotten arrested.  The band broke up; the other members, fed up.

After a few drinks, Derek and I were like old friends, telling jokes, slapping hands. And when Nancy left, Derek said that he had some blow in his pocket. He was going outside to toot-up before the show. Did I want to come along, do a couple bumps? Of course I did. Once I got to a certain point, with the booze flowing through my system, I’d do anything to keep myself in a constant state of oblivion.

Derek confided that he shouldn’t even be drinking. He’d been arrested for “moving some weight,” transporting a load of coke from one end of town to the other—doing a favor for a buddy, he said. He’d been cruising north on Meridian Street, coming from the South Side, headed past downtown. Going through the city would be safer, he thought.  He’d be less likely to speed or forget where he was or what he was doing. Going this way would force him to pay attention. I understood this perfectly. I thought of how many times I had plotted my route home in much the same manner and then began thinking of the best way home for that night—the one with the fewest cops, the least amount of traffic.

Derek had been arrested just short of Washington Street. Everything had been going fine, music on the stereo, window down, and then this cop lit him up and ordered him to pull the fuck over.  Inhale.  In Derek’s addled mind it was just a routine traffic stop, maybe a case of racial profiling. “Sir,” the cop said, “step out of the car and let me see your hands the whole time.” The cop’s hand was on the butt of his gun, ready to draw.  Derek didn’t see what was truly going on until he rose from the driver’s seat and lifted his head and focused and saw all the other squad cars and plain-clothed police officers standing there, hands-on-weapons, ready for whatever came next. “Sir, we’re going to have to search the vehicle.”

“I knew I was fucked,” Derek told me. “You don’t need that much firepower for no busted-out taillight.”

Set up, man—is what he said.  The cat he was moving all that blow for had turned snitch. Gave him up to the police to save his own ass.  It had all been planned from the beginning; the cops had been on him ever since he’d left the house. Never had a chance.

I didn’t know if any of what he was telling me was true.  Maybe he was lying.  Maybe not.  I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now.  Derek told me he had enough coke in the trunk for a maximum ten-year stint in prison, but the judge and prosecutor agreed to a seven-year sentence—one year served, six suspended.  He’d cut a deal, rolled over on some friends—saved himself.  After he got out he went to live in a halfway house. Nancy was trying to keep him sober, going with him to NA meetings, making sure he made it back and forth to his job as a line cook at P.F. Chang’s. He was looking at six years if he violated parole, if his urine tests came back positive.

Still, there we were, hiding in the shadows of a dumpster before Derek’s show started, snorting little piles of cocaine from the palms of our hands, filling up one nostril until it wouldn’t hold anymore, then switching to the other. We kept on sniffing until everything turned hard and bright and we kept on talking, talking, faster and faster.

“You can’t tell Nancy about this, dude,” Derek said. “She finds out, she’ll drop my ass.”

I wasn’t going to tell Nancy anything. I just wanted another line.

“You know what you call a musician without a girlfriend?” he asked. “Homeless.”

Back inside, I drank. I bought drinks, had drinks bought for me. I kept drinking because one more drink was not going to be enough. I was watching and listening to Derek’s band, an all-black quartet—a fusion of jazz, soul, funk, and blues. And my face was the only white face in the crowd that had now risen and moved closer to the stage, to the band, to the music. So close that we could feel the thump of the bongo drums hit us in the chest; the trumpet was a woman’s low whistle in our ears; and when the double bass was plucked it started a vibration in our ankles that ran straight up the insides of our thighs.

And we danced.  All of us.  Faces sweaty. And some of the women took turns in cupping their hands around my hips, No, baby, let me show you. Like this. I let them direct me, move me to the beat we heard and the beat that only they heard.  Mmm hmm, that’s it. Just like that.

There came a point that night when I knew it couldn’t get any better, I couldn’t feel any better than I did right then. So I left. Waved a good-bye to Derek as his cheeks puffed out, hitting some shrill note on his trumpet. I waved to some of the women I had been dancing with, too. “Bye-bye, baby,” they said, and kept on moving, bodies rolling to the beat. Then I got in my car and started the drive home.

***

Memory disconnects itself. I don’t remember much of the trip. What I remember is this: being a block away from home, listening to the radio, and turning up the volume.  The music is fast, makes me want to drive fast. I speed up, pop the clutch and shift from third to fourth, hit the gas and go; too fast and I can’t turn.

According to the probable cause affidavit, typed-out by one Deputy Kurt Koster, I immediately gave myself up. “Go ahead and arrest me,” I said. “Just do me a favor and take me to jail. I was speeding, and I’ve had too much to drive.” I corrected myself:  “I’ve had too much to drink.”

In his report, the deputy swore and affirmed under the penalties of perjury that he observed “a strong odor of alcoholic beverage on [my] breath and person.” And that “[my] speech was slurred and [I] mixed [my] words up.”

While the deputy went to his cruiser, I staggered, fell, got back up and swayed on my feet. I refused to walk a straight line, to touch my nose with the tips of my fingers, to recite the alphabet backwards while standing on one foot. I knew I was going to jail and saw no reason to cooperate. A cop friend had once told me that if I ever got pulled over driving drunk I should refuse all tests. He told me that it would be easier at sentencing to bargain, to get a better deal. Maybe he saw this day coming, saw something in me that I couldn’t see myself.

The deputy informed me that I would be placed under arrest immediately, and that my driving privileges could be suspended for up to a year.  I didn’t care.

He gave up and placed me under arrest. He called into the walkie-talkie attached to his lapel, said he needed a wagon to transport me to the Marion County lock-up. The inside of the paddy wagon was like a giant ventilation shaft—all slick, shiny metal—and smelling of piss and vomit.

***

It wasn’t long after the crash that I was back on a bar stool. After spending a couple of days in jail, I’d found myself in front of a judge pleading guilty to a drunk driving charge. I got a year of probation, was ordered to go through a rehab program—something like AA, a program with steps to follow, a program whose steps I ignored. I couldn’t stay off the booze.  Or didn’t want to.

It was near-empty in the bar, the only sound coming from two men playing pool. The clack of the balls, the thud when they hit the faded green rails. The loser yelling “Fuck!”  Quarters sliding into the tray and the balls, once released, rolling toward the end of the table at the start of another game.

I sat there and watched one man lose to another man over and over again. I watched how the loser wouldn’t give up, wouldn’t quit. He just kept trying, saying that this time, this time he wasn’t going to miss that shot, wasn’t going to leave an opening.

This time.

Shortly after the crash, Nancy had told me that Derek had had a “dirty drop”—one of his drug tests had come back positive. “There’s a good chance he’s going back to prison,” she said. All of that talent and apparent drive. The energy and pleasure he found in playing music. Maybe it wasn’t enough. Maybe it had never been enough. Maybe everything he’d told himself about his hopes and dreams had always been a lie. Didn’t really matter. He’d smashed it all underfoot and staggered away.

I thought about Derek and I thought about how I would have to be more careful now. After the OVWI I would have to pick a better route home. My arrest?  It was just a blip, nothing more than a freak accident.  This was what went through my head as I watched the loser of the pool games insist upon rematch after rematch. I wasn’t like Derek at all.  I could continue doing what I was doing. I would simply do it smarter.  I was better than that.  I was telling myself whatever I thought I needed to hear so that I could order one more drink. And when I was convinced, I ordered one more after one more. After one more.

I would win.

Jane is very strict about what goes into our boys’ bodies, and they are equally strict about what goes into mine: If I get it, they want it, too. Like father, like sons. Fair enough. Except, their mother is my wife. And my wife controls food the way other men’s wives control sex: I don’t get enough.

To satisfy my hunger, I engage in illicit, secret, gustatory assignations with sundry food mistresses: delis on the corner, drive- through windows, and, this morning, gas stations, leaving my boys strapped in their child seats while I wolf bags of potato chips and Combos in the gas station bathrooms, then (after wiping the crumbs from my face) walk back to the car and feign sympathetic hunger. It worked for a few hours, until I started to feel nauseated by the cottonseed oil, and guilty I was eating while my own flesh and blood starved.

Now I am literally sick to my stomach, in addition to starving. (That’s why they’re called “empty calories.”)

So I’m looking through my finger- tent frame as I lean against the plate- glass window, and I see these words: local, organic, seasonal. The Holy Alternative Trinity! My answered prayer! Even the desserts are enlightened: “Sweetened with agave,” whatever that is. It’s the kind of food Jane feeds the family: whole foods for a whole lot of money; everything we’ve been looking for in lunch, since shortly after breakfast— when Jane and the boys picked me up at the Amtrak station and we embarked on our relaxing drive in the country.

Jane and I moved up from the city recently, and we don’t know the culinary landscape yet. So we’ve been getting to know it together, for the past three hours, driving to and away from every restaurant in a thirty- mile radius. All of which, it turns out, serve “mainstream” food that lots of mainstream people eat— seemingly quite happily, based on what my boys and I saw through various restaurant windows while we looked on from numerous restaurant parking lots and curbsides in hunger and envy.

Until now, when, peering into the “local, organic, seasonal” café, my persistence and patience pay off.

But then I see, written on top of the menu in the plate-glass window, right under “Hours of Operation,” that the only “local, organic, seasonal” café in a thirty- mile radius is “Closed.” Evidently local, organic, seasonal waiters take the afternoon off, versus mainstream waiters, who work all day, serving food to people who get to eat it.

To say that I am irritated by this discovery is like saying the Ancient Mariner was thirsty: Food, food everywhere, nor any a bite to eat. We’ve passed at least thirty restaurants this morning, every single one of them open— except this one. And yet I am as far from having satiated my hunger as someone in the western hemi sphere can get without starving.

But am I starving enough to get back in that car and try to find another acceptable restaurant, given the sound that awaits me: my two boys sitting in the backseat on either side of Jane, voraciously breast- feeding (they haven’t eaten since breakfast, either) while clasping hands like two little White Panthers at a Milk Power rally? Which they’ve been attending since they were born . . . four and six years ago.

Excerpted from Life in a Marital Institution: 20 Years of Monogamy in One Terrifying Memoir (04/13), by James Braly, with permission from St. Martin’s Press.

______________________

JAMES BRALY is the writer and performer of the Off Broadway monologue Life in a Marital Institution, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, sold-out 59E59 Theaters in New York City, and transferred to the Soho Playhouse, before going on a 14-city national tour. Reviewed as “gaspingly funny” (Variety), “never less than excellent” (The New York Times), and “a masterpiece of storytelling” (The List), the show has played over 200 performances. Optioned for television by Meredith Vieira Productions, James is currently writing the teleplay adaptation. His autobiographical stories have been broadcast nationally on This American Life, The Moth Radio Hour, Selected Shorts, NPR, and Marketplace, and his personal essays have appeared in The New York Times, Redbook, Afterbirth (St. Martin’s Press) and Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood (W.W. Norton). James has performed autobiographical stories at The Whitney Museum, Symphony Space, and The Moth, where he was featured on the TNT National Story Tour and is the first two-time winner of The Moth GrandSlam storytelling competition. His full-length monologue, The Monthly Nut, was workshopped at The Barrow Group Theatre in New York City and is currently in development. His full-length monologue, Asylum, commissioned by Dixon Place, is in development as a television series with Meredith Vieira Productions. In his other lives, James writes speeches for global business leaders and teaches autobiographical storytelling.

Certain films, whether they’re franchise fare like The Hunger Games or The Avengers, or indie tone poems like Tree of Life or Drive, insist on a visceral, almost inchoate, appreciation. Sure, you can talk about how camera angles frame the director’s ethical perspective, or explore how lighting choices illuminate character, but you’d be hamstringing yourself. When Katniss takes her sister’s place in the arena or Captain America sacrifices himself to save a world he doesn’t feel a part of; when volcanic eruptions symbolize a father’s rage, or a chord of 80’s techno-pop evokes a young man’s inability to feel, we watch our own aspirations and insecurities writ large on the silver screen.   

The Master is, for most people, not one of those films. Most people I’ve spoken to have little more than an intellectual appreciation for it, at best. Perhaps this is because audiences were expecting a less meditative (some might say meandering) follow-up to Paul Thomas Anderson’s gut-punching quasi-Biblical epic There Will Be Blood. They wanted thunder and got, instead, flashes of dry lightning that might startle, but never inspire awe. I watched the recently(ish)-released DVD with a friend a week ago and she said, “It’s pretty, but it lacks a pulse.”

But when I sat in the movie house dark—four times total—my skin lifted from my bones like the starchy tendrils of a starved plant rising up for a raindrop. I was a mess of chattering teeth and hot, twitching muscle. I’d seen my upbringing imposed on a silver screen—not for the first time, for sure—but unexpectedly.

Trauma is a gift that keeps on giving. The nightmares may subside, and sudden noises will no longer turn the heart into a hummingbird. Still, the trigger is always half-cocked, especially when we open ourselves to art: There is always some image or idea, some line of dialogue or the way it’s spoken, that brings us back to the battlefield, the backseat of that parked car, or the house we grew up in.

***

Like L. Ron Hubbard, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s titular character evinces an earthy yet erudite charisma that, upon closer look, is merely snake-oil sheen. And just like the author of Battlefield Earth, Hoffman’s Lancaster Dodd spins yarns of time-travel and alien invaders. There’s the eerily invasive questioning—Do your past failures bother you?  Do you linger at bus stations for pleasure?—that both cults use to break down their members (Dodd’s group The Cause calls it “processing”).  And yet The Master is so much more than a wry riff on Scientology; it burrows through the barbed insularity of the cult to dredge up some devastating insights into the nature of family.

Or a certain kind of family, at least; the kind of family who turns Thanksgiving dinner into a night of ulcers and broken noses; the kind of family that could bankrupt us in therapy bills or ensure a free stay in a padded cell. I lived in thrall of a father who’d take on the basso profundo of Zeus and King Arthur as he read their stories aloud; a father who could, in the same night, take off his belt over a spilled saltshaker.  So I understand the exquisite agony of awaiting the Supreme Leader’s final word.

Even the title of Dodd’s supposed masterwork, The Split Saber, (with its deliciously hubristic dedication “for the homo sapiens”) reflects the double-edged sharpness of living with—and trying to love—the people who can hurt you the most. I lived for the nights my father would read to me, even when I was too sore to curl into the crook of his arm. Though I had to inch wincingly up the pillow, I wouldn’t let him skip a single word. His rages (or, as my mother called them, “moods”) turned the air in any room, the air I breathed, into the air after a lightning strike. As she’d smooth ointment over my wounds, my mother cooed assurances that soon enough, I’d know when he was “having a bad day;” I’d become so attuned to his every smile and sigh that I’d know when it was safe to speak. He was everything he gave to me: the certainty of new clothes and food on the table, heat and a home. The world (at least as I knew it at ten years-old) spun along the tip of his finger.

Winning his favor—however fleeting (because it was fleeting)—was more validating than unconditional love could ever be. Dodd himself best describes this feeling during a boozy soliloquy about marriage; he equates joining a family with lassoing a dragon and forcing it to sit. “Next,” he crows, “we’re going to make it roll over and play dead.” Coming together isn’t about sharing a name or a laugh; it isn’t about celebrating blood bonds or milestones—it’s about jockeying for power. The camera closes in on Dodd’s newest follower, war-wrecked and perpetually soused Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) as his eyes brighten with the revelation of recognition: Even before he staggers upon Dodd’s (borrowed) yacht, he’s never known the warmth of family, only the heat of shrapnel and stinging fists.

Freddie comes to Dodd as a specter of a man; he’s a raw-boned jangle of nerves who’s tumbled through a hive of surrogate families: a school-aged sweetheart, his fellow sailors, and a group of migrant workers. None of them inspires the devotion—the swell of neurotic ferocity—he feels for Dodd. And Dodd, “The Master,” the father, the man with the upper hand, uses a serpent’s tongue to fork open Freddie’s chest and wrap around his heart. He woos Freddie with a brutal staccato of questions: Do you think God will save you?  Have you ever had sex with anyone in your family?  Freddie is leveled to tears, but his face, which has been frozen in a lopsided scowl, opens with an exquisite, nearly sensuous sorrow. This is the most attention anyone has ever paid to him.

Dodd calls Freddie an animal. He tells him that he’s the bravest boy he’s ever seen. Scorn and praise in a single sentiment: a fist to the face and a caress of the cheek. I have been a stupid bitch and a pretty girl in the course of a single night; they never cancelled each other out.

***

“You do this for a thousand years, or not at all.”

This line—delivered by Dodd’s chief co-conspirator, his wife Peggy (Amy Adams)—is the most chilling one in a film where one character admits to drunkenly fucking his own aunt (more than once), and another rhapsodizes about grown men committing suicide after reading The Master’s unpublished work. Part of what vests it with such terror is the tightly hinged insanity of Adams’ reading; her voice becomes a swarm of hornets inside a steel trap.

But the other part, the truly damning, devastating part of this line—which she says to Freddie as he mulls leaving The Cause for good—is its finality. A thousand years. Not at all. With us. Against us. That look in my mother’s eyes as she trundled me off to school every morning: Not one word. To anyone.

Though it may not have been the excoriation of Scientology that some viewers hoped for, The Master does show the arctic isolation of cult life. Freddie is first immersed in The Cause—with its talk of pre-birth trauma; its vow that “man is not an animal” operating on instinct alone; and its promise of reincarnation, countless tries to get it right—while at sea; there is no escape short of drowning.

My father’s father hit him, damn it, and he turned out okay. Better than okay. And unlike his father, my father didn’t even heat his belt buckles over gas flames. He only disciplined.

And I’d turn out okay. Better than okay. I was on the honor roll each quarter; I won a Maryland young artist award and my self-portrait hung in the Governor’s mansion; every college I applied to offered me at least a partial scholarship. And even if I wasn’t spurred by a zest for learning, or anything approaching my own ambition, even if I was propelled by that metallic taste that flooded my mouth whenever he slammed a door—weren’t these still real achievements, the sorts of things that would (in my father’s words) “take me places”?

My mother tittered over abuses she’d seen on Dateline: kids “in the system” burned with cigarettes; raped by a phalanx of different foster dads; cast out at eighteen with “no chance for anything.” And once I was out on my own, out of the state, in my own apartments—in the position to quite easily forget my parents forever—I still felt an odd (illogical) twinge of attachment to them. However gruesome their home had been, it still wasn’t “the system.”

The threat, the promise, in my mother’s words may not have been the roiling surf, but it was as dangerously deep.

***

Perhaps it’s a waste to devote so much thought to a movie that was released to mild acclaim (at best) almost a year ago. But every now and again, when I’m idling in an elevator or clasping the dog’s harness around her chest, I recall its opening image:  Freddie’s eyes, shadowed by his helmet, peer over the edge of his battleship. His eyes are haunted houses; burning sage and holding hands can’t cleanse the violence that lingers within. I recognized those eyes. I’ve avoided them in the mirror.

In the film’s final sequence, Dodd tries to hold on to Freddie, the acolyte about to alight from The Cause, by telling him about their previous incarnation as comrades in arms. He says that if Freddie leaves now, they will be born again as bitter enemies. A promise. A threat. A plea.

I think of “time holes” and reincarnation, and I wonder if I’ve burrowed too deeply into a time hole of my own, if, through the act of writing, I’ve condemned myself to cycle through the same experiences—never moving on, never ascending. The next life, the one with a family of my own, always eludes me. I relive, in new ways, but still over and over, my worst days, the moments that obliterate my ability to trust.

But perhaps this continual return to earth and all its unshakeable aches doesn’t condemn us to stasis. Each birth, each blank page, is a chance to know anew the same souls we’ve always traveled with. Sometimes, they are the fathers who beat us over spilled milk; sometimes they are our friends in the pigeon post. Sometimes, they demand nothing less than our unfailing devotion. Sometimes, they just read to us until we fall asleep.

I was mesmerized by this memoir, about a son reconstructing the life of his lost parent. Not least because Hainey’s prose is so gorgeous. Part Raymond Carver, part Raymond Chandler, with a little Nick Flynn thrown in. But also because of the similarity of our experiences. When I read this line, it made me finally feel understood: “For most of my life I have believed I was never going to outlive my father, that I would never make it to thirty-six. I believed his sentence was my sentence.”

Being a DFC member makes me the ideal reader, as well as the most exacting. I would be the first to notice if Hainey struck a false note. But he didn’t.

Thirty years after his father’s death, he sets out to discover what really happened. The story he has been told since kindergarten—that his father died on the street “after visiting friends” one night—doesn’t add up.  A deputy editor at GQ, he uses his considerable skills as a journalist and some street sense to ferret out the truth. He buys coffee for hospital clerks to charm his way into their favor and get them to pull his father’s old records. He befriends soul-saving, Gucci-glasses-wearing women at the morgue. He cold-calls strangers. And sometimes, he just hops on a plane, shows up, and knocks. Like his father, Hainey learned all the tricks for getting people to talk while working as a newspaperman.

Books about losing a loved one are oddly alluring. That’s part of why Joan Didion’s two haunting memoirs about the death of her husband and daughter have gripped our imaginations so fiercely. So has Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, a brilliant and more revealing book, about grieving for her mother while hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail. Even books about losing a parent to something other than death (such as Nick Flynn’s Another Bullshit Night in Suck City) can be a deep spiritual as well as literary experience.

Part of why we read is for recognition that we are not alone. That someone else has lived the same experience, has fought the same demons, entertained the same irrational thoughts. Dozens of times Hainey verbalizes my strange childhood fears and hopes. For example, “Part of what it means to lose a parent early: You never accept the truth that they are dead. . . In your head, you always believe that . . you will find them and all your questions will be answered.” Or this: “Ever since my father has died, I’ve obsessed about becoming an orphan.” After his mother redecorates their house, he is “convinced [his father] will return and, opening a door on a home he no longer recognizes, he will believe he is in the wrong house and he will leave us.” Hainey exquisitely captures here the magical thinking of a young child struggling to understand death.

The first half of the book reads like a street-smart, minimalist elegy to the irrational mind and memory of childhood. The second half is almost like a detective story. It takes considerable talent, which Hainey has in spades, to channel Kafka and gumshoe, Paul-Auster-style.

And like Didion and Flynn, Hainey would be worth reading no matter what he wrote about, just for the style. His ear for edgy, witty dialogue is perfect. His grandmother says, for instance: “Sex is like popcorn . . . once they get a taste, they want you to keep popping. Don’t be making popcorn until you’re married. Otherwise, they’ll stop buttering it.”

The narrative sections are even lovelier. Take this one: “Chicago. I am of that place. Spires loom. The sky, a soiled shroud. Even as a kid, I knew it was my Old Country.”

And this reads like a complete poem, doesn’t it? In two paragraphs, we get a whole milieu. An era. A way of life.

He throws them back with his pals. Carps about the bosses. Cracks wise about the day, what has gone down. Cigarette smoke in the air. Jukebox. Bullshitting. It goes on this way for an hour. Maybe two. Three drinks. Maybe four.

More of the same. More drinks. More gossip. More drinks. More laughs. Blow off steam. This is what they do. Newspapermen, after their shift.

Like a poet, Hainey loads objects with meaning. For example, his mother collects matchboxes even though she doesn’t smoke. His brother keeps them in coffee cans in his bedroom. “His collections, an exhibition of her life outside the house.”

When Hainey visits the place where his father died, we all feel the satisfaction of a circle closing. “It is our human need—to circle back to the stations of our sorrow.” And it’s also a primal desire, for readers, to follow authors who take us there.

DFC members don’t hold the copyright on parental mystery, of course. Hainey puts it succinctly: “Family? . . . Secrets? Sometimes I think they are the same thing.”

The secrecy in all our families is what makes Hainey’s story universal. So maybe I should have disclosed at the beginning, not that it’s my story, but that it’s ours. Anyone who’s been part of a family, which is to say all of us, can relate.

Your newest novel, The World Without You, takes place over a July 4^th holiday in the Berkshires.  The Frankel family is gathering at their country house for the memorial for Leo, the youngest child, who was a journalist killed in Iraq.  Is the book autobiographical?

I wasn’t killed in Iraq.

But you’re a journalist.

I’m a fiction writer.

The Frankels have three daughters.  Do you come from a family of girls?

I come from a family of boys.  I’m a boy.  My two brothers—they’re both boys.

And your parents?

My father’s a boy.

Your mother?

She’s a girl.

Did your family have a country house in the Berkshires?

We didn’t have a country house in the Berkshires or anywhere else.  I’m not a fan of country houses.  I’m not a fan of the country itself, for that matter.  I get bored there.

But July Fourth.

What about it?

You spent July 4^th in the Berkshires.

I did not.

What about July 4^th itself?  You’ve celebrated it somewhere.

I have.

So the book’s autobiographical.

Absolutely.  A hundred percent.

Where do you like to write?

Where I don’t know the Internet password.

Did you always want to be a writer?

I always wanted to be a writer, but then I also always wanted to be a basketball player.  At some point you realize you’re neither good enough nor tall enough.

How tall are you?

Five-foot-eleven.

How good are you?

I was captain of my high school basketball team.

So you’re good.

I went to a small Jewish private school, with eighty-one students in my graduating class.  There’s an old rabbinic saying: It’s better to be the tail of the lions than the head of the foxes.  Being the captain of my high school basketball team was being the head of the foxes.  It was being the head of the mice.

What’s the single thing you most dislike hearing from your readers?

“I loved your book and I lent it to my forty closest friends.”

What’s the second thing you most dislike hearing?

“I wish I were a writer.  If only I could find the time.”

What do you say to that?

Generally, the person who says those words is a brain surgeon.  I tell them, “I wish I could do brain surgery.  If only I could find the time.”

Have you done brain surgery?

I’m working on it.

So you’re trying to find the time.

I am.

________

JOSHUA HENKIN is the author of the novels Matrimony, a New York Times Notable Book, and Swimming Across the Hudson, a Los Angeles Times Notable Book. His most recent novel, The World Without You, has just been released in paperback from Vintage.  It has been named an Editors’ Choice Book by The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune and is the winner of the 2012 Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish American Fiction and a Finalist for the 2012 National Jewish Book Award.  He lives in Brooklyn and directs the MFA program in Fiction Writing at Brooklyn College.

Scott Nadelson is the guest. His new memoir, The Next Scott Nadelson: A Life in Progress, is now available from Hawthorne Books.

Get the free official app. Subscribe for free at iTunes.

She calls out to him, but he doesn’t respond

“Are you there?”

There’s silence.

“David?” She’ll turn seventy next spring, and David will, too (They were born a week apart. They’ve figured it out: she was emerging from the womb at the very hour he was circumcised, the first and last Jewish ritual he ever partook of, which places him, she thinks, one Jewish ritual ahead of her.), and she’s taken to saying her memory has begun to fail her, though she knows that’s not true. Or no more true than for any sixty-nine-year-old—or for any adult human, for that matter. To have the memory of an infant, a toddler. She recalls Clarissa at ten months, those first stabs at language, how she resolved right then to teach her daughter French and German, to do it while it was still possible. She felt the same with Lily and Noelle, and again a few years later when Leo was born. She spent her junior year in Paris, at the Sorbonne, and David spent his junior year in Düsseldorf. Her French was rusty by the time the children were born, and David’s German was rusty, too, but it was worth a try, wasn’t it, she said, and she still had her Berlitz tapes. And David, who in those days was still inclined to indulge her, allowed her to convince him to embark on a summer experiment; she would speak French to Clarissa and he would speak German. Two junior years abroad between them, one set of Berlitz tapes: the experiment lasted a week, the two of them speaking to baby Clarissa in their bad French and bad German until it became obvious to Marilyn what should have been obvious to her all along, that their daughter wasn’t going to be trilingual; she was going to be mute, a wolf-child.

She remembers now. A sweater. She stands in front of their old closet, and there they are: David’s shirts pressed and starched and evenly spaced, the shoes lined up in pairs, the sweaters folded in piles, next to them hanging a single brown cardigan. For a second she feels like a voyeur, looking in on a life that’s no longer hers, and as she reaches out to grab the cardigan her hand shakes.

She heads back downstairs, and when she reaches the landing she calls out again, but he still doesn’t respond. For an instant she panics: has he run off?

“I was calling you,” she says. “Didn’t you hear me?”

“I guess not.” David is out on the porch, reading the Times, reclined on one of their old lawn chairs. His legs stick out in front of him; he taps his feet against the edge of the chair.

“I got you this.” She hands him the cardigan, which he takes obediently, but now he’s just laid it folded across his lap.

“You said you were cold.”

“Did I?” His gaze is far off, tunneling past her.

He looks pale, she thinks. He’s wearing a red button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and he inhabits it so loosely that it billows around him like a pastry puff. He looks as if he’s lost weight. He has lost weight. So has she. They haven’t eaten much, either of them, this past year.

A mosquito lands on his neck. She swats at it, and he flinches. “A bug,” she says.

He nods.

A firefly alights on one of her tulips, and another one, casting the garden in a sputter of light. “The girls will be arriving soon.”

“Not for another twenty-four hours.”

“That’s soon enough.”

Another mosquito lands on him.

“The bugs love you,” she says. “Remember how we used to say that to the kids? Mornings before summer camp and we were coating them in Calamine? The mosquitoes loved Leo most of all.”

She knows what he’s thinking. That memory is selective, even in small matters like this one. But it’s true, she thinks. Leo was the most bit-up of the kids. The bugs found him the sweetest, as did she.

He rises from his chair. “I need to get a haircut.”

“David, it’s nine o’clock at night.”

“I mean tomorrow,” he says, all impatience. “I’ll go into town before the girls arrive.” He checks his reflection in the porch window. He’s patting down his hair, straightening out his shirt collar as if he has somewhere to go.

“You look good,” she says. “Handsome.” He still has a full head of hair, though it’s grown silver over the years. When, she wonders, did this happen? It’s taken place so slowly she hasn’t noticed it at all.

She’s sitting in a lawn chair, and she turns away from him. It’s been a year since Leo died, and on the teak garden table, pressed beneath a mound of books, sits a pile of programs for the memorial. There will be a service at the Lenox Community Center; then they’ll go to the cemetery for the unveiling.

“You changed into tennis shorts,” he says.

“I was thinking of hitting some balls.”

“Now?”

“The court is lit.”

He shrugs, then goes back to the Times. He skims the editorial page, the letters, and now he’s on to the arts. He folds the paper like origami, over and over on itself.

She steps off the porch and disappears into the garden. She continues along the stone path, which winds past the bushes to where their tennis court lies. The garage is next to it, and as she steps inside and flips on the court lights, the clays gets flooded in a pond of illumination.

She stands at the baseline with a bucket of balls, another bucket waiting in the garage behind her. She’s in her shorts and an indigo tank top, her sneakers laced tightly, her hair tied back, though a few strands have come loose in the nighttime heat. She breathes slowly, in and out. She hits serve after serve into the empty opponent’s court, taking something off the second serve, putting more spin on it, then returning to her first serve, hitting one ace after another. She serves into the deuce court and the ad court and the deuce court again. She empties one bucket of balls, and now she returns with the other bucket. Occasionally when she serves, her ball hits another ball lying on the clay, and they bounce off each other. There are a hundred and fifty tennis balls now, maybe two hundred, the court covered in fuzz the color of lime. Sweat drips down her forehead and singes her eyes. She simply leaves the balls lying there and returns to the house.

“Did you get it out of your system?”

She doesn’t respond.

“So this is it,” he says.

It is. After forty-two years of marriage, she’s leaving him. At least that’s how David puts it—how he will put it, no doubt, when they tell the girls. And it’s true in a way: she was the one who finally decided she couldn’t go on like this. A week ago she asked him for a trial separation. She hates that term. As if she’s standing in front of a judge and lawyers, a jury of her peers. When she made her announcement, David said he wanted to give it another shot, but they’ve been giving it shot after shot for a year now and she has no more left in her. There are days when they don’t talk at all. She has reminded him of the statistics, what happens to a marriage when you lose a child. Eighty percent, she’s heard, maybe even ninety. Why should this surprise people? Already it’s 50 percent when nothing obvious has gone wrong. But David doesn’t want to hear statistics, and, truth be told, neither does she.

Another copy of the program lies forlornly on the porch. They’re everywhere, it seems, strewn randomly about the house. She picks one up from the steps. Leo’s photograph is across the cover, his curls corkscrewing out just like David’s, and beneath the photo are the words APRIL 10, 1972–JULY 4, 2004. At the bottom of the page is a poem by William Butler Yeats.

When she told David of her plans, he wanted to call the girls immediately. He wanted to call Thisbe too. It seemed only fair, he said; Thisbe and Calder would be flying in from California. But she refused to let him call. She wanted to tell everyone in person, and to wait until after the memorial was over. But the real reason—she has only half admitted this, even to herself—is that she fears if David told the girls no one would come. It would serve them right, David says; she half suspects he wants to cancel himself. How can they have the memorial, David wants to know, when this is happening? But she disagrees. David thinks, How can they do this? and she thinks, How can they not?

Now, in the kitchen, she finds him on his hands and knees, taking a box cutter to four large packing boxes. He makes a single sharp motion down the center of each box. His back is to her; he looks as if he’s searching for contraband. “Do you need help?” she asks, but he doesn’t answer her.

The boxes are open now, gutted of their contents; a single Styrofoam peanut has flown out of the packing and skittered like a bug across the floor.

“The Williams Sonoma kosher special?”

He doesn’t respond.

“What’s the damage? A couple thousand dollars? More?”

David glances at the receipt, which is perched on the butcher-block table at the center of the room, lying in a bed of Styrofoam. “More or less.”

“Oh, well,” she says. “We can afford it.”

“I suppose.”

“You said you thought it was money well spent.”

The contents of the boxes (plates and bowls, cutlery, serving dishes, pans and pots, a few extras that David insisted on, including a set of bowls for the children with famous sports figures on them—they’re sports fiends, the grandchildren) have been purchased so that Noelle, Amram, and their four boys can eat in their house. Noelle won’t eat off nonkosher dishes, even if those dishes belong to her parents. Especially, Marilyn sometimes thinks, if those dishes belong to her parents. Noelle and Amram live in Jerusalem and they visit at most once a year, so the dishes won’t get much use. It’s one of the many reasons Marilyn has been loath to buy them. But David has been lobbying for them for years; he thinks of them as a peace offering.

“A plate for me, a plate for you?” She’s doing her best to make light of this.

He doesn’t respond.

“Noelle will still come visit,” she says. “Nothing has to change about that.” Nothing has to change about anything, she wants to say, but she knows that’s absurd.

She has found a rental on the Upper West Side, a two-bedroom in one of those all-services monstrosities, with a gym and a pool, a concierge, a playroom (it will be good for the grandchildren, she thinks), a party room, all the things she could want and a lot of things she couldn’t. It’s eleven blocks from David, which means they could run into each other grocery shopping, though in New York you can go for months without running into your own next-door neighbor. For a while, she thought it would be better to move to another neighborhood (she even considered moving to Brooklyn—Clarissa and Nathaniel live there, so she could be nearby), but except for those few years when the girls were in high school and the family decamped to Westchester, she has spent her whole adult life on the Upper West Side. It’s hard to imagine living anywhere else. And the apartment opened up suddenly and the lease is month to month, so it will be a good place to figure out what comes next. It’s the house in Lenox that makes her heart quicken. Will she be allowed to come back here? Will she allow herself? She and David have been coming to the Berkshires summer after summer for forty years now.

“You checked the food?”

David nods. “Everything’s certified kosher.”

“Are you sure?”

He is.

More Styrofoam peanuts are strewn across the floor, including one that has lodged itself under the fridge, which Marilyn stabs at with a fork. Now she’s standing with David amidst the wreckage, and beside it all sits the bubble wrap unfurled like a runner across the length of the room. “We bought a whole kitchen,” she says. “No spatula left unturned.”

David gives her a tired smile.

“Are we supposed to bless them?” she says darkly. “Is that what
you do?”

“Christen them?” David says.

She laughs, as she knows she’s supposed to, and it feels good to laugh with David. For a moment there’s a lightness between them, as if a screen has been lifted.

When David finds her a few minutes later, she’s seated in the alcove that adjoins the living room, typing on the computer. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“What?” he says.

“There she goes again. Writing another op-ed about the war.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“You could say you miss him.”

“Of course I miss him.”

“It’s been a year since he died, for God’s sake. And, yes, I know writing these things won’t bring him back, but I don’t care.” She doesn’t care, either, that she has become a mascot for the left and everyone thinks of her as the mother of the dead journalist. Because that’s what she is. It’s what David is, too: the father of the dead journalist. It’s all they’re ever going to be.

In the kitchen now, he prepares a citrus marinade for the chicken. He has chosen the menu: white gazpacho, caramelized leeks and endive, marinated chicken thighs, jalapeño-lime corn on the cob, pasta salad. They will also have watermelon slushies. At the moment, though, he’s chopping vegetables. The year before Leo died, when he retired after thirty-nine years of teaching high school English, David took a course consecrated to the very subject, five Sundays running at the 92nd Street Y. Slicing and Dicing 101, Marilyn called it; it was evidence, she believed, that he had too much time on his hands.

Though there’s certainly a technique, as he demonstrates now, the way he keeps his knife always on the cutting board, only his wrist moving. That’s all there is these days, just the sound of David when she comes home from work, cutting vegetables in their kitchen on Riverside Drive, the sound of him here too, in Lenox, her husband chopping vegetables. She thinks how hard it’s going to be, living on her own, how she has brought this on herself, the solitude, the silence, and now, when she’s alone, as if in preparation for what’s to come, she has begun to turn on the radio and she listens to music she doesn’t care for, just to hear a sound in the room.

The phone rings, but when she goes to answer it, the person has hung up. She has a brief, paranoid thought that someone is following her. A trickle of sweat makes its way down her spine. She opens the kitchen window, but it’s just as warm outside as it is in the house, so she closes the window again. Her heart still beats fast from hitting those tennis balls. She smacked one of the balls as hard as she could, clear over the fence and past the neighbor’s property. She did it for the fun of it, but it wasn’t fun. She feels the energy funnel out of her, wrung from her as if from a sponge. Sometimes she feels as if she could die, that she’d like to die; it would be better that way. “He used to walk around with his laces undone. Remember? It was like he was daring you to step on them.”

“Who?”

“What do you mean who?” Because in her life there is nobody else. And because for David there has been somebody else (there have been their girls; there have been his hobbies—he has taken up running and become devoted to opera; he stays up late poring over librettos—there has been this relentless chopping of vegetables), because he’s been trying to make the best of an unspeakable situation, she hasn’t been able to abide him. Is that why she’s leaving him? All she knows is she’s so very very tired. She looks at him once more and feels the rage burble inside her.

Onions, scallions, leeks, endive, cucumbers, jalapeño: he chops them all. It looks like a trash heap, like volcanic ash. Always the reasonable one. For years she counted on him to be like that. Now it assails her.

“Did you call your mother?” she asks.

He nods.

“You didn’t tell her, did you?” That was their agreement—the agreement, at least, that she extracted from him. No one is to know until after the memorial.

“No,” he says sharply. “I didn’t.”

“Then what did you two talk about?”

“Nothing,” he says. “She’s a woman of few words, Marilyn.”

“So what were her few words?”

“She’s not coming.”

“Are you serious?” And she thinks: you told her not to come, didn’t you? Except, she realizes, she’s actually said those words.

“My mother’s been through a lot. Do you blame her for not wanting to go through it again? She’s ninety-four years old.”

“I know how old she is.”

“He’s quiet.”

“She’s ninety-four, and she’ll live to a hundred and forty. She has a stronger constitution than any of us.”

She’s washing the dishes now, going at them furiously, while David is still chopping behind her, the percussive sound of him. He presses down hard on a carrot, and the top comes flying off and sails across the room. “Jesus,” he says. “Fuck! I cut myself.”

“Is it bad?”

“Bad enough.” There’s a gash in his thumb. It looks shallow at first, but now, studying it beneath the sink light, Marilyn sees it’s deeper than she realized. She takes a wad of paper towel and presses it to his hand. But the blood seeps through, so she goes to the pantry to get more paper towel, and when she returns his hands are shaking.

“Are you all right?”

“I don’t know.” He sits down on the stool and she’s above him now, attending to him. She runs his hand under cold water. The blood drips off him and into the sink, down into the garbage disposal along with the vegetable peel and citrus rind, swirling around like beet juice. She comes back with tape and a gauze pad and bandages him up.

“Slicing and Dicing 101, huh? They should have flunked me out.”

She presses her hands around his, wrapping him in gauze, as if she’s taping up a fighter. “How am I doing, doctor?”

She forces out a smile. She’s an internist by training, but she did a second residency, in infectious disease. He has come to the wrong specialist. “You’re lucky you don’t need stitches.”

“Do I need them?”

“I think I staunched the flow.”

She guides him upstairs and into their old bedroom. She has him in their bathroom beneath the flickering lights, and David is saying, “We need to replace that bulb. And the mirror,” he adds. “It has a crack in it. Hairline fracture.”

But she’s focused only on the task at hand, urging him to remain still. She takes off the bandage, which is shot through with blood, and wraps his hand again.

You’re as good as new, she wants to say, but her breath catches on the words. They’re out of the bathroom, and now David, in his white gym socks, is sitting on their old bed; tentatively, she settles herself beside him. One of his socks has a hole in it, and his big toe pokes out, white as a marshmallow nub. Through the window, she can see the tennis court still dotted with balls, lumpy as dough in the moonlight. Clean up, clean up. The girls will be coming soon, and they might want to play. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m all right.”

She’s quiet.

“Time to hit the hay.”

She nods. At home in the city, they’ve been sleeping in separate bedrooms, but this is the first time they’ve been back here, up in Lenox, alone together. It seems that David has claimed their old bedroom. Squatter’s rights. Though she, in fairness, is a squatter, too. She’s also, she understands, the bad guy here. David’s suitcase is on the floor at his feet; a shoe tree spills out of it, and a can of shaving cream.

“Good night,” she says.

He gives her a quick nod.

She turns softly on her heels and heads down the hall. When she comes back a few minutes later, David is already asleep. There he is, her husband, and she feels a momentary heartbreak, knowing she’s not supposed to be looking at him, that somehow she’s not entitled. But she continues to stand there, tears falling down her face. She’s back in their house in Larchmont, back in other houses and apartments, remembering hallways, portals, a domed ceiling high above the family dinner table, bedrooms whose configurations she can only dimly recall outside of which she used to stand at night quietly watching her children sleep—and later, listening to David breathe softly beside her, and she, a stealthy presence among the reposed, careful not to disturb the sleep of a loved one.

______________

JOSHUA HENKIN is the author of the novels Matrimony, a New York Times Notable Book, and Swimming Across the Hudson, a Los Angeles Times Notable Book. His most recent novel, The World Without You, has just been released in paperback from Vintage.  It has been named an Editors’ Choice Book by The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune and is the winner of the 2012 Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish American Fiction and a Finalist for the 2012 National Jewish Book Award.  He lives in Brooklyn and directs the MFA program in Fiction Writing at Brooklyn College.

Adapted from The World Without You by Joshua Henkin. Copyright © 2013 by Joshua Henkin. With the permission of the publisher, Vintage Contemporaries.

“Losing My Religion,” by REM

There were the religion classes I was forced to attend in my Catholic high school.

Operation Desert Storm was a month old. I was a senior and attending protests against the war. I had lost my religion, literally, several years before. I used to read the Bible, to silently call to God for wishes, for rescue, until just before I met the junior high teacher who would become my lover.

At seventeen, when the song came out, my teacher was less in my life than before. He had already told me, after mountains of Sunday brunch buffet food and a load of mimosas and mini-champagne bottles, that he loved me, had always been in love with me, as we sat at that hilltop restaurant in Burbank that later burned down.

In one of our conversations, growing fewer as I neared the legal age of eighteen, he told me that “Losing My Religion” was one of his favorite songs. Because, he said, he could relate.  He remembered his early Catholicism, which seemed like a costume he’d worn as a child, discarding it when he hit college.

He was one of the most reckless, drug-addled, sexually perverse adults I knew.

I ran with this image, this idea of ‘losing one’s religion.’ Did Geoff understand that it was a Southern expression, a way of describing righteous anger, the act of losing one’s temper? I certainly didn’t.

The song, which still plays on the radio in my car at least once a week on various stations, has a tendency to make me think of the first time Geoff and I had sex, if you could call it that, on my mother’s living room couch.

After he left that day, he called me from a pay phone, anxious, breathing hard, dare I say hysterical. I just broke the cardinal rule of teaching, he cried.

I was fourteen and couldn’t give a flying fuck. I wanted our affair to continue so I tried to talk him down. I never forgot those words because the word cardinal was something I associated with Catholicism. I’d already stopped reading the bible, stopped praying to God, shifted from the heavy rotation of Depeche Mode and skipped backward to the music of Geoff’s youth in some effort to connect. In fact, I behaved as though this man was my religion.  Weed and Ecstasy and LSD were the eucharists of this new faith.

            Oh no I’ve said too much

Years later, on that hillside overlooking the Valley I’d grown up in, at the restaurant that would burn down after I moved a thousand miles away.

At that moment, I, seventeen; he, thirty-two; whatever religions we’d clung to, shapeshifting into something we couldn’t quite recognize anymore.

            I haven’t said enough

(2)

“Life During Wartime,” by Talking Heads

“Take Me to the River,” by Al Green, performed by Talking Heads

            Heard of a van that’s loaded with weapons

            Packed up and ready to go

On one of the bong-smoke-filled afternoons at that house in Van Nuys, Geoff explained to me the lyrics of the song “Life During Wartime.” It was music he’d listened to when he was in college.

Listen, he said. This is a song about the IRA. The Irish Republican Army. Young people who are used to war and have given their lives over to what’s important rather than some bullshit fun and games.

I pretended like I knew what he was talking about. Irish, huh? I knew Geoff was Irish, but what army and what war was he speaking of? I didn’t ask.

I liked Talking Heads, but knew more of their 1980s songs than their 1970s songs. I had written a short story in seventh grade based on the song “Road to Nowhere,” when I still wrote stories that wound their way through looping mystery and horror territory, ending in destruction.

Rather than ask questions, I luxuriated instead in the silk fog wrapped around my head, the remains of his semen dripping down my thigh that I hadn’t wiped off, his voice, his direct conversation with me, his attention. Sixteen. I thought I was in love with the man explaining lyrics to me.

The song is not actually about the IRA. It’s about New York.

Geoff told me once, later, while he was living in an apartment alone—a rarity—that he met a homeless guy and started talking to him and eventually invited him to come and sleep at his place because, Fuck! It’s the least I could do! And it’s nothing, really!

In a way this was shocking to me, and also unsurprising. Geoff was one of the first adults in my life to point to social injustice.

At the tender age of thirteen, when we met, I was particularly sensitive to injustice. I felt it when I entered the mall in my all-black outfit with heavily eyelinered eyes and bangs hair-sprayed straight up. I felt it when my parents kept me at home with the fumes of their alcohol-soaked weekends threatening to suffocate me. I felt a low-grade chronic thrum of injustice whenever I was with Geoff. When he refused to kiss me. When he called the shots in almost every facet of our relationship.

Later, when I got to college, I began my love affair with Talking Heads in earnest. I listened to “Life During Wartime” and kept wondering why CBGB was in the song. That was a club in New York, right? So why was it in this song?

In those years, my early twenties, I believed my calling was to confront every social injustice I could see or uncover.

A member of Sinn Féin, the left-wing Irish political party, came to my little college hidden in the forest of the Pacific Northwest, and I went to hear the speaker, partly because I was a political economy student and felt the pressure to go, partly because my secret crush Seanna was going, and partly because in some weird way, it might make me feel closer to the man I had already left behind, but who would haunt me for years, in the ways one is haunted by Someone Who Fucked You Up.

            I don’t know why I love you like I do

            All the changes you put me through

Years earlier, I’d written these words, in block capital letters, on sheets of paper that I snuck to Mr. Jarvis, before I deigned to call him Geoff (that mysteriously spelled, one-syllable, bite of a name). It was my way of telling him: You’re fucking me up. I love how you’re fucking me up. But you’re fucking me up.

I’ll never know what happened to the various missives I had the courage to write him over the years, the letters always heavy with various lyrics. I imagine the smoke curling up into thin black wisps, his lighter flicking on and off, the papers folding into themselves, disintegrating into ash.

(3)

“Take A Chance on Me,” by ABBA

“Does Your Mother Know,” by ABBA

Because lyrics told the stories I couldn’t yet tell. Because lyrics could be code, could be short-hand to telling someone how deep I wanted to go with them. And because I was slightly aware that ABBA might not be cool at all, because it was music I listened to with my parents when I was a little girl, I wrote out the lyrics and cited it ARTIST UNKNOWN in purple ink.

            If you change your mind I’m the first in line

With all of my thirteen-year-old heart, I wanted my teacher to know that I could be whatever he wanted me to be, and he didn’t have to wait until I was eighteen for my sake. When he broke up with his girlfriend over and over, a broken record of misery that made him drunk and compelled him to keep his phone off the hook, a symbol of his disconnect to everything, I wanted him to know I was still willing, and that although I’d never had a boyfriend, I could be the girlfriend he’d always dreamed of.

Whatever that was.

He brought a photo of his girlfriend to school once. We’d already been talking on the phone for a few weeks. He’d already told me he wanted to go down on me. He’d already asked me to come to school with a short skirt and no leggings, which I never did.

The photo was of a buxom, dark curly-haired woman in a bikini with supple, olive skin.

I wore glasses, had short hair, covered up as much skin as I could, wore gothy make-up and boots and a constant blank look on my face that I worked hard to maintain.

She was clearly a woman. Fawzia. A woman with a mysterious sexy name, someone who had him. Had him salivating and gushing and red and showing off her photo to his eighth grade English students.

She was my competition. Okay.

I listened, biting my lip, as he told me about her breaking up with him. Of her cross-country, job-related move. Of their daily phone calls, and how he could tell her what kind of underwear she was wearing from 3,000 miles away, because he knew her that well.

I got drunk on wine coolers in my bedroom on the nights I knew they were out on a date.

I secretly celebrated whenever they broke up, with wine coolers in my bedroom.

I would meet her a few years later. It was one of those Saturdays I happened by his house.

Who knows when I’d fucked him last but we’d been fucking off and on for some time. I was stopping by before I went to my boyfriend’s band practice where I’d have to sit around for hours getting drunk on Boone’s Farm before I might leave and have sloppy sex with my drunk-off-his-ass boyfriend.

Geoff’s garage door was open. I parked, not having seen her yet. I’d thought for a moment that I was sure to get a joint and a let me show you around my garage and maybe get a nooner kind of visit.

Fawzia popped out from behind something and I kept the composure everyone was starting to know me for. Neck regal. Feet in rainbow Converse tennis shoes firmly planted (I was a hippie now), standing across from an A-line skirt, arm-baring sweater, short heels.

She was kind, she was courteous, and she said, Geoff has told me so much about you. I thought of when he told me how she’d asked who I was after seeing a photo of me on his mantle.  One of the smartest students I have, he’d said, who’s gonna go on to be brilliant at whatever she does.

I did the intelligent thing and accepted the social niceties and made up a reason why I had just dropped by and then I got out of there. Huffing as I unwrapped a fresh pack of cigarettes and pretended I wasn’t crying and fuming all at once, trudging away from a scene I couldn’t really explain to anyone at the time.

Oh you can take your time baby, I’m in no hurry, know I’m gonna get you

Fawzia left him for good not long after. She was always leaving him.

I was always arriving—on foot, by bus, stepping out of the cars of strangers.

            Ah, but girl you’re only a child

(4)

“Bring on the Dancing Horses,” by Echo and the Bunnymen

We met when I wore a uniform of black clothing and heavy make-up that I applied after my father dropped me off at school or the public bus stop. We met when I was reconsidering bible study. We met when I was writing letters to a guy in prison who I’d found in the back of the LA Weekly advertising for pen pals and when I was writing letters to my former English teacher who’d returned to Boston with his fiancée. We met when I was still praying that my parents would stop drinking. We met when my parents were reaching their ultimate hate crescendos. We met when I contemplated just how I might run away, just how I might kill myself and make those parents sorry. We met when I was just starting to understand that men in the world found me alluring for some inexplicable reason, and I thought the reason was for my darkness, and in fact, I was partly right. The silences I could keep. The hardened stare with pout lips. The coolness and the supposed depths that they might try to swim in me.

            Shiver and say the words of every lie you’ve heard

I was really a thirteen-year-old who would rather read books than do anything else, because life inside my head was much better than life in front of my eyes. I was really a girl who was learning about power and its underbelly, getting in cars with strangers, monitoring the slow flow of adrenaline as it pumped through me each time I pulled a door closed, smelled the scent of an unfamiliar car, plotting a way to get where I needed to go, sometimes having to do things I’d rather not do, sometimes having to do nothing but give directions to my destination. I was really an adolescent who put a lot of stock in songs and poetry that I started writing in red and blue marker on the walls of my bedroom, inhaling the toxic smells, burning incense to cover up the pot smoke, feeling every single hair on my head scream when I listened to my music loud with marijuana urging me along. I was writing on the walls to my mother’s dismay. But she couldn’t stop me.

            First I’m gonna make it then I’m gonna break it til it falls apart

This was a romantic refrain to me, something I carried with me through my twenties, allowing it to edge in, slither around my head, around the glass that my fingers were holding that transported amber liquids into my body, my belief that I was a destroyer. An astrologer had told me so, after all.

See the way Mars and Pluto are situated in your chart? You are here to destroy.

            Well, then, I said. Let us begin.

(5) “Bus Stop,” by The Hollies

From day one, in his classroom and outside of his classroom, Geoff crooned old music, often changing the lyrics to suit him. Fifteen, before I had my learner’s permit or access to my mother’s car, I stitched together my passage from home to all the areas of the Valley I wanted to lose myself in.

            Bus stop Wendy she’s here asking

            Please share my umbrella

Geoff and his friend and sometime housemate Ed sat at their dining room table talking. I pulled out a seat and sat down with a sigh after a few moments of standing awkwardly in the living room, wishing for an invitation. I slipped off my sandals and let my feet touch the carpet.

So, Geoff began, looking at the glass tabletop, how’s Bus Stop Wendy?

Fine, I said, looking from his face to Ed’s. Ed smiled broadly at me. We met one of the numerous Saturdays I happened by, records in hand, wishes blooming in my chest.

But I didn’t ride the bus here, I said, picking up my bag and looking inside for a lighter or some matches. I hitched.

I felt Geoff looking at me. He sighed sharply, stood up. Ed watched him and then looked at me and shrugged. I knew Ed was attracted to me. He made it obvious. I looked away, itchy and nervous.

I’m going to explain this once, and once only, Geoff said before he left the room.

He came back with two pairs of knee-high stockings. My lip curled when I saw them. I was reminded of my mother’s wardrobe, the drawer that held such strange items as knee-highs and pantyhose, tan, limp pieces of fine mesh.

Why do you have those? I finally laughed, finding my voice.

Yeah, man, what are you doing with those ugly things? Ed asked.

Wendy, sit back in that chair, Geoff replied.

I looked up at him and laughed. I settled deeper into the chair and he used a hand to push my chest back, straight, my back flush with the chair back.

So. Let’s say you’re out there in the world, and you’re hitchhiking. Geoff was talking to me in a sing-song voice I immediately didn’t like. He lengthened one knee-high stocking in his hands and threw the other three on the table.

And some guy picks you up and you tell him where you wanna go, but he takes you somewhere else. Someplace you haven’t been, and don’t want to be. Geoff began tying one of my ankles to the chair leg with the hosiery. Too tight? he asked, looking up at me.

A little, I answered, my eyes wide, trying to form a casual smile that wouldn’t come.

Good. He took another stocking off the table and tied my other ankle to the chair. If it were someone else, they might use a cord. Or electrical tape. Or rope.

What the fuck, Geoff, I finally stammered as he bent one of my arms back and tied it behind me to the metal arm of the chair. I could not look at Ed; this suddenly felt private and insane, a flaw in Geoff’s composition, something I had always wondered about, but could never put my finger on.

When both of my arms and legs were tied to the chair I said again, weakly, What the fuck.

Oh, wait, one more thing. Geoff stomped to his bedroom and returned with a bandanna.

I get it, already, I began, resting my eyes on Ed.

Geoff, man, she gets the picture, Ed said, taking his eyes off my tied ankles for a moment. Geoff raised one finger at him and turned back to me.

Okay, Wendy. You hitchhike, and this is but one possible fate. Do you know there are people out there who will do this to you and any other girl that’s out on the street looking to get from one place to another? I mean, how can I make you understand? Look, I have a fucking hard-on here, he said, smacking his crotch through his pants with an open palm. I looked down at the smoke-scented bandanna on my mouth and felt sleepy. My nostrils flared like they do right before I start crying.

You don’t want to get raped. You don’t want someone to do this to you. But when you get into their car, you don’t know who you’re fuckin’ dealing with. Some asshole, maybe? You’ll never know. He paused dramatically. He untied the bandanna from around my mouth.

Tell me, Ed, did it not turn you on to see a pretty young thing tied up like that? Geoff said, turning to Ed matter-of-factly as I shook my arms and legs out, the stockings falling to the carpet like small, shed skins.

Oh, Geoff, man, she understood, she understood, Ed said. Why are you friends with this guy? Ed said, turning to me.

My tongue ran over my lips.

Can I have some water? I asked, already hating the demure tone I hear in my voice.

Geoff moved into the kitchen, retrieved a mug. He let the tap run, filling the mug. He handed it to me with both hands, touching mine as I received it. I drank. My heart slowed, beat faintly.

Don’t hitchhike to get here, okay? That’s all I ask, he said when I put the mug down. He gave me a playful kick under the table. I kicked back, stung, speechless.

Let’s have a smoke, shall we?

I licked my lips again, wishing for more water. Soon a joint was being born on the glass tabletop.

(6) “Fortress Around Your Heart,” by Sting

Under the ruins of a walled city

Months after my eighteenth birthday, I visited Geoff in yet another residence, this one across the Valley, this time shared with one of his many cousins. When I pulled up to the house, located in a well-to-do suburbia I rarely frequented, I immediately felt like a visitor to another planet.

His cousin answered the door, a nerdy balding guy who politely let me in and then disappeared somewhere inside the house. Geoff received me and his booming voice reminded me that we were still in hiding and his cousin might be listening.

As I return across the fields I’d known

He ushered me into his bedroom, and without giving me time to look around and notice this new place that I would not be visiting again, he presented me with a gift.

I recognized the fields where I’d once played

I opened up a card that was margin to margin full of his small, shaky handwriting. I couldn’t take in everything written there, so pushed ahead to unwrap the gift.

It was a Tiffany stained glass, an image of a river flowing to the ocean under a bright sun. Geoff rambled something about the meaning of it, how we were rivers that would meet the sea? Or I was the river and he was the sea? I felt the presence of his strange cousin in the house and wanted to hurry the visit along. I wouldn’t read the card closely until I got home, after stashing the stained glass back in its box, not knowing what to do with it.

Underneath the congratulations on graduating from high school, the wishes for a happy eighteenth birthday, were the complete lyrics to a song by Sting. A song that had come out the year before we met, when I was twelve. At eighteen I felt like I was psychologically light years from Sting, what he represented at the time. I was frequenting punk shows and Dead shows and Sting, was, like, an old man.

My feelings for Sting were not too different from what I was feeling for Geoff.

Had to stop in my tracks for fear

Of walking on the mines I’d laid

I knew we were looking for an ending.

(7) The Blues (public radio stations and the Long Beach Blues Festival)

It was cool and relaxed on the lawns. Everyone was friendly and smiling and Geoff shared a joint he had brought with me and a man and woman nearby. They were sitting on a pastel-colored blanket and sipping at wine coolers bought from a concession stand. Geoff nodded at one and said, Want me to go get you one?

I nodded and my eyes followed him as he bent a knee against the grass, pushed himself up with a grunt and stood over me. Don’t run away now, he joked, and pushed his glasses up on his nose.

I knew he noticed every man who turned in my direction, and his response was to lean in closer to me or look me in the eye and shake his head like he couldn’t believe their rudeness.

With Geoff gone, my eyes devoured the crowd, the bobbing heads, the walking forms of people safe in their adulthood. I swallowed and willed myself to take deep breaths, aware that I was young here, alone, just turned eighteen, and that it would be awhile before Geoff got back to this patch of grass.

I was alone in a sea of people who loved the blues. Everyone waited for the genius of B.B. King to take the stage. This was the umpteenth concert of my young life, and very much different from what I was used to at concerts. Everyone had a stony semblance of calm and happiness, a contentment that felt like milk over hot skin, soothing and exciting at once. I turned and looked, thinking I heard Geoff’s voice, but he was nowhere in sight. My eyes returned to the stage and I tapped a bare foot against the grass, the sun falling down the length of the sky.

Before I made it to my boyfriend’s house that evening, I endured countless pinpricks of innuendo that Geoff pressed into, against me. In the car, navigating the parking lot traffic on our way home, his mouth slightly open, I thought of his teeth. I knew the feel of my tongue in the gap between the top two. A sense of random endearment flooded me, a bizarre and new feeling of wanting to protect him.

It would be just a few months later when we attempted a leaving off with one another, the sound of nighttime tide accompanying the separation, and months after that, the painful crush of kisses in a parked car that would make our ending final.

(8) “Love is the Drug,” by Roxy Music

Ain’t no big thing

To wait for the bell to ring

Here’s what I did.

I swallowed sleeping pills. I ate laxatives. My body melted down and thickened up, up and down, equivalent to the lust and denial I was living off of.

Jump up bubble up what’s in store

I went on a date with one of Geoff’s friends. Became intimate with another of his friends.  I slept with a number of men the whole time I was “with” Geoff, under his influence—attempts to fuck his memory and his inattention and his meaningless words out of my body. My boyfriend knew and broke up with me. Then we got back together and I resumed my sluthood.

            Love is the drug and I need to score

I met a man I liked and when it was clear he was into me, I lied about my age. It wasn’t a big age difference—I was 19, he was 27, but he had to learn that I was not 20, but turning 20 after we’d been together for a while. It was the first lie I told him.

Stitched up tight can’t break free

After escaping to the forest a thousand miles north of my home, ensconced in college, I met another man who came in the form of my apartment manager, who reminded me strongly of Geoff. This man was married, clinically depressed, had a room full of martial arts weapons and liked taking runs around the lake by our apartment building. It was on one of these runs that I told him about Geoff.

Love is the drug got a hook in me

It seemed inexplicable at the time.

Soon, this man was asking me out for coffee. Soon, this man was professing his attraction to me. In this instance, I did something different.

I started seeing a woman who I would talk to weekly in an office downtown. I started telling the story of me and Geoff to someone who could remind me what it all might really mean, and what it absolutely did not mean.  From her couch I’d watch pigeons walking around the nearby rooftop. I spent ten years in this woman’s presence, unraveling storylines, piecing others together, braiding some, taking scissors to still more.

I stopped getting high but I got drunk a lot.

I looked back at my junior high and high school diaries.

I started writing the story of us.

Dancing at the only club in my newly adopted town in the Pacific Northwest, “Love is the Drug” playing, I felt the kind of blushing fuck-me-ness you can’t really explain to anyone and don’t want to explain because you just want to feel it and move with it and remember, maybe, where it began, even in its darkest, most unholy beginnings.

Oh oh catch that buzz

The song still has the power to make me want to pull over, walk into a bar and hear the ice clink around some liquid that will start a raging fire in me.

As I entered my thirties, I considered that I was now in the age range where Geoff had been when we parted. I got married at the age he was when we broke things off. I got divorced the year after. I fell in love with a woman who has many qualities that remind me of Geoff—her humor, her charisma, the way she confessed the hold I had on her, the manner in which she’d tell me she wanted to fuck me. All of it reminiscent of him.

It’s complicated.

            Love is the drug I’m thinking of

We made our own mix CDs for each other during our courtship. Our seven month age difference means we grew up with much of the same music. A different vocabulary of melodies and riffs and lyrics took up space in my brain. We can make each other laugh with all the song lyrics we know that no one else knows we know. We sing songs to each other at The Smogcutter, a karaoke dive bar on Normal Street in Hollywood.

At dinner with friends one night in downtown Los Angeles I heard the overwhelm of Arcade Fire above the din.

I excused myself, stood, made my way around the maze of chairs and tables and people toward the bathroom.

I carry the names of the songs and the artists of my favorite mix tapes. I hold the order of them inside my body, where they are left intact, never to be cut, melted by heat, unspooled.

In the square of the private bathroom the speakers belted out the music I would come to think of as the soundtrack to the life I had a hand in authoring, more so than in previous lives I’ve lived.

The music pounded into me. I gripped the sink. I closed my eyes.

I took it in.

I

Thank you! I didn’t think of it. It was originally called–

I just love mermaids.

It’s actually a rusalka, which is the mermaid of Slavic folklore. They are these kind of spooky, spectral siren figures that are the souls of wronged women – illegitimate mothers, brides left at the altar, pregnant suicides.  So the mermaid in the book is a kind of a spirit. In my first draft I didn’t even mention the word “mermaid.” I had this idea it would be like Zone One, that great Colson Whitehead zombie novel that never once says zombie in it. But then I remembered I’m not Colson Whitehead.

Yeah. I loved “The Little Mermaid.” Did you ever see that?

Yes.

Dinglehoppers!

Right. But they’re forks. I remember that.

This novel is also loosely based on the life of your great-grandmother, Jenny Lipkin. Was she a mermaid?

Not exactly. She was a four-foot-something badass socialist who left the old country behind and made a new life for herself in turn-of-the-century Chicago, who divorced and remarried and redivorced her ne’er-do-well husband Harry, who supported her daughters with her virtuosic sewing, and who once, according to family lore, had her life saved by a pair of shoes.

So why isn’t the book set in early 20^th century Chicago? Were you just too lazy to do historical research?

Maybe? Wait, no – I also wanted to fold in my experience of Brooklyn motherhood, because it seemed so strange and interesting and potentially funny.

The Jenny Lipkin in your book lives in a tiny walk-up Park Slope apartment just like you did when writing the book. She has two kids, two years apart, like yours. She has a poorly trained mutt, like you do. She is married to a man. She is short. So, it’s you, right?

Well, no. I mean, I really did try to reanimate the original Jenny Lipkin – someone who battled with depression (in the original’s case, before the rise of psychotherapy), who had this difficult relationship with a husband she couldn’t count on, who had a lot of spunk but also a lot of bitterness and anger. Plunking her into modern-day Brooklyn offers her a chance for redemption: a woman like her can now talk to other mothers about how you can love your kids but still feel freaked out by motherhood. She can, you know, get some medication. She can have some fun. In this case, she also gets a mermaid.

I’m a lot simpler than Jenny Lipkin. And my husband and kids are better than hers. My dog is slightly better than hers. I am short though.

You really are. It’s weird. So, this is your second book.

That’s right. My first novel, How Far Is The Ocean From Here, came out in 2008. It’s about a runaway surrogate mother and her adventures in the desert.

That’s funny, I don’t remember hearing about it.

Huh.

Did you ever see Splash?

I’m really tired. Can I go to bed now?

Sure. I can’t wait to read your book! Sorry I didn’t get to it yet. There are so many great new novels out right now!

Dinglehopper.

Dinglehopper.

_________

AMY SHEARN is the author of How Far Is the Ocean from Here. She is a graduate of the University of Iowa and the University of Minnesota’s MFA program. Her work has appeared in The Millions, Poets & Writers, The L Magazine, Opium, and Five Chapters, and she writes for Oprah.com and RedbookMag.com. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children. Visit her online at AmyShearnWrites.com.

Before I died the first time, my husband left me broke and alone with our two tiny children and it made me feel very depressed, etc. It’s the same old story: He went to buy cigarettes and never came home. Really. Wouldn’t you think you’d want to pack a bag or two, leave a forwarding address? Couldn’t he have at least taken the dog? These were the things I wondered in the beginning. Not: was he having an affair, or: was he mixed up in something nefarious, but: I can’t believe he wouldn’t bring his datebook, his favorite loafers; I can’t believe he didn’t change the lightbulb in the hallway before deserting us. He knew I couldn’t reach that lightbulb. The whole thing was unlike him. Then again, I was the one who died, which was unlike me, too.

I would be lying if I said his leaving wasn’t a tiny bit of a relief, at least at first. My initial thought—due mostly to sleep deprivation, the effects of which, as any mother or political prisoner knows, never entirely fade—was that once the girls were in bed, I could ignore the dishes to be done and laundry (still in a compact three-day-old brick from the Laundromat drop-off service) to be put away; I could take a bath and then sleep (until Rose’s next feeding) in a big empty bed with pillows mounded up on either side. I wouldn’t need to make a grown-up meal for Harry, who annoyingly preferred dishes seasoned with things other than butter, and who inconveniently favored dinner conversation consisting of topics other than whether or not mermaids existed and, if so, whether or not their mommies made them take baths. I would not need to stifle the yawns that he mistook for boredom as he dramatically recounted the undramatic details of his day. I would not need to come up with a compelling excuse to avoid sex and then feel guilt both at the refusal and at the unoriginality of the desire, the undesire.

I know this doesn’t make me sound like the nicest wife. But back then I only thought he was late coming home from work. I didn’t know he would be gone so very long, that it would take him months and months to battle his way home, as if he were returning from the Crusades and not the Ever So Fresh Candy Company headquarters in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. It didn’t occur to me that nothing would ever be the same.

I forgot and didn’t remember for some time that I actually had spoken to him on the evening in question. My days had a habit of bleeding together, and it was often difficult for me to pinpoint whether we had indeed talked a few hours earlier or whether I was remembering the day before. But no, I think it was that night, that fateful night, when, believe it or not, it was raining ominously, a storm of Great Plains–style velocity, unleashed by restless nymphs polluting the city’s clouds, must have been, because there was such vindictiveness in the thunder rattling the kitchen window and spooking the imminently spookable baby so that she was wailing into my collarbone as I called Harry’s phone, wanting to know if (oh God, so typical) he could pick up some milk, a request that was met with irritation—he didn’t see why I couldn’t take care of these things without involving him. Betty sat on her booster seat, swinging her legs with a buoyancy that belied her scowl. I looked over just in time to see her open her mouth and hatch a mound of chewed grilled cheese onto the table.

“Jenny?” Harry answered, sounding confused. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh, sure. Just another day in paradise,” I said. Rose quieted, distracted by a hank of my hair.

“I miss you,” Harry said. “I miss the girls.” He sounded sad, or maybe just tired.

“Well, you’re in luck,” I said. “We’re all right here, and we’re taking visitors.”

“I wuv you, you wuv me,” Betty sang to her grilled cheese. The girl had a passion for dairy.

“Shh, baby, please,” I said to her, to Rose, to the thunder that grumbled a little farther in the distance now, to the world. “What, Harry? I’m losing you.”

“I’m going to stop for cigarettes on my way home,” it sounded like he said.

“So you’re not quitting, then,” I said, having forgotten all about the milk. I would remember only when I poured my dinner bowl of Cheerios at eleven p.m., which I ended up eating with water, as I’d done more times than I cared to admit. Then he was gone. He would stay that way for a while.

___________

AMY SHEARN is the author of How Far Is the Ocean from Here. She is a graduate of the University of Iowa and the University of Minnesota’s MFA program. Her work has appeared in The Millions, Poets & Writers, The L Magazine, Opium, and Five Chapters, and she writes for Oprah.com and RedbookMag.com. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children. Visit her online at AmyShearnWrites.com.

Adapted from The Mermaid of Brooklyn by Amy Shearn. Copyright © 2013 by Amy Shearn. With the permission of the publisher, Touchstone, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

The immensely talented Rob Roberge writes like the love child of Denis Johnson and Thomas McGuane.  Cheryl Strayed calls his new novel,

This book, your fourth, is about drugs, addiction, music, family, love and forgiveness. There’s also lots of sex in here. Do you think there’s more sex in the world of drugs and rock and roll than in, say, the world of working at Safeway or Vons? Do you think the employees at Vons are doing the same kinds of things in the walk-in freezers as Bud does with Simone?

Well, anecdotally—having worked at supermarkets AND having been in bands, I’d have to say yes, rock and roll gets a person laid more than does working at a supermarket. That said, I’ve worked at ice cream parlors and I’ve been a waiter at the Marriott and a grill cook and I fucked a customer once in the walk-in freezer at the Hagen Daas . . . and I went down on and fucked my boss a couple times in the walk-in when I was a waiter at the Marriott . . . and when I was a lowly smelly grill cook in some tourist hellhole in Florida. And, at the Marriott, my boss could have been fired—so that was nice. That she would risk losing her gig.

Of course, I played music by then. But who knows? Maybe I’m just lucky as far as walk-in coolers go.

Plus, I was a virgin when I worked at supermarkets. So, I’m not really qualified to say anything about Safeway or Vons.

But look at some of the hideous looking men in rock and roll who are with beautiful women. I think it tells us all we need to know. You put Ron Wood or Joe Perry at Walgreens or on one of those horrifying speed dating nights . . . and they’re not getting fucked very often. I’d put a lot of money on that, wouldn’t you? And if you wouldn’t, we need to talk money.

But, then . . . Liz Phair or Jeff Buckley could get laid if they worked at a photo mat (well, Buckley would have to be alive, but you follow). So, it’s relative.

There is a very funny scene in The Cost of Living where Johnny Mo and his father, Al, bicker over what to call the act of a woman defecating on a man’s chest. Al says it’s a Danny Thomas, Johnny Mo says it’s a Cleveland Steamer. I have to admit I’d never heard of either of these things, but that doesn’t surprise me. What surprises me is that anyone would ever really get off on this. Am I naïve here? I know men love shit, but do they love it even more than my imagination will allow? 

It’s not my thing, but, hey, if the internet has taught us nothing else, it’s taught us that no matter how seemingly strange what turns us on happens to be, there’s a million consenting adults totally into the same thing. It’s a great and beautiful world that way, no?

I’m not sure I buy the generalization that “men love shit” and I would guess that if I happened to make an equally sweeping and authoritative statement about what women were into, people might jump ugly at me for over-simplifying sexuality by gender. I’ve known a lot of women into anal sex in a wide range of various forms. Which is, of course, anecdotal. But until I see a double blind scientific study that says otherwise . . . well, I’m thinking it’s a human desire and ass play is not gender-specific.

For the record, though, I believe the accepted/dominant term for shit on a chest is a Cleveland Steamer. The Danny Thomas comes from local folklore and a running joke from my band-mates while we were laughing each other silly on the road one tour.

Then we get to another very funny scene with Tammy who is described like this: Tammy had a beer gut with deep, dark stretch marks that looked like earthworms in her skin. Blurry tats blotted her stomach.  It turns out Tammy is still lactating because Tim, her lover, gets off on it and has kept the milk flowing (by suckling her himself, I assume). Can you comment on this?

In general, I tend to hate it when people care whether something really happened as a source of a scene in fiction (I’m not sure I much care in so called non-fiction, either as five people can witness the same event and have five radically different versions of “what really happened,” but that’s perhaps another topic). BUT, this scene happened much as it happens in the novel, except that it happened in Florida (naturally) and the lactating woman and the unflappable bartender incapable of being embarrassed were people I knew from a hellish year when I was a grill cook at a tourist dump. A place so classy that drunk women sprayed breast milk on the bar while screaming to the drunken crowd and the lobster red chunky tourists.

There was another part of the real life version I wanted to put in the novel, but it didn’t really fit. There was a cocktail server who worked there, too, and all of us were sitting around snorting blow and drinking at about four in the morning. Long after closing. And this woman had been married to the local TV weatherman a number of years earlier.

And she said, “Can you believe Tim is into that lactation shit? Jesus.”

And another cocktail server said, “Fuck you. You fucked a weatherman.”

So, who knows what we should be embarrassed by sexually, right?

In one scene Bud fixes Simone’s vibrator. He notes that this act, fixing the appliance, feels more intimate than having gone down on her. Do you think that our personal belongings, the things that really represent our needs and desires (vibrators, cell phones, car keys), have in modern times grown to be a more apt representation of us than our actual bodies?

Well, no, I don’t think our belongings say much at all about us, except that we tend to have more belongings than we need (though I’m not sure I’d put vibrators on the “not need” list) . . . or perhaps, unhealthily, they have. But not in that scene, I don’t think.

In that scene, it’s not the fixing of the vibrator that makes it more intimate—it’s the act of when Simone hands it over to him and, well, trusts him with her desires in a more intimate way than a casual fuck would indicate. There’s—like in any scene, sex or otherwise—more going on there than one thing. And that scene, while it has MORE sex than the previous sex scene, isn’t much about the sex for me as it is about them opening up to each other. It’s the same scene where they share their histories with suicide and private desire. And I think that’s a moment where—even though they have had sex, it doesn’t mean the sex has yet been intimate. People have intimate and non-intimate sex and their initial sex scene in the walk-in cooler is within hours of their meeting. So, it’s hard for that to have been very intimate, as they barely know each other at that point. But by the time of this scene, they’re opening up to each other and the sex takes (or intends to) on a more individual, personal tone . . . and what Bud finds more intimate than having previously gone down on her, in that moment, is that she’s sharing something she’s done alone. She’s letting him in on her private behaviors and desires.

There’s a moment in the book where Bud wonders if he’s ever said no to someone who’s asked him if he wanted to fuck. He does note that he’s turned down offers to make love, but never an offer to fuck. Would you say that fucking is more appealing than making love? Or is that just the case for this character at this time in his life? And can you explain the exact difference between the two?

I think fucking can be both casual and hot (or sadly, un-hot), and/or it can be enormously intimate. To fuck can be of the most intimate extensions/expressions of an existing intimacy. A very large issue of trust and letting your guard down.

Whereas “making love” seems, to me, to be trying way too hard. It seems somehow to be the language of euphemism and distance. And it ends up being about as sexy as a feminine hygiene or erectile dysfunction commercial. It seems diffused and insecure . . . and prescriptive. “Do you want to fuck?” That’s honest . . . and the people engaged can or cannot be intimate and it’s up to them, it seems. Whereas “Do you want to make love” is a little dull and cheesy, but it’s also one person telling the other what the act is supposed to mean. And that’s cool. It’s allowed. But I don’t like being told what something means to me. I would never suppose to tell a lover how to feel about an act—whether it’s a dinner date or fucking. That’s their call. It seems both insecure and emotionally evasive to me.

“Make love” is metaphoric and rather vague. “Fuck” is metonomic. It’s solid and honest and cannot be mistaken. And it’s descriptive, rather than prescriptive. No one’s telling the other how they are supposed to feel.

There’s a doctor in this story who at one point says, “Everybody loves something up their ass during sex.” He then adds, “It can sure as hell seem that way when you work the ER.”  I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sit in the waiting room of an ER without wondering about every person in there who isn’t visibly bleeding or holding some off-angle limb. You?

Well, this assumes I can sit anywhere wondering about every person in any crowded room-ha!

Though, continuing with the ER stuff (and just to perhaps give you more than you wanted to think about beyond what might be up anyone’s ass), a good friend of mine just finished The Cost of Living—she’s an excellent writer but/and she tells a different kind of story than the kind I tend to tell. And she told me her brother-in-law’s a radiologist and he said this guy came into the ER with about two feet of speaker wire shoved into his urethra and it had ended up curled around his balls.

Apparently by the nature of his job, this wasn’t that strange. What was strange was the same guy came back a few weeks later with the same problem—though he had used a different length cable.

These are the kind of stories I get from other writers. They say, “I wouldn’t use this, but it sounds perfect for one of your books.”

__________

ROB ROBERGE’S fourth book, the novel The Cost of Living, was released in Spring 2013 on Other Voices Books. Previous books include the story collection Working Backwards From the Worst Moment of My Life (2010) and the novels More Than They Could Chew (2005) and Drive (2001). He’s a core faculty member at UCR/Palm Desert’s MFA and has taught at several universities including University of California Riverside’s main campus MFA, Antioch, Los Angeles’ MFA program and the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, where he received the Outstanding Instructor Award in Creative Writing in 2003. He’s a frequent question writer and lecturer and has judged, among others, the Red Hen Story Prize and the University of Ohio/Athens PhD writing award. Currently, he is serving as the advisor for the PEN Mark program. His stories and essays have appeared in numerous journals and have been widely anthologized. He plays guitar and sings with the LA bands The Danbury Shakes and The Urinals.

DIVERTERS

(Summer 2010)

The day had started out with me shitting blood. A little later, I was shivering in Doc’s passenger seat under the warm July California sun, asking Doc about the blood while we were on the way to Tustin to see this friend of his who was supposed to help us get some morphine.

Doc and I called each other friends, but we both knew without saying that we were drug buddies. That if I didn’t have the five hundred bucks in my pocket that would pry this hospice care friend of his from her ethics long enough to give us some terminal cancer patient’s painkillers, Doc would be in this car alone, or with some other human ATM. He had the connection, I had the money, and this made us, however temporarily, partners in the world.

I was worried the blood could be an ulcer, maybe something more serious. Lately, I hadn’t been able to get much more than Vicodin for my habit, and it had been corroding away at my stomach, a million tiny pickaxes mining the walls of my guts, so I figured I’d caused an ulcer, caused myself to rip and bleed and leak slowly away from the inside out. But, too, my mind slid easily to thoughts of cancer and that I could have been dying—at least dying faster or in a different way than from addiction. I’d asked my friend, Amber, and she figured it was nothing. So I asked Doc, “Is blood out of your ass always bad news?”

“It’s never good news,” he said.

“I didn’t ask if it was ever good.”

“It’s not ever good,” he said.

I took a deep breath. I had the start of what would be full-blown dopesickness in a few hours. The metallic taste at the back of my mouth, the chills. Soon, there’d be sweats. Then puke and diarrhea and my body making a tortured fist of itself. I needed exactly what we were going to get. While, of course, realizing that it was what we were going to get that caused this in the first place. Every day, the same cycle of desperate need met with desperate opposition and sickness. I couldn’t tell my todays from my tomorrows anymore than you can tell the sea from the horizon in a marine layer fog. It all just blurs together. “But is it always bad?”

“Not always,” he said. “But it’s never good, so disavow yourself of that silliness right now.”

I looked at him.

He said, “This is your ass and your blood, I’m guessing?”

Sometimes things are simple. Doc was called Doc because he used to be a doctor. Maybe he still was—I wasn’t sure, but I knew he wasn’t allowed to practice medicine anymore, at least not in California. He wrote some bad scripts, and he ended up losing his license. Or it may only have been suspended. But if anyone official was checking up on him, he wasn’t living too cleanly. He’d been able to hook me up until recently with a pretty steady flow of Vicodin, but that only kept me going and didn’t really make me high anymore. Without it, I was sick—a shivering, noxious presence to all who had the bad luck or bad sense to enter the debris field I’d made of my life. With it I could function, more or less—get to another day of clawing through the hours, wishing the next day would be better, but not seeing any reason it would be. I looked out the window at the towns under the 22 freeway. We’d left Long Beach maybe twenty minutes before, and now we were passing the suburban sprawl of northern Orange County, flashing by under an army of tall palms, blown by the offshore winds. It was a beautiful place, even from the freeway. Rooftops of homes glided under us to the right—to the left, a series of car dealerships in Garden Grove, and just east of them, out of sight from the freeway, a series of Vietnamese Pho joints and body-piercing parlors in strip malls.

I met Doc when he was still able to get OxyContin, eighty milligrams for a while and then forties. Oxy was a dream for a newly-off-the-wagon user like me—a time-released chemical equivalent of heroin, without the sloppy, desperate need to fix with needles. But, as they always do, the drugs stopped working and then, worse, Doc’s source dried up, and the mirage of beauty and ease that Oxys gave, they took away with them.

Right now, though, Doc had talked about an old friend he used to work with who could hook us up with some morphine and maybe more in Tustin and was I in? I heard morphine and said yes and committed my last five hundred bucks from a poker win a few nights before. Normally I needed a lot more info, but most of Doc’s friends, even the addicts, were very white collar. They were all liars and cheats, but generally not as dangerous as street dope fiends. Plus, we were talking about morphine. The risk–reward was too good and I jumped without a second thought, quick as a seismograph at ground zero.

Doc said, “You and Amber been, you know, doing anything?”

“What?”

“From what I hear, strippers like to strap one on now and again.”

“She’s a dominatrix.”

“Oh, well,” Doc said. “I stand corrected.”

“Fuck you, dude. Lawyers use strap-ons, too.”

“Do not tell someone who has worked in the ER that ass play is limited to sex workers. Trust me. I fucking know ass play knows no boundaries.”

“Then why even ask?”

“Nevertheless, strippers—” He turned to me. “And dominatrixes have been known to strap one on every now and again.”

Amber did, in fact, like to strap one on now and again. But she hadn’t been my girlfriend in almost eight years. It had caused some blood, but only a little, and, well, a hell of a long time ago. Not for days like it had been happening. “Dude, that’s a stereotype,” I said.

“I’m your doctor.”

“You’re not my doctor.”

“Well, I’m a doctor,” he said.

“Are you?”

“Nevertheless,” he said. “I have been an internist. I have a certain amount of experience with insertables. I’ve seen an astounding amount of things up guy’s assholes. And women’s assholes. You can tell me. Plus, I need to know the facts to know if this blood is an issue.”

“OK, fine,” I said. “Amber fucked me with a strap-on ages ago. Happy?”

“Don’t get so defensive, man. I’m your doctor.”

I let it slip that time.

Doc said, “When was the last time?”

“For the blood?”

“No,” he said, smiling. “When you let your pervert girlfriend sodomize you.”

I looked at him and he smiled and laughed. He said, “You need to lighten up.” He was driving and not looking at the road much as he hunted for his smokes in the backseat. I gripped the door handle and had visions of car wrecks and blood. Being a passenger scared the shit out of me—if I had any, I always took a few Valium before getting in any car. He said, “Everybody loves something up their ass during sex.”

“Really?”

“It can sure as hell seem that way when you work the ER.”

“I can’t talk to you at all, man.”

“C’mon,” he said. “I’m trying to help. Are you shitting blood? Or is there blood in your stool?”

“What’s the difference?”

“Color?”

“What?” I said.

“It’s an issue. What color is the blood?”

“Red,” I said. “Blood colored.”

Doc nodded. He put in a CD—Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers’ Rockin’ and Romance. He cracked the window and lit an American Spirit. He offered me one. Doc had quit for years and only recently started again since his divorce. I took one.

Doc said. “Red isn’t the only color blood can be. Especially on the inside.”

“So is red good?” I said.

“Nothing is good,” Doc said. “No blood in your shit, that’s good. That’s our goal. Our vision. An America with no blood in their shit. That’s the ticket I’m running on. The no-blood-in-your-ass ticket.”

“Red is less bad?” I said.

“That is true,” he said. “Red is much less bad. If the blood in your stool is a greasy-looking dark red, almost black, that is a major and immediate concern.”

“And this?”

He shrugged. “Probably nothing. How many Vicodin a day are you taking?”

I was, until a week before, taking about thirty—but I was stealing, when I could, from Doc’s stash, when he had a stash, so I went with a low estimate. Our supply had run out five days ago and I’d halved my intake from twenty to ten to five to only three the day before. My eyes felt like sandpaper, and the suffocating heat in my head made every pump of my heart an oil-derrick throb of pain all over my body. Like every nerve ending burned with Fourth of July sparklers. “Ten to twenty if I can. Less, lately.”

“That’s probably it right there,” he said. He ticked an ash. “How is Olivia?”

“We don’t seem to be talking,” I said. “She won’t talk until I’m back in rehab.”

“Ah,” Doc said. “True love.”

Jonathan was singing about his jeans and how they were a-fraying as I looked out the window at the blur of objects racing by.

I knew I couldn’t continue on the way I was going. My short-range plan involved the morphine and, after that, a meeting with this guy, Leroy Marcus, about some pot he wanted me to sell. The morphine was supposed to be my last for a while—the plan was to use it and slowly wean myself off, using Vicodins when I had to, to try to detox as painlessly as possible and start clean. Go back to meetings. Be humble and start over. I’d done it before. I could do it again. And, maybe, if I could ever get clean, try to make Olivia think about taking me back.

But at that point, I’d tried to quit various opiates—whether it was by myself or in rehabs—somewhere between thirty and fifty times in my life. Which meant thirty to fifty intentional detoxes. And that didn’t even count the dopesickness from simply running out. Withdrawals made you sorry for ever being born—which sometimes seemed the point of the whole thing. The self-loathing burning hot enough to make the sorrows you suffered from withdrawal seem something like justice for the liar and cheat you’d allowed yourself to become. The twisted core of wrongness at your center everywhere you went was something that made suffering seem valid and just, in some way.

“I can’t drop all five hundred on the morphine,” I said.

“You have to.”

I said, “I can’t. I need at least a couple hundred for tonight.”

Doc said, “You got a game?”

I shook my head. “You know Leroy Marcus?”

“That ’roid rage guy?”

Leroy had a justifiable reputation as a guy you didn’t want to fuck with. He’d been a boxer and had ended up recently with an ultimate fighting obsession. Leroy liked violence—seemed to like getting hurt as much as he liked hurting people, which made dealing with him an uneasy proposition at best. Someone who’s not afraid of getting hurt, someone who actually welcomes the pain and raw savagery of the fight, is not someone you want to face off with. Like my dad told me when I was a kid, you never throw a punch unless you’re willing to kill the guy—because he might be willing to kill you. Leroy probably got the same lesson somewhere along the line. But he threw punches, and I don’t.

“That’s him,” I said.

“What the fuck have you got going with that beast?” Doc said.

“A pot deal,” I said. “I need at least two hundred to sell some medical quality shit he has.”

“You smoking pot?”

I shook my head. “Pot’s dollar signs to me. I’m trying to make some money.”

“Pot’s legal now, dude.”

“Not legal,” I said.

“More or less. Any fuck off the street can get a script for it. How you going to make money?”

“Getting a couple hundred’s worth off him and selling for double to this nut in Silverlake I know. Quick cash. No risk.”

“You can’t trust Leroy. There’s plenty of risk just walking through his door.”

That was true enough. “I need money,” I said.

Doc smoked the end of his cigarette and rubbed it out on the outside of his door—the side of his car was streaked with the ends of his butts. He’d pinch out the tobacco and let the filters pile up at his feet.

“We’re scoring morphine—a real fucking drug—in Tustin,” he said.

“Are we?” I said.

“We are.”

I felt the sickness overcoming me. “We better be.”

“My point is,” Doc said, “we’ll get enough to make some money off that, if you want.”

I had tried over the years to make money with heroin, with Dilaudid, with OxyContin, and a variety of other opiates. All I ever did was end up doing them all, either fast or slowly. With them, I never could seem to go from intent to deal to ever actually dealing.

Doc said, “What if we spend your whole five hundred bucks on the painkillers?”

“Then I’ll do them.”

He looked hard at me.

I said, “I’ll do half of them.”

“Right,” he said. “But what if you let me tuck a couple hundred aside and deal that.”

“For both of us?”

“Of course for both of us, man,” he said. “Who you going to trust to make a buck? Me, or Leroy Marcus?”

Neither of you, I thought. Leroy’s a brutal beast of a businessman, and you’re a dope fiend. But, given the choice, I answered honestly. “I’d rather be in business with you.”

Doc merged off the 22 onto the 55 southbound, where it splits going to Riverside one way and Orange County the other. We were headed toward Tustin, just a few miles away. We seemed to have reached some tacit agreement about the extra two hundred and the profit on the deal.

“So, tell me about your connection,” I said.

“She’s a hospice worker with a terminal case.”

“And?”

“She’s a diverter. She’s helping us out.”

Diverter is the medical term, and the narc term, for a medical professional who diverts pain meds from the people who need them. The language of distance and euphemism. They’re thieves, and people like me and Doc pay them to steal from people in pain. I tried not to have any more illusions about what I did. I used to be able to lie about it—to others, to myself. But after years of clean time, it was hard to see yourself as anything but a hideous failure. My next drug possession case would put me at what’s known as the SAP pits, SAP being short for Substance Abuse Program.

“How terminal?” I asked him.

“What?”

“How terminal a case?”

“There aren’t degrees of terminal,” Doc said. “Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

“I mean, how close to dead is this person?” I don’t know why it mattered to me, but it did. As if the closer to dead they were, the less I’d be ripping them off, somehow.

“Close enough to be designated terminal and to have 24/7 hospice care,” Doc said. “That’s usually pretty late in the game.”

I nodded.

Doc said, “And it usually means a lot of pain meds.”

The drug talk, along with my system being weaned off meds the last few days, started to make me feel cravings that hurt. But they were cravings with hope—that tingle when you’re close to the drugs, in both time and distance. “Any chance for Dilaudid?”

Doc shrugged as we reached the two Santa Ana–Tustin exits for Seventeenth Street. The second exit heads south toward Tustin, and we took that one. “Hard to say,” Doc said, lighting another cigarette. “Pain management theory these days shies away from Dilaudid. But we should get plenty of morphine.”

Back when I still shot up, which I hadn’t done this relapse, Dilaudid was like gold. About five to eight times more powerful than morphine. Less went longer.

“Listen,” Doc said. “There is something difficult we might have to do.”

“Difficult how?”

“It’s a relatively new procedure. I haven’t asked Sandra if he’s on it or not, but this guy may have a permanent morphine vial implanted near the base of his spine.”

“Lucky bastard,” I said, and I sort of meant it.

“It’s the wave of the future,” Doc said. “Going to hurt people like you and me. Pills and shit like that are going the way of the horse and carriage.”

“I don’t follow.”

“All drugs are going to be administered using time-released delivery methods,” Doc said. “Soon, there won’t be any pills to steal.”

“You said there’d be morphine at this place, right?”

“Right,” Doc said. “But, worst case scenario, you’re going to have to cut the vial out of this guy.”

“I thought cancer patients had IV drips and patches and stuff.”

“They do,” Doc said. “But, in addition to that, depending on how far gone he is, he might have this semipermanent vial.”

“Why do I have to cut it out?”

“Well, no one’s saying for sure it’s there.”

“If it’s there, why the fuck am I doing the cutting?”

Doc shrugged. “Because I don’t want to.”

And that was that—his connection, his call. No matter how desperate I was, I didn’t think I could do it. Cut a helpless dying person? Only a monster could do it. And, I told myself over and over, I can’t be that monster. But I’d already crossed so many ethical lines I said I would never cross in my life. I’d become a man I couldn’t recognize more times than I could ever count. “He may not have one of these, right?”

“He may, he may not. But you might want to wish he does—concentrated morphine drip.”

“I’m not cutting open some poor fuck who’s about to die,” I said.

“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I was just warning you about some of the potential difficulties.”

I shook my head and looked at the faces of the other people driving out on the freeway. I wondered what they were talking about. What they were thinking they might have to do in the next half hour and how sick they made themselves.

As we got off the freeway, I realized how tense I was, realized I hadn’t been taking regular breaths, realized I’d actually been holding my breath. I tried to take in a few deep breaths while Doc swung across four lanes of Seventeenth Street.

“Be careful,” I said.

“It’s important to blend in,” Doc said. “Cops pull over people like you and me when they’re doing the speed limit. People drive like maniacs here. So should we, if we want to be left alone.” Someone honked and Doc gave them the finger.I turned around and looked at the WELCOME TO TUSTIN sign behind us. This other side was for the people just leaving Tustin and it read:

Work Where You Must But Live and Shop in Tustin!

A Vons supermarket slid by on our right. I took nervous breaths and felt my heart beat like a rabbit’s heart in my chest. A church with an impossibly high peaked roof stood on our left with an announcement out front:

“WHY DO THEY WANT US DEAD?

What the Bible says About Islam.”

Doc said, “Almost there.”

I nodded and took several attempts at a deep breath.

He took a left on Mauve—a sign that read Not a Through Street greeted us as we headed down to the second to last house on the right. There was a Toyota in the driveway and we pulled up next to it, blocking one of the garage sides. I pointed and said, “What if someone needs to get out?”

Doc shook his head. “No one needs to get out. Look. This is a call I only get a couple times a year—the situation has to be perfect. We are going into this house and we are going to score, OK?”

“OK,” I said.

“Like I said, this is rare. The patient is alone, they probably don’t have much family. They may have none. My connection has, more or less, the run of the place. It’s like an opiate candy store in there, and we are here to clean them out, understand?”

It was starting to sound too good to be true, but it had a momentum that I couldn’t pull against. Plus, I needed to get high pretty soon, or I’d be a wreck. I wasn’t in a position to argue.

“Give me the money,” Doc said.

I reached into my front pocket and took out a wad of rolled, moist bills and gave them to him.

Doc said, “Dude, you carry your money like a ten-year-old boy.”

I thought of Olivia. “Sorry,” I said.

“You have to stop apologizing for everything, too.”

“Uhm . . . Sorry?”

Doc counted out the bills and folded and rearranged them.

“Tell you what. After we make a few bucks here—will you wear a fucking proper billfold if I buy you one?”

“Is that like a wallet?”

He shook his head. “The way you carry money, there’s no way anyone’s going to take you seriously.”

“People take money seriously—they don’t seem to care how it’s folded.”

“You’re wrong,” Doc said. He lit a cigarette, took one deep drag and then a second. Then he put the cigarette out. He turned to me. “If anyone asks, you are my assistant.”

“Who’s asking here?”

“Inside. There should only be Sandra, my friend. But if someone else is here . . . family, friend, whatever, I am a medical professional Sandra called for an opinion and you are my assistant. Got it?”

I nodded, looked down at my torn jeans and Chuck Taylors held together with electrical tape on the right toe, and thought, Yeah. Medical assistant.

“Great,” Doc said. “Let’s do this.”

___________

ROB ROBERGE’S fourth book, the novel The Cost of Living, was released in Spring 2013 on Other Voices Books. Previous books include the story collection Working Backwards From the Worst Moment of My Life (2010) and the novels More Than They Could Chew (2005) and Drive (2001). He’s a core faculty member at UCR/Palm Desert’s MFA and has taught at several universities including University of California Riverside’s main campus MFA, Antioch, Los Angeles’ MFA program and the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, where he received the Outstanding Instructor Award in Creative Writing in 2003. He’s a frequent question writer and lecturer and has judged, among others, the Red Hen Story Prize and the University of Ohio/Athens PhD writing award. Currently, he is serving as the advisor for the PEN Mark program. His stories and essays have appeared in numerous journals and have been widely anthologized. He plays guitar and sings with the LA bands The Danbury Shakes and The Urinals.

Adapted from The Cost of Living by Rob Roberge. Copyright © 2013 by Rob Roberge. With the permission of the publisher, Other Voices Books.

Tupelo Hassman is the guest. Her debut novel, Girlchild, has just been published in paperback by Picador.

Why the title Tin God?

According to my esteemed Dictionary.com,  a tin god is someone, esp. a minor official, who is pompous and self-important. I’m referring to my fallen conquistador who perhaps was once pompous and self-important but as soon as he is relegated to the journey into the unknown, he’s in trouble. He has to gouge a dead comrade out of his armor and steal his tin hat in order to protect himself. His deterioration is a paean to “A Distant Episode,” Paul Bowles’ perfect story about the fall of an academic in Morocco, although maybe all stories about the disoriented in exotic climes derive from Bowles or maybe Dante’s Inferno, or even Rabelais whose narrator resides inside Pantagruel’s mouth for six months and discovers an entire nation living around his teeth.

Who is this narrator who spells her name G-O-D at the start of the book?

The actual god in my story—the almighty one, not the incarnate—is closest in character to a Midwestern middle-aged farm woman. What’s wrong with that? I’m the eldest of nine, I know oracular. Besides I needed a voice to tie together the two seemingly unrelated stories.

Why God? Why not just omniscient pov?

In writing my first novel I had POV problems. I couldn’t imagine what went on inside the head of an African. Or rather, I could imagine it, but the act of imagining it was presumptuous, given, at the very least, that the outcome was always so mysterious or surreal. A few years after I made the expedition the book is based on, the man I was with said he was with the CIA. I realized then that I didn’t know what was going on in his head either. I settled for a kind of hyper-real POV of my own. So of course for the next book, I chose God. Fewer problems, and I had a character behind the narrator who was, well, perfect.

Aren’t you going to get into trouble with the fundamentalists?

Blasphemous? If God is not approachable, she’s nobody. And don’t give me that nobody from Odysseus and the Cyclops.

Why did Publisher’s Weekly call you a “fabulous fabulist” when Tin God first came out in 2006?

Whilst I think I write perfectly transparent prose, everyone else in the room says I fabulate. PW also said that “Svoboda loves her red-state mopes, and that warmth both illuminates and animates her eccentric prose.” Can’t be all bad. Besides, Library Journal called the book “a funny romp” and recommended it for all libraries. And then Dan Chaon called me “a true American original.” How’s that for name-calling?

What made me unite the stories of a lost conquistador and the dope-dealer four hundred years apart?

The conquistador came from a dream that had haunted me for years: whispering native Americans surround a blue-eyed Spaniard. My first response was to write “Woman With God,” a poem I published in Treason (Zoo Press, 2002). The dope dealer story was based on two characters I’d met twenty years ago, plus the influence of frequent trips to Nebraska where my father farms. I didn’t know the two stories were related but I insisted on writing the book in alternating chapters. It took ten years to make the connections between the them. I was surprised to find that act of alternating chapters, the mind made connections between them without any effort on my part. God bless the mind. I discovered another connection while going over the galleys, proving that everything is related everywhere always ad infinitum.

On the issue of reissuing:

A few years ago Rick Simonson at Elliot Bay Books wrote a piece in Publisher’s Weekly suggesting that some large press in New York should take me on. Yoo-hoo! Turning a hardback into paper is a magic trick that potentially could mean more sales. More sales means that the aforementioned press in a certain metropolitan area might be more amenable. Forever optimistic.

The first edition has illustrations at the beginning of each chapter, and the last ten pages are printed on black with white type. Was that something you had in mind when submitting the book for publication?

No. Although when I first saw it, I was shocked,  I am now very proud that the book designer was so taken with the story as to make it collectible. I was, in turn, very disappointed that these features weren’t carried over in the re-issue.

Pantyhose plays an important part in the denouement.  Does anyone wear it these days?

Are you saying that I’ve dated my story by including a detail which has become anachronistic? Are you saying that women have flung off these sausage casings and covered their varicose veins and bulging calves with knee-highs? Maybe guns will become passe too.

__________

A brand new Guggenheim fellow, TERESE SVOBODA is the author of six books of prose, five books of poetry, a memoir and a book of translations. Tin God is her fourth–and funny–novel.

Morning, mumbles Rolf from the front of his kitchen while I’m taking up the rear booth as usual and signaling with two fingers for double eggs. Usually he’s hanging over me, looking down my front for whatever hint of décolleté a plaid workshirt from L.L. Bean with darts affords.

Oh, you forgot God’s not sexbound? Heads up. Or at least quit staring at that Goofy cup reproduced in color across the front of that grease-stained paper. Was it all that mention of broadcasting, of seed getting scattered, that made you put me down as male? Think of my usual costume, real sideshow, beard and what can only be called a dress, then fast forward a little, press the amalgam button, add L.L. Bean.  Trick or Treat!  Open your mind the way I open the local rag, the way I read every little bit which is not a lot in print, I read it even though I know everything, even the truth about the ads to convince people to sell plastic goods through the at-home party method, even about public broadcasting.

Today Rolf’s not so interested in me as in the pager he is nestling into the paw of the moth-eaten Kodiak bear that divides the bar from the kitchen.

A cop comes through the door for it.

I could have sold it, boasts Rolf, waving his broad white hand from behind the bear. Sold it, and made a fortune. A genuine police unit like that.

The cop clips the pager back onto his belt. That will teach me to get comfortable.

I hate cops. I shouldn’t say this but some of them think they’re god.  Especially when they’re in uniform. It’s a failing of mine, this typecasting-by-uniform. I should get a uniform, that would teach me. Anyway, whenever I see a cop, I do not like to see him. In response to this one, I waggle my paper like I’m casual and friendly, then his pager goes off.

It does happen.

Doesn’t that mean you have to be somewhere else? Says Rolf.

The cop turns the squawking down. I’m here to protect you for however long it takes to get a take-out coffee.  With milk.

One white, Rolf orders a passing waitress.

Rolf likes cops less than I do but he’s Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis Club, Knights of Columbus. Some of his best friends are cops. This one dates his second cousin.

See—over there! The cop tilts his chin toward Pork, who’s sipping at his own coffee in a booth. Pork hasn’t changed out of the clothes he drove to town in, flowered shirt, shiny pants, and he’s added sunglasses. My theory is, says the cop, the louder the clothes the more likely the crime.

You’ll be arresting the priest in his vestments next, says Rolf.

Let me just play cop for one minute, says the cop. Okay? Besides, I think I stopped that dude not long ago. I think we’ll just have ourselves a little conversation. I’m allowed that.

Be my guest. Rolf shakes his head then steps back behind the register to get a toothpick.

The cop sits down right in front of Pork, steels his jaw and puts his hand on his holster. He’s about to open his mouth when Pork says, Excuse me, officer, and scoots out of the booth to the door.

Wish I could have a picture of that, says Rolf, watching Pork roar out of the lot.

The problem is, the cop says, taking a sip of Pork’s coffee, is that they’re all guilty by the time they reach twenty. I don’t know exactly what of, but they’ve done it.

You could have said Stop or I’ll shoot, says Rolf, catching the waitress with the coffee-to-go.

Rolf, the cop says. I don’t want to leave any holes in your place. The coffee’s bad enough. He sips off the lid of his cup.

Rolf barks like a seal when he’s really tickled, his arms shaking helplessly like flippers at his sides. He barks now, he goes on like this even after the pneumatic door eases shut behind the cop.

Then he takes a big breath.

He slops a wet rag over to the booth where the boy and then the cop sat and he slides that rag way across the table as if he means to clean it, though it is as clean as that rag, then he leans way over to look under the table and pulls off a piece of paper stuck there.

I see all this from my vantage in the corner where he has forgotten me.

Nothing says nothing like something from the oven, hums Rolf, going back over to the register to insert a new toothpick into his mouth. He crumples up the paper. Then he spots me watching him. He says: Do you need a refill or what?

I look as if I have not seen anything. I do that all the time since I see so much so I have it down. I am not bothered by his what, as belligerent as it is, although I do not have the patience that I would like. It is worn thin with parity and ranchers with Cadillacs that fart instead of honk. Thank you, I say, and hold out my cup.

A waitress is beckoned.

As soon as I am finished, I am going to drive out to check my field again. Not one of those hired hands turned up yesterday to plow it under and all that undone growing wears on me, all that grass-in-abeyance. I follow Pork’s route, the one he hightailed out on the side road to where the goods have got to be, right next to my undone field. The wayward always return to the scene of the crime not for its possible reenactment, or even to revel in the details, but to double-check whether they’ve left anything. In this case, it’s everything.

Of course, I know where.

Meanwhile, Rolf tidies up, as is his wont. He crushes my left-behind newspaper into a ball as small as that paper he had already pressed into the overflowing pail below the bar. Then he tells a waitress he will be right back and looks longingly at the very large gun mounted over the entry. He bought it at somebody’s divorce sale so long ago he couldn’t tell you if anybody ever promised it did work. It works there looking good now, as if he has hunted with it and will.

A witching wand for people is what he needs—but he begins to drive. Have you seen a black Porsche? is not what he can ask the lady at the drive-in bank window, the only soul available in this car-driven country. Instead he takes to the street, all the streets in town, which are not many. They’re arranged in the usual grid, these bisected first by train tracks and then Interstate cloverleaf almost gothic in embellishment in comparison to the frame houses that front it so dutifully, street after ruined street against its endless concrete. Rolf drives to the edge of town, to the bronze horse put up by the local orthodontist, soldered onto a Boot Hill where exhumed pioneers are found to have turned into rock, a place where he can’t do anything else but reverse and drive to the exact opposite end of town, to the living’s cemetery, which he does. This cemetery is bordered by the usual drag strip, providing plots for dragsters about Pork’s age and car make.

But no Pork. Rolf cruises past the one drive-in that stays open all winter offering heaters, and then to a quonset where half-breeds dance in summer for what tourists disembark the cloverleaf and need the sight of people who don’t really live there either to make themselves feel at home or at least elsewhere.

No Pork.

Rolf has a moment of enragement. He does not hesitate to stop the car and get out and pound on the hood. A woman, dusting the sill of her picture window not far from the dance site, takes the pounding as a signal of the machine frustration that overtakes us all now and then since the invention of the cotton gin, and not malice.

I drive by on my route that follows Pork’s, lifting my two fingers off the wheel in traditional car greeting. Rolf is getting back inside his car, sulking and thinking. A sure sign he is thinking is that he puts the car in reverse. Reverse is a more determined mode of transportation than forward is.  It just is.

____________

A brand new Guggenheim fellow, TERESE SVOBODA is the author of six books of prose, five books of poetry, a memoir and a book of translations. Tin God is her fourth–and funny–novel.

Adapted from Tin God by Terese Svoboda. Copyright © 2013 by Terese Svoboda. With the permission of the publisher, Bison Books.

I loved spelling. It was ordered and rote and made sense to me even when it did not. Bough, ought, caught.

I was indignant when anyone else won. I felt spelling bees were my calling. I took the used workbooks home, the ones I’d completed week after week during the school year.

I transported the words to my grandmother’s house. I rolled out the chalkboard she gave me and we played school.

My grandmother who had a sixth grade education learned how to spell my vocabulary words, the words I learned in my second grade private school class, and she was an excellent pupil for her granddaughter.

Spelling was unlike math. I was fine with multiplication tables (rote) but putting numbers together and separating them into their meanings and then applying letters—all of it was nonsense talk.

*

In eighth grade, I was chosen by someone—I don’t remember who—to represent our school in a regional spelling bee sponsored by a local newspaper that has since folded.

*

I fell in love with words in front of my parents’ bookcase when I pulled down the paperback edition of Jaws by Peter Benchley.

My love of words flourished with Miss Ann asking me to read the entire Pug book to our kindergarten class. I knew I had something. This knowledge was mine, could not be taken away, could not be messed with. It could only be added to. It could only multiply. (Math, but still.)

*

I was given a practice booklet with the stamp of the spelling bee’s sponsor on the cover and told to practice the words in the book. Lists and lists of love objects.

*

Then I had the library, my weekly Saturday rendezvous with my father where I was allowed to touch and pull out and take home books and kid magazines and I learned all the sections in a way you memorize places you love. I knew where to look for my favorite books: the mystery books, the books about werewolves, haunted houses. I knew something about these things, living in a house where people turned into something horrible and animal when they drank, houses with long dark hallways. My library was the place full of light where I could peruse baskets and colorful plastic bins of journals made for kids, science wrapped in fun in the pages of magazines written in kid language. A place full of words solidified my love.

*

I was not the child you now see profiled in national spelling bee championships. There are many different reasons for this. No one around me knew how to help me and therefore, they made no offers. I did not know enough to successfully practice on my own.

*

By second grade we had those thick spelling books with the crinkly pages that reminded me of my grandmother’s bible. These books contained weekly vocabulary lists and exercises and games all made so we could practice words over and over. We were asked to take vocabulary lists and write each word in a sentence and I loved this exercise, the novelty of creating my own sentences with just one word as the crux, the pivot point.

Letters, words, sentences, an orgy for my senses: when spelling bees came into my consciousness it felt natural. I was asked to take each word and pull it apart into its sounds, or notice the word’s weird indifference to the basic nature of the letters it was composed of. Spelling was a tool, it was magic, it was rational and irrational—it all depended on the word.

*

Pleach

*

Kaleidoscope of words. It’s no wonder I have words tattooed on my body.

*

I was a young adolescent who thought she was in love with her English teacher.

He showed up at the auditorium the day of the spelling bee, and I had to hide the girl who was talking to this teacher on the phone most nights into the wee hours, using letters, sounds, words, to communicate so much and so little. He also used letters, sounds, words to communicate to me how much he wanted me.

*

Pleach: to interweave (branches, vines, etc.) as for a hedge or arbor

*

There are a million words I’ve read, pronouncing them only in my head, and when I must say them aloud they come out wrong and I feel a shame. I’ve betrayed my love object.

*

Want. W A N T

*

My teacher arrived at the spelling bee with a gift for me: an uncut diamond.

*

There are a million words I don’t know and might never read or say. What circumstances align to let me read or say them, what circumstances occur to make sure that I come across the words I come across? Need to come across?

*

Pleach: to make or renew (a hedge, arbor, etc.) by such interweaving

*

I was not a girl who understood the worth or the depth or the sentiment of such a gift. It was a tiny shiny jagged thing I had to keep in the smallest baggie I had ever seen, and then I had to keep track of that baggie.

Of course I lost the baggie with the diamond over the years. I know I lost it because many times through high school and college, desperate for money, I searched for it, sticking my fingers into the velvety crevices of jewelry boxes. Gone.

My teacher handed it to me when my parents weren’t paying attention. He had already compared me to this object on the phone. Uncut, rough. Yes, you could say that. Perhaps of any fourteen-year-old girl.

*

I did not last for more than a few rounds in the regional bee.

I lost on a word that felt like a trick. I had never heard it or read it and it seemed too easy to spell it in the most obvious way. So I fucked it up. P L E E C H

Sort of like L E E C H.

And I lost the diamond. Shine on you crazy diamond, I’d sing drunk, high, years and decades later.

*

There were no spelling bees in high school. I would never have said yes to one by that point anyway.

*

My homeroom teacher expressed regret that he and my class had not made it their mission to help me practice during our time together every day leading up to the spelling bee.

It was okay. I still knew the power of the letters, the sounds, the words. I know how to spell PLEACH forever. And that diamond—it was only a metaphor made by a lost man. There would be plenty more metaphors to come. I would make them myself.

*

 Yet I lost more than the spelling bee that day, that year.

First, congratulations. As the Administrator for the Vatican Secret Archives, you have one of the best job titles imaginable. Seriously, that is a comic book name.

Now I know that the Vatican’s Secret Archives aren’t secret in the common sense of the word, but almost no one knows that, so you might as well run with it. I mean, you’re already subject to so many horrible rumors and conspiracy theories anyway, what with the Illuminati and Dan Brown and the Knights Templar. So you might as well have some fun with it.

The Eye of Providence on the one dollar bill.

If I were in charge of the Vatican Secret Archives, I’d mess with people. I’d probably start by very publically dragging the remnants of a flying saucer into the Castel Sant’Angelo. It’d help if the UFO had a prominent Eye of Providence on it—you know, that creepy triangle symbol with an eye in the middle of it that appears on the U.S. one dollar bill, among other places. Conspiracy loons are always blathering on about that thing, so I’d probably follow it by a procession of Catholics whispering a creepy phrase like oderint dum metuant repetitively in Latin. Anyway, the weirder the better.  Alex Jones and friends will believe pretty much anything you serve up.

In the course of reading about you, I learned that not only are you in charge of the Vatican Secret Archives, but you were also the Bishop of Angers!

Now I know the French pronunciation isn’t angers like we’d say it in English; it’s probably pronounced something like a-zebra, but I think you should ignore the French pronunciation and go with the English one.

If you don’t, you’d be missing a serious opportunity. First of all, it should be clear that the title would be good publicity for the Church: the bishop of ANGERS would certainly attract attention.

If I were a bishop and that were my title, whenever I entered a room I’d have a seven-foot-tall muscle-bound baritone bedecked in skull paraphernalia announce BEHOLD: THE BISHOP OF ANGERS.

Plus, if you went by the bishop of ANGERS (it needs to be in all caps, your Excellency), you could also use entrance music. (Would Faith No More’s “Last Cup of Sorrow” be frowned upon?)

Adopting this moniker would have a greater purpose, of course:  You could seriously rake in the souls at the death metal concerts.

Of course, to convert the maximum amount of souls, you’d need to coordinate your attire correctly. My next question is obvious. I know bishops and cardinals wear special hats:  Does your bishop of ANGERS hat have flames? If not, it should!

Of course, this might require you to get a papal exception for the Bishop’s dress code. Given that other institutions sometimes exempt other important individuals from the dress code, this might be worth a shot. In the U.S. military, for instance, the Special Forces have a relaxed dress code; since there can only be one bishop of ANGERS, you are essentially the Vatican’s Special Forces (notwithstanding the Swiss Guard, of course).

Speaking of, what’s with the Swiss Guard? I know that it’s tradition and all, but when was the last time the Swiss military had combat experience? No, really.  That’s an honest question. Switzerland was neutral in both World Wars, and even when they served in Bosnia, they were unarmed. These are really the guys you want defending Vatican City?

Plus, their brightly colored ceremonial outfits have to be a detriment in hand-to-hand combat. I mean, it’d be like fighting while wearing Joseph’s Technicolor Dreamcoat. If I were in the Swiss Guard and wearing one of those, I’d probably throw a punch, then break into Go, go, go, Joseph you know what they say…

Your Excellency, is that album a big hit at the Vatican? If not, why not?

I was raised Catholic, and my mom played that album all the time.  She loved the songs and because she had a crush on the actor who played Joseph in the 1993 revival, who was apparently a star on The Young and the Restless. (Thanks, Wikipedia!)

She attended the show with a bunch of girlfriends, and when she got home, I remember asking her how she liked it, and she mentioned something offhand about his loincloth getting caught and then not caring much at all about the music after that.

Huh.

Let me know what you think, and thanks,

Brett Ortler

BP: I love that song so much, not only because of my name, but because it is about a filthy sewer rat. The ethereal flute-like piping of Michael Jackson’s voice is what I wish I sounded like, but I’ve been burdened with a subwoofer that sounds a little like a drunk Darth Vader imitating the ringside monologue of a professional wrestler.

Your sister, also a writer and fellow winner, with you, of an NEA grant, is named Jen. What fresh hell was it like as a kids to be Ben and Jen. Or did you guys find a way to navigate the rhyme?

I went by Dragonslayer and she went by Wahoo the Youngest. Otherwise, no one would have been able to tell us apart, since she looks exactly like me with a blonde wig. And yes, we’re both writers (who started off in the sciences before we decided we preferred an economically dubious profession that consists of making crap up and playing with our imaginary friends).

Your last name is a very literary name, however, I don’t imagine there was a lot of explaining that to the kids you grew up with. Any stories there?

I grew up in the sage flats of Central Oregon. My graduating class in high school consisted of fourteen people. Until I went to college and read the Thanatos Syndrome in class (and then picked up The Moviegoer on my own), I had never heard of Walker Percy. Over the years, maybe one or two people have asked if we’re related, but I think most find it ludicrous to consider even a frayed thread of connection between a denim-clad hack like me and a Southern gentleman of such sparkling literary pedigree.

Henry Hotspur Percy is maybe the most famous of historical Percys. Any relation or kinship with Hotspur?

My family is small, and I haven’t bothered researching my genealogy, so I can’t confirm any of this. But supposedly my great great great grandfather (on my mother’s side) was the sheriff of Deadwood. And supposedly, yes, I am the descendent of Hotspur Percy. Which might explain why my monstrous temper sometimes gets the best of me.

To which Benjamin do you feel most strongly drawn? Walter? Franklin? Button? Or, perhaps, just the hundred dollar bill?

Benjamin Franklin founded our country, played with lightning, fired off one-liners like a howitzer, and, when he suffered from insomnia, read naked in a chair. We have one of these things in common.

I say Benji, you say/do . . . ?

My grandmother is the only person who ever called me that, so unless you’re an elegant old lady who likes soap operas, bon bons, and antiques, better call me Ben. Or I’ll eat you.

___________________

About this column:  Writers are by definition obsessed with words. And when it comes down to it, unless you’re really plucky, there are two or three words you’re stuck with for life: your name. Every other week I’ll ask a different writer five or so questions on the subject.

This week I talked to Benjamin Percy, author of Red Moon (Grand Central/Hachette, 2013), the TNB Book Club’s official selection for May, an IndieNext pick for May, a summer selection of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Program, and was listed by Publishers Weekly as one of the most anticipated books of 2013. He is the author of another novel, The Wilding, and two short story collections. His fiction and nonfiction have been published by Esquire (where he is a contributing editor), GQ, Time, Men’s Journal, Outside, the Wall Street Journal, Tin House and Ploughshares. His honors include a Whiting Writers’ Award, an NEA fellowship, the Plimpton Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, and inclusion in Best American Short Stories.

Rob Roberge is the guest. His new novel, The Cost of Living, is now available from Other Voices Books. It is the April selection of The TNB Book Club.

The girl with pink hair is in the opening band. Later, she will sing and writhe on the stage. Her red microphone cord will be wrapped around her head and neck so tight that it will leave marks. But right now the couple working the door don’t know who she is. The are taking tickets and checking identification. They either don’t recognize her or don’t believe her when she tells them she’s performing. “I can show you my ID,” she says, “If I have to.” They tell her that, yes, that would be good. The girl with pink hair opens her pocket book and the couple at the door check a sheet of paper and wave her through. The couple at the door are with the company that is promoting the show.

I am embarrassed for the girl with pink hair, but I’m not here to write about her—even though I believe her band, Hunters, could be “the next big thing” if it weren’t opening up for the band that is becoming the next big thing: Bleached. Bleached is Jennifer and Jessie Clavin. Two sisters from Southern California who, from the sound of their latest record, Ride Your Heart, cut their teeth on bands ranging from the Misfits, and the Slits, to Blondie, Fleetwood Mac, and the Cars. The power-pop sound of Ride Your Heart has been garnering widespread praise from the major (and the minor) music magazines and websites, and their SXSW performances generated a positive buzz that has helped propel them on this tour. Tonight’s stop in Dallas is the second leg on a list of cities that tracks from the southwest to the east coast and midwest before heading back to home territory.

Club Dada is a venue well suited for punk, and power-pop acts: plenty of room for movement, a bar at one end, and better-than-expected sound system. Across the street is Trees, a larger music venue that also has a show tonight. At Trees the line to gain entrance weaves its way down the street and around the corner. At Dada, there is no wait. I don’t know who’s playing at Trees, but I’m surprised at the lack of crowd at Dada.

When Hunters take the stage the crowd is nowhere near capacity, and it will not grow much as the night goes on. But the crowd that has formed a semi circle that presses up against the stage is fully participatory. A young man standing near me has yet to stop moving. He is still a teenager and when he dances he is all hair and flying elbows. He moves with a kind of abandon and freedom reserved for the young or the very old—those who have not yet been affected by the cynical nature of life in a crowd, or those too aged to care anymore. I am more than a little jealous. I want to move like him, feel free like him when he whips his hair in circles or doesn’t care when he steps on my feet. But I am content to nod my head to the bass line and take photographs.

Isabel Almeida—the girl with pink hair—convulses on stage as Derek Walson shreds distorted sounds from his guitar. Initially her movements—the flopping, pulling at her shirt, lying across monitors—seem like an act. But as the show goes on it’s clear that she lives her actions. She is trying to inhibit and become the noise rock she and her band produce. Derek and Isabel trade off on lyric duty, and on songs like “Noisy Bitch” engage in a passionate call and response. At the end of their set, an impromptu mosh pit breaks out with Isabel the leading culprit and actor; and all the while she kept singing.

There is more sun than sneer in Bleached’s live performance. The band bops around on stage with an air of joy: they like what they’re doing. They respect the work they’ve put into writing and playing these songs. When Jennifer Clavin tells the crowd “You guys rock so fucking hard,” she means it. Her words and actions are sincere without being sentimental. It says something about Bleached that some of their strongest support tonight comes from bearded men in frayed jean jackets, with tattoos and chains. These men pump their fists, bang their heads, and seem to know every word to every song. The join in on “Waiting By The Telephone,” a driving call for a lover’s attention: “waiting by the telephone/waiting for you to call/it shouldn’t take this long…” The aesthetic of unaffected punk cool has gone out of style for this show. No one is embarrassed to sing “I’ll keep on living for that dead boy that I love,” the refrain from “Dead Boy.” No one is shamed when the song “Electric Chair” is dedicated to the whole audience.

There was something carnal about tonight’s show. It was fast, loud, and sweaty, and still, ultimately, satisfying. After, both Bleached and Hunters milled about the club. A few fans stopped by to chat, but most just went on their way, content with the experience and sure to tell all their friends.

Please explain what just happened.

It’s not every day that 14 cats get stuck in a tree and I’m the only person around to rescue them.

What is your earliest memory?

Cutting my foot on a piece of glass while my mom was trying to get me to put shoes on. I was 3 .… moms usually know best.

If you weren’t an actor, what other profession would you choose?

Professional UFC fighter. 

Describe a typical work day.

Wake up, go to set, wait in my trailer, go through hair and make-up, go to set again, wait more, film a scene, change clothes, film another scene, wait, film another, wait again … repeat.

Is there a time you wish you’d lied?

No.

What would you say to yourself if you could go back in time and have a conversation with yourself at age thirteen?

Buy stock in Apple.

If you could have only one album to get you through a breakup, what would it be?

“Thank Me Later” – Drake.

What are three websites—other than your email—that you check on a daily basis?

Twitter. That’s about it. I try not to spend a lot of time on the Internet.

From what or whom do you derive your greatest inspiration?

Leonardo DiCaprio.

Name three books that have impacted your life.

The Bible, Goodnight Moon, and Guardians of Ga’Hoole: The Capture.

If you could relive one moment over and over again, what would it be?

Hugging my brother after he came back from war.

How are you six degrees from Kevin Bacon?

I wish I knew.

What makes you feel most guilty?

Chocolate and peanut butter.

How do you incorporate the work of other artists into your own?

I respect other artists, but originality is key in my opinion.

Please explain the motivation/inspiration behind your role as Andy Stone.

My motivation behind my role of Andy comes from my family. I’m actually the youngest of 2 brothers so I know what it’s like.

What is the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?

Chase your dreams and follow your heart. Don’t go after money — go after your passion.

List your favorite in the following categories: Comedian, Musician, Author, Actor.

Comedian — Kevin Hart

Musician — J. Cole

Author — Charles Bukowski

Actor — Leonardo DiCaprio

If you had complete creative license and an unlimited budget, what would your next project be?

I would love to start a charity that provides food and shelter for those in need.

What do you want to know?

Where I’ll be 5 years from now.

What would you like your last words to be?

I don’t want to plan them. I want them to happen in the moment.

Please explain what will happen.

You will watch Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous every Thursday night at 10:30 p.m. on MTV.

_____________________________

CAMERON PALATAS can next be seen starring in the new MTV series Zach Stone is Gonna Be Famous, premiering May 2, 2013.  The series follows Zach Stone, a recent high school grad who opts out of college to pursue the new American dream: becoming famous with no talent whatsoever.  Palatas plays Andy Stone, brother to Zach — all American athlete, star student, and ladies man, essentially the complete opposite of his brother.  Some of Palatas’ other TV credits include a recurring role on Disney’s hit series A.N.T. Farm, ABC’s October Road, and Nickelodeon’s iCarly. Palatas also recently filmed a lead role in his first feature movie: Pass the Light.   

* Photos by Joe DeAngelis.

Three Strong Women is a difficult-to-classify book, which takes the form of three thematically linked long stories (or possibly novellas), shows NDiaye’s rare ability to take time-worn forms and make them her own. That capacity is further on display in All My Friends, which will be published by Two Lines Press in on May 21 of this year. Instead of three tales this volume includes five, all of which sit somewhere between novella and story, or story and parable. What remains the same are NDiaye’s labyrinthine sentences, her strange but all-too-human characters, and her plotlines that hold up to (or maybe require) multiple reads.

In order to delve into what makes NDiaye’s work so special, I interviewed the translator of All My Friends, Jordan Stump. No stranger to innovative writing, Stump has discovered and translated some of contemporary French’s most astonishing, innovative authors, including Eric Chevillard, John-Philippe Toussaint, and Marie Redonnet. Here we talk about how NDiaye’s prose is constructed, what motivates her characters, and how to preserve the unique feel of her prose when bringing it in to another language.

When did NDiaye first become lodged in your mind as a writer whose work you wanted to translate? Can you talk a little bit about how you became acquainted with her work and the features of her writing that stood out to you as something you would find interesting to work with?

I discovered her work in the early 90s; I’d become an enthusiastic fan of the writers that the Editions de Minuit was beginning to publish in those days (Jean Echenoz, Eric Chevillard, Marie Redonnet, etc), and so tried to read everything that came out of that publishing house. The first book by NDiaye that I read was her novel En famille, and I was struck by its difference from the other Minuit books. The other Minuit writers are all brilliant and complicated, but you sort of know what to do with their books, how to read them, how to feel about them. Not so with NDiaye. Her strange, seemingly aimless stories, uncomfortably straddling the line between comedy and tragedy, at once vague and detailed, thoroughly grounded in a very familiar world but at the same time tinged with something dreamlike, left me slightly perplexed and disoriented. That’s the first thing that struck me: her resistance (to definition, to easy understanding). And then of course her language: poetic but never highflown, precise but teasingly nebulous. I’ve been wanting to translate her for a long time (struck by the odd beauty of her books, I wanted to create that same beauty myself—that’s how I pick all my books), but never had the chance, for practical reasons (because the translation rights had already been bought, because I had other projects that got in the way). A few years ago I tried to translate her novel Mon coeur à l’étroit, but I found my translation so feeble and unconvincing that I abandoned it. And then, a few years later, I tried again with her Autoportrait en vert, and this time I told myself I wasn’t going to give up. As I did that translation, going through revision after revision, I gradually came to feel that I was finding a voice by which to translate hers. Autoportrait hasn’t yet found a publisher (it’s a very short book, not the sort of thing most publishers want), but doing it taught me how to translate her. Which is not to say that translating Tous mes amis wasn’t a struggle. She is most emphatically not an easy writer to translate.

You’ve worked with some of the most innovative French-language authors to appear in English in recent years, among the Eric Chevillard, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, and Marie Redonnet. How does NDiaye’s prose compare to theirs, either as a reader or as a translator?

Over the years, I’ve decided that, from a translator’s point of view, there are two kinds of writers: some have a very tough and sturdy style that can be messed around with a great deal and still sound like itself, and others have a very delicate, precarious style that is very easily deformed in translation. Chevillard is perhaps the best example of that first type: you can turn his sentences around, break them up into shorter sentences, replace one bit of wordplay with another, range far afield for your word choices, and as long as you’re attentive and imaginative the result will still sound like Chevillard. NDiaye is a writer of the second type. As I said, her language is sort of balanced between poetic and prosaic, and if you go just a little bit too far in either direction it loses all its character. The vagueness of her narrative (by which I mean that she often refuses to give us the context that would make her meaning entirely perceptible) is also hard to reproduce. The translator’s impulse is always to find some way to explain anything that isn’t abundantly clear in the text, and that reflex has to be reined in, even as one has to find a way to make the text clear enough, and to make it clear that it isn’t supposed to be entirely clear. No translation is ever easy, but so much of NDiaye’s writing is a matter of careful, unlikely balance that the text can easily be ruined even by a translator with the best of intentions.

I really get a sense of that challenge you’re talking about, even only having read the English translation. NDiaye is very good at undermining your confidence in her narrators, yet not making you completely lose faith in them. The prose moves from third-person to first, often within a single sentence, and what you get from the omniscient narrator might contradict what’s in the character’s head. Or sometimes there are two different characters parsing out the same event. The resulting tension is very interesting. I feel it more as a negotiation between two different possible realities than a case of one character simply being illusioned. You mentioned that this kind of writing is easier to deform in translation than someone like Chevillard—why would you say that is?

I think you hit the nail on the head with that idea of a negotiation between two possible realities. NDiaye’s writing tends to very carefully straddle a line between two meanings or two experiences. Here’s an example from the first story in All My Friends: the narrator walks into a post office, and “at that very moment some sort of mirror mysteriously hanging in the very atmosphere of that cramped post office reflects a new image of [him]”: it sort of sounds like there’s simply a mirror on the post-office wall, but it also sounds like a mirror has magically appeared in the air, visible to the narrator alone, and the translator has to make sure that both of those readings are present in the translation, and not come down either on the side of the everyday or of the supernatural. Compare this to someone like Chevillard, whose writing draws heavily on puns and paradoxes. There, too, you’ve got to convey two ideas at once, but you want to be sure that the reader sees and understands both. With NDiaye you want the reader not to be entirely sure what he or she has seen. That’s much harder, in my experience.

Let’s talk a little concretely about these stories. The first one, “All My Friends,” is about a school teacher whose maid, a young woman named Severine, was his student roughly a decade ago. This man continues to try and insinuate himself into various kinds of relationships with Severine —even hiring her as his maid is a sort of very obtuse way of doing that. He needs something from her, and it’s not altogether clear to me that Severine is completely aware of it, but nevertheless she flatly denies him any sort of entry. It struck me that on one level this is what these stories are about: being unable to give something to someone, the question of how to form a relationship with someone who refuses it. What do you think is motivating this man?

Right. We don’t know quite what he wants from her, and we don’t know if she realizes he wants it. A lot of NDiaye’s writing is about a feeling of senseless, inexplicable exclusion on the part of one’s family, one’s colleagues, etc. The narrator of “All My Friends” feels that exclusion intensely: abandoned by his wife, despised by his house, guilty of some vague crime against his wife and children… He prides himself on his popularity as a teacher, and yet this former student of his seems not even to remember him, and even when she was his student she seemed determined to learn nothing from him. In the first pages of the story, his desire for her recognition has distinctly sexual overtones, but gradually (I think) it becomes clear that that’s not really what it is. He wants her to acknowlege him, he wants her to obey him (to leave her husband and take up anew with her boyfriend from high-school days). And maybe it’s not really about her at all, or at least not exclusively. He wants time to stop, he wants change never to have come into his life, he wants a kind of hold over the world that he most definitely does not have now, if he ever did. Or more simply, he wants, and he can’t have.

One of my favorite stories in this book, and one that really combines these two aspects of NDiaye’s writing that we’ve discussed in the past two questions, is the last one, “Revelation.” It’s the shortest one in the book, just 5 pages in our edition, but it’s incredibly rich. It’s the one that reminds me the most of Kafka. In it, a mother is taking her young son on a bus trip; she’s going to drop him off somewhere, and never see him again. You get the definite sense that she’s abandoning him. Throughout this story NDiaye gives us hints that the son is somehow afflicted, but it’s all very ambiguous: “he seems not so much insane as stupid, appallingly stupid,” thinks the mother at one point. Interestingly, the other passengers seem to view this son quite differently from the mother: “And why did the simple act of turning their gaze toward that son’s beatific, distant face seem to illuminate them with such happiness?” I really feel that sense of exclusion you’re talking about here —both the son and mother seem to be excluded from each other, even though their love for one another is clear. I don’t know whom to feel worse for, the mother or the son. Do you feel like this sense of exclusion that NDiaye evokes so much in this book is a contemporary sensation—possibly springing from globalization and/or the increase in technological mediation—or something with longer roots?

Yes, that’s a wonderful story, and a wrenching way to end the book. After all these stories about alienation and separation, about the intense need to be acknowledged by others and also to control others, we finally reach this sort of happy ending: here, at last, is a person (the mother) who has found a way to accept another person’s existence, to feel a genuine fondness for him—but only by getting rid of him. Only by missing him can she love him; having him around is unbearable. A very cruel happy ending, entirely in keeping with NDiaye’s unflinching observation of the sadder and harder side of human nature. There is indeed something very modern in her characters’ sense of exclusion—“The Boys” and “The Death of Claude François” allude explicitly to the role of the interent and popular culture, respectively, in the creation of aspirational identities that torment us with their unattainability—but I’d say that their anguish is most definitely of a far more primordial sort. Earlier on, you mentioned the idea of an inability to give something to someone, and the frustrated longing to get something from someone, which I think is exactly right. I would think that that paradoxical pair of impossibilities is endemic in human consciousness. As soon as the idea “I am” exists, the problem of the other arises. That person “is” too, and with that what hope is there for reconciliation or mutual acceptance?

Another thing you touch on in your previous answer is that these stories all have interesting lacunae. For instance, in “The Boys,” a story about a young boy named Rene who dreams of selling himself to some shadowy people, just as his older brother did. In this story you never quite find out what Rene wants to sell himself into. Of course one would imagine it’s something terrible like child prostitution, but NDiaye never makes it clear. In a way, these lacunae are the most important things about the story—they hold so much of the characters’ fascination and hopes—but in another way it’s not really important that you don’t find out exactly what they are. The stories function just fine, or are arguably improved, but withholding. Did you find it challenging to maintain these spaces in the translation?

Yes, because in a sense you have to go against your readerly reflexes. As a reader, you spot those lacunae and you fill them in (you come up with your own explanation for what “being bought” signifies for René, or for what exactly has happened or is happening to Brulard in “Brulard’s Day”). Readers do that spontaneously, coming up with a provisional explanation for anything that the story leaves unspoken. I have my own idea of what awaits René, and of what has happened to Brulard, and that’s simply because I’m doing my job as a reader; the vitally important thing as a translator is not to let your own understanding of the story taint, however discreetly, your rendering of it. (And one can easily commit that misdeed, by one’s word choices, by the tone one adopts…) For me, translation is a process of continual rethinking. You have to revise your translation again and again, without looking at the original, so that it will work as a text to be read in English; but at the same time, you’ve got to be continually going back to the original, making sure that in all your revisions you’re not drifting away from the text, making it too vague or too clear, too limpid or too crabbed, and so on. Many of the challenges of translation, I think, can be gotten around by that process of continual rethinking and revision. It takes a lot of work and concentration. That’s why I only choose to translate books that, like this one, thoroughly fascinate or trouble me. I can’t imagine doing all that work for a book that doesn’t give me anything back. And, in my experience at least, NDiaye’s writing always repays that kind of careful attention.

I very much agree with that. When I was preparing for this interview, I simply began reading these stories again straight through, and it was an incredibly rewarding experience. The sentences are so strange that they feel as fresh as the first time you read them, and you can begin to savor new things about them. For instance, this sentence, from the beginning of “The Death of Claude Francois”: “And the woman who looked like Marlene Vador, and who was Marlene Vador, since she’d said so, added, teasing and vaguely put out.” That simple notion of Marlene Vador confirming her own identity, which NDiaye elongates over two clauses, drives home just how strange it is that her friend Zaka has seen her again after all these years. We’ve all done this: “yes, that must be so-and-so because he’s said so, but it’s hard to believe.” I also like how the sentence moves from outside to inside Marlene Vador. We begin it looking at her and we and end it inside her head, and that middle clause, “since she said so” is where we pivot from one to the other. I can only image the work of translating these sorts of sentences. Do you feel that there’s something about the French language that lends itself to these kinds of sentences?

Yes, absolutely. French looks much more kindly on wandering, complex sentences than English does, and NDiaye takes full advantage of that every opportunity. The difficulty of the translator, of course, is that this aspect of the author’s style has to be preserved, while at the same time not being too off-putting for an American reader. The answer to that, as with so much of translation, is endless revision and rethinking. Sometimes the differences between languages can’t be overcome. In the first story, for instance, the French reader learns very early on (in the sixth paragraph) that the narrator is a man, thanks to the presence of two adjectives in their masculine form; in the translation, the gender of the narrator isn’t made explicit until he sees himself in the mirror in the post office. Does that make any difference? That’s the kind of question translators have to be asking themselves at every moment, and generally the answer is extremely unclear.

Related to the previous question, do you have ways of knowing when you should stop trying to polish a translation? I’m guessing there would be points where you might be sanding down purposely rough edges or making things a little too much your own if you revise past a certain point . . .

That’s a real danger. That’s why one of the very last steps when I’m doing a translation is to have my wife read the translation to me while I follow along in French. For one thing, that allows me to find missing sentences (a surprisingly common occurrence in translation) or unlovely repetitions; it also gives me another reader, who hasn’t read the original, and who can tell me if a sentence sounds vague or off or ambiguous; but perhaps most importantly, it forces me to confront all the spots where I might have taken liberties with the text, and to ask myself once again if I can justify doing so. If I were given the chance, I imagine I could go on polishing a translation more or less forever (having a deadline is a real help), but I begin to think that a translation is close to done when I can read it and hear a consistent, intense voice that is not my own. Doing lots and lots of revisions builds up the text layer by layer; get enough of those layers and you have a piece of writing that you would never have been able to do at one go, that sounds like it comes from somewhere other than you: that’s when it’s done.

In conclusion, I’d like to go back to your reading of “Revelation,” which I find very interesting. This idea that it’s a happy ending because this is how the mother is permitted to love her son. It brings to mind one of the things Publishers Weekly said in their review of the book, that NDiaye “prefers a kind of lacerating sincerity.” Often in love that’s what is required, though it is very difficult to reach that point, as the mother no doubt knows. It strikes me that each of these stories revolves around the difficulty of letting go, whether of the object of love, affection, or obsession. In my reading of the book, that’s what makes these stories feel so relevant to me, even though the situations are ones I’m not likely to be in. What do you see as NDiaye’s focal point here?

I think “the difficulty of letting go” says it very nicely. From another point of view, each of these stories depicts an episode of panic (with, again, “Revelation” as the calm if more than a little pointed resolution); the characters are all desperate, in one way or another, and sink deeper and deeper into that desperation within each story and from one story to the next (an image that comes up toward the end of “Brulard’s Day,” when she has to hold on to the arms of her chair so she won’t be sucked into the avocado-green sink she’s seeing in a sort of vision, is to my mind one of the most frightening depictions of panic I’ve ever read, in part because of the sheer banality of that avocado-green sink). I don’t know that she’s trying to say anything about panic, but it’s clear that it’s another thread that runs through these stories.

______________

JORDAN STUMP is a two-time nominee for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. He has translated books by many leading innovative French-language authors. They include Nobel laureate Claude Simon, as well as Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Eric Chevillard, Jean Ricardou.

Allison Amend:

A:  Every time I thought about a self interview, three images emerged: James Lipton asking me questions on “Inside the Actor’s Studio,” Vanity Fair quizzing me on its back-page Proust Questionnaire, and singing with the Beatles. I figured I would fulfill these aggrandizing fantasies here.

James Lipton: What is your favorite word? Least favorite word?

A: Amalgamate. Relatable.

Beatles: How do you feel at the end of the [writing] day?

A: Mostly glad it’s over, and, if I’m lucky, slightly exhilarated and inordinately proud of myself, the way I feel after I go to the gym. Also, usually something hurts: jaw, shoulders, wrist, amygdala…

Marcel Proust: What is your current state of mind?

A: Mostly nervous and excited for the release of my new book  A Nearly Perfect Copy (you knew I’d tie it in somehow) on April 9^th. According to the cover it’s:  “richly drawn and sharply observed…. a smart and affect­ing novel of family and forgery set amid the rarefied international art world.”

Allison Amend: What’s it about?

A: Elm Howells has a loving family and a distinguished career at an elite Manhattan auction house. But after a tragic loss throws her into an emotional crisis, she pursues a reckless course of action that jeopardizes her personal and professional success. Meanwhile, talented artist Gabriel Connois wearies of remaining at the margins of the capricious Parisian art scene, and, desperate for recognition, embarks on a scheme that threatens his burgeoning reputation. As these narratives converge, with disastrous consequences, A Nearly Perfect Copy boldly challenges our pre­sumptions about originality and authenticity, loss and replacement, and the perilous pursuit of perfection.

Allison Amend: Why did you write it?

A: I was interested in society’s obsession with authenticity, and our simultaneous fascination with fakery: fake news shows, fake designer bags, fake food. What happens when you attempt to replicate something? How does the fact that replication is impossible affect our feelings about it? If I set a book in Paris, will someone pay me to go there to do research?

A: No.

Beatles: What do you see when you turn out the light?

A:  304 pages.

James Lipton: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

A: I’ve always wanted to be a doctor, and have completed coursework for a TVMD, which is a medical degree you gain from watching hospital shows on television. Also, I’m available to host “Saturday Night Live.”

James Lipton: What profession would you not like to do?

A: Art forgery. Way too hard. Also, honeydipping. Sometimes, writing.

Marcel Proust: If you were to die and come back as a person or an animal, what do you think it would be?

A: Last winter, I glanced out the window and saw a groundhog. It was like looking into an interspecies mirror. I can’t explain this, and I would rather have a more noble spirit animal, but you don’t get to choose who you love.

Marcel Proust: What is your motto?

A: I live by two creeds: 1. Sometimes you win and sometimes you join the circus and the dwarves grow on you (my brother taught me that one) and 2. It’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick (that one is my grandmother’s).

______________

ALLISON AMEND, a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, is the author of the Independent Publisher Book Award-winning short story collection THINGS THAT PASS FOR LOVE and the novel STATIONS WEST, which was a finalist for the 2011 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Oklahoma Book Award. Her new novel, A NEARLY PERFECT COPY, will be published on April 9, 2013. She lives in New York City, where she teaches creative writing at Lehman College and for the Red Earth MFA program. Visit her on the web at: http://www.allisonamend.com or http://www.facebook.com/AllisonAmendAuthor

“Where’s Shrimp Salad?” was the first thing Elm’s husband Colin said when he walked through the door, and Elm fought a frisson of jealousy of her daughter.

The little hair Colin had left, white blond, clung to his head like seaweed. He popped a carrot stick left over from their daughter Moira’s snack in his mouth, and then tried to kiss Elm on the cheek clumsily. She had beaten him home by five minutes, and was still plugging in the various devices that needed charging after a long day.

Moira ran out of her room. “Daddy, I asked you not to be so silly,” she chided.

“Ya did, did ye? Be not remembering that, I wasn’t,” he said, exaggerating his Irish accent. He picked Moira up. “I’m silly? You’re a silly silleen gob, y’are so.” Colin let her slide down his body to the floor.

“Andrew was really funny today.” Moira said. “He made this noise in art class like this”—Moira blew a raspberry into her forearm—“and everybody really laughed. Even Mrs. Buchner.” Elm was half-listening, flipping through the mail. Bill, bill, package of coupons, labels from the children’s aid society, cable television offer, cable television offer, cable television offer. “And, Mom? It sounded like he farted.” Moira explained, in case Elm didn’t get the joke.

“Funny,” Elm said, placing her hand on Moira’s snarled hair.

Colin asked Elm when dinner would be ready, and Elm looked to see what the nanny had prepared for them.

“Whenever,” she said. “Looks like chicken.  I can warm it up anytime.”

“I’m hungry now,” he said.

“Then we’ll eat. Moira, set the table, please.”

A silence set in while they ate. Dinners were always like this. Elm didn’t understand why the family was reminded particularly of Ronan during dinner. They had rarely eaten together before; this was a new phenomenon. But his absence was acutely felt, his memory respected by a silence they had all tacitly agreed on.

Moira took one bite from each end of the three chicken fingers on her plate. She liked the ends, with the extra breading. She would have to be coaxed to eat the middle. Elm didn’t have the energy to fight this battle again. She was so tired that even her toes felt fatigued, as heavy as doorknobs.

As if she knew what Elm was thinking, Moira said, “Mom, do I have to eat the middle part?”

Elm thought about how good it would feel it to close her eyes and let herself be empty. To not be anything, not mom, not boss, not wife, not friend. She could be driftwood, a cloud, a plastic bag blowing directionless down the avenue.

Later, in bed, with the rain falling heavily again and the tires sloughing off water twelve floors below on the wet streets, Colin snuggled up against Elm, breathing into the hair on the back of her neck. “Y’all gonna give us some somethin’ somethin’?” he asked.

“Who’s that voice?” Elm asked. “You sound like a deaf frog.”

There was a silence. Colin ran his hand over her stomach slowly, polishing it.

“What are we going to do this year?” Elm asked the ceiling.

“About what?”

“Ronan’s birthday.”

Colin’s hand abruptly stopped. He pulled it back to him as though she’d bitten it. “I don’t know.”

Elm said, “Maybe we should go away.”

Colin turned, giving her his back. He was angry, hurt, Elm didn’t know which. Why could she still not read his silences after ten-plus years of marriage? Was she not allowed to talk about Ronan? “Maybe.”

After a silence Elm spoke. “I was going to say that I think I want to have another baby,” she said. Until that moment, she didn’t realize that she’d been thinking about getting pregnant, wondering if having another child might somehow ameliorate her grief.

“Really?” Colin said. “Is this the right time, do you think?”

“I’m over forty now. I don’t know how long it’ll take,” Elm said. “And I don’t want to regret not having started sooner. Or having waited too long.”

“I don’t know, Elm. Things are just so up in the air right now.”

Elm looked at the headboard. The veneer was beginning to chip away, revealing the particle board underneath. “I just feel like I’m ready.” She shrugged.

“Like you’re ready.”

In Dr. Hong’s examination room she stripped and put on the flimsy gown. She waited, chilly, increasingly frustrated at the passing time, staring out the window at its view of a brick wall.

Finally the doctor came in and introduced herself. This was Elm’s third ob-gyn since Ronan. How to explain to a doctor what happened? When Dr. Hong took her history, she asked how many times Elm had been pregnant. “I have one child,” she answered, her standard response.

Dr. Hong didn’t speak much during the exam, for which Elm was grateful. She hated having to make small talk with doctors. The nurse was silent as well. Soft music drifted in from a different office. Below, a truck backed up shrilly.

“Well,” Dr. Hong said, “everything looks fine.”

Elm had waited until the last moment. She and Colin hadn’t discussed it any further, but what harm could it do to investigate? “I was thinking about having another child.” Elm wasn’t sure if it was her imagination or if she saw the nurse raise her eyebrows.

Dr. Hong looked at her chart again. “Well,” she said, slowly. “You’re almost forty-three. You’re still getting regular periods?”

“Yes,” Elm said. They weren’t regular, necessarily, but they were not infrequent.

“There are two things we can do,” Dr. Hong said, resting her clipboard on her hip. “The first is test your FSH level, your follicle-stimulating hormone.”

Elm felt her annoyance rise. She wasn’t stupid, and yet doctors always explained biology as though she were completely uneducated, as though they were reading from a book about talking to patients. “Right, on day three,” she said.

“Yes. So you can come back in. Additionally, I’d perform a transvaginal ultrasound, that’s an ultrasound of your uterus.”

Elm’s patience ended. “Yes, I know what my vagina is.”

The doctor continued as though Elm hadn’t interrupted. “We do an antral follicle count where we, well, we count the follicles. That’s a pretty good indication of fertility. Would you like me to do that now?”

“Yes, please,” Elm said. She lay back down, her heart racing. Please, she begged silently, please let there be follicles. She tensed as the ultrasound wand entered her, and Dr. Hong pressed lightly on her abdomen. “Okay, three right,” she said to the nurse, placing her hand on the other side. “And four left.”

She removed the wand and took off the protective condom, placing it and her gloves in the bin. She immediately washed her hands. Elm sat up, nails thrumming on her thighs.

“Well, I’ll be honest, Ms. Howells,” Dr. Hong said. Elm looked at her, her eyebrows so thin, barely visible. “I counted only three follicles on the right and four on the left. That’s consistent with poor ovarian reserve.”

Elm felt the nervousness evacuate her body. It was replaced by nausea, the precursor to a wave of grief. “So I’ll have to take a fertility drug.”

“Well,” Dr. Hong said. Elm thought that if the woman said “well” one more time she might throttle her with her stethoscope. “The fertility drugs stimulate the follicles. If there’s nothing to stimulate, then it won’t really work. You’re not a good candidate.”

“What about IVF?” Elm demanded.

“There’s the same problem,” Dr. Hong said. “I won’t tell you absolutely not, because you hear these stories about spontaneous pregnancies, but it appears very unlikely.”

“How unlikely?”

“With these follicle levels there’s a less than one percent chance of spontaneous conception,” Dr. Hong said. “I’m very sorry.”

Elm fought the lump that was condensing in her throat. “I see.”

“I’ll send you to a specialist, to do more tests,” Dr. Hong said. She made a note on Elm’s chart. “I’m sure you’ll want to exhaust all the options. And we do have the best-ranked fertility clinic here in the hospital.”

Elm had stopped listening. She made a mental inventory of her clothing—pants, trouser socks, blouse, belt. Don’t forget your sunglasses, she reminded herself. Don’t forget to fix that bra strap that was bothering you this morning. She didn’t dare look at herself in the mirror above the sink, sure that her reflection would make her cry.

She charged her copay and left the office, walking to the East River. The air had switched directions; coming off the water it was cool, almost sharp, and she let it blow her hair back as she walked. She imagined that it blew right through her, getting rid of all the liquid that troubled her: her blood, which kept her heart pumping and aching, and the tears, which were threatening now.

She held back until she got to her office, then closed the door and collapsed on the small couch sobbing like she hadn’t since Ronan’s funeral. It felt, in that moment, equally as painful, as wrenching, as the day she said good-bye to her son. This was it, then, no more children. No sibling for Moira, no feeling of fluttering kicks in her belly, no first steps, first words, first haircuts. From now on, only lasts.

That night, after dinner, Elm picked Moira up and carried her to the bathroom. Moira began to cry, in a whining, overtired way that grated on Elm.

“Please, Moira,” she said. Then: “Don’t you dare kick me. You love baths.” She tried to strip her daughter, who had turned her body to stone in protest. Finally, she wrestled Moira into the bath still wearing underwear and a T-shirt.

“Mom! You forgot to take this off. Now it’s all wet,” she said with an accusatory and slightly teenage inflection. She removed her shirt in disgust.

Elm sat on the closed toilet while Moira splashed and sang. Sometimes when she closed her eyes, Elm could see the wall of water moving toward her. The hissing of the wave’s retraction burned her eardrums, and she shivered as though pinned down again in the wet debris. These were the sensations she returned to, as if by default, the images repeating over and over again.

“Mom?” Moira interrupted her reverie. “Can we get a cat?”

“No,” Elm said.

“You didn’t even say maybe, or we’ll see.”

“That’s because there’s not the slightest glimmer of hope that we’ll get a cat.”

“But why?” Moira whined. Elm wondered if Moira was entering one of those phases through which Elm wished she could fast-forward.

It was terrible, she knew, to compare children, but Ronan hadn’t been this difficult. She recognized that she was looking back at the experience, and the past was always gossamer and preferable to an uncomfortable present. Maybe she’d been more involved then. She remembered looking at him in the bath and thinking, I created this. His smooth small arms pushed a rubber duck around, creating small swirls of water. “Duh-key,” he said slowly, his first word after “Mama” and “Dada.” He grabbed her hand, wanting her to touch it too; he always wanted her to share his experiences, as if to maintain the closeness they had when he was part of her body. “Duh-key.”

She’d been finishing up her dissertation then; really it was all over except for the formatting, and she was home with him constantly. Everything he did was miraculous and amazing to her, because he was her first. Then Moira came and did the exact same miraculous things at nearly the same rate (or faster) and Elm simply couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm.

Now she asked Moira, “Do you miss your brother?”

“Yes,” Moira answered automatically. She rang out a washcloth over her head and blinked to get the water out of her eyes.

“Do you remember him?” she asked, leaning forward.

“Yup,” Moira said. “His name was Ronan and he died in the su-mommy in Thailand.”

“Tsunami. But do you remember anything else?”

Moira thought. “Umm, no?” she asked, not sure if this was the right answer to Elm’s question.

Elm sat back. She wouldn’t be able to get a straight answer out of a five-year-old. Today Moira might not remember, tomorrow she would, twenty years from now, who knew?

“Time to get out, Mo,” Elm said, smiling to prevent tears.

“Noooo,” Moira wailed.

“Yes, come on, the water’s cold.” She reached in to pick Moira up under her arms. Moira began to squirm.

“Careful, Mo, you’re slippery.”

Moira splashed Elm with her feet.

“Goddammit, Moira. Can you just please for once behave?” And Elm, surprising herself, began to cry.

Moira was immediately contrite. “I’m sorry, Mommy. I didn’t mean it.” I didn’t mean it was child talk for Now that I’m in trouble I wish I hadn’t done it. But still Elm cried, out of frustration, exhaustion, residual grief.

Moira was not as upset as another child might have been; she’d seen her parents cry innumerable times—so much, there couldn’t possibly be any liquid left in their eyes. They should be sacks of skin like dehydrated cartoon characters.

Elm sat back down on the toilet, and Moira wrapped her towel around herself, then hugged her mother around the middle. “It’s okay, Mom,” she said. “I remember Ronan. I promise.”

On a rainy Friday, a week before she gave birth to Moira, Elm took Ronan to the Morgan Library & Museum. “Is that the house one?” he asked. She wasn’t sure if he was talking about the Frick or the Morgan.

They rode in the first car of the 6 train, so that Ronan could pretend he was driving it. “If we’re going to Thirty-sixth Street,” Elm said, “where do we get off the train?”

“Thirty-fourth,” he said, as though anyone on the planet could answer such a simple question. He was driving the train, turning an imaginary steering wheel, yelling out the stops when they slowed. The subway car found it cute; people were laughing behind her as she held his belt buckle while he tried to peer out the window. Elm couldn’t lift him anymore.

A black man in a doorman’s uniform came over and, without asking, picked Ronan up so he could see out. Elm was startled—a sudden rush of adrenaline made her extend her arm as though she might snatch him back—but the man was totally benign, just trying to help, and Ronan squealed with delight.

After Forty-second Street Ronan said, “We get off here,” to the man, and he set him down.

Elm took Ronan’s hand in the crowded station as they moved slowly up the stairs. The baby was heavy, resting on her pelvis, and picking up her legs was difficult. She had woken up that morning with swollen ankles. The only shoes that fit were her sneakers.

Ronan’s hand was slightly sticky while hers was sweaty. Usually she let him walk on his own, but today he held her hand the entire way. He walked slightly behind her, as though afraid she’d fall down.

In the museum, she found him a children’s guide to the exhibition “From Bruegel to Rubens: Netherlandish and Flemish Drawings,” and gave him the first item to find within the intricate drawings, a dog with a curly tail. He stood far back so he could see them. Elm watched Ronan taking his task so seriously. She could read the triumph on his face when he found the dog, rushing back to tell her, almost running into a middle-aged Italian couple. “I got it!” he screamed, and when Elm put her finger to her lips he whispered it again.

“Now you have to find a horse,” she said, and he resumed his scrutiny. Elm stood in front of Cossiers’s portrait of his son Guiliellemus. The nose was too large for the small head, but Cossiers had exactly captured the child as his attention was drawn to something else, that moment between focus and excitement that she loved to watch in her own child. Moira kicked inside her and Elm rubbed the spot.

“Babies, babies, everywhere,” Ronan said next to her, reciting a children’s book. “There”— he pointed to the drawing—“and there”—pointing to her belly.

“That’s right,” she said.

“Girls,” he observed.

“Actually,” Elm said, “that’s a picture of a boy with long hair.”

One of his pant legs was tucked into his sock, and it was time for a haircut. Knowing it was likely the last time they’d spend real time together before the new baby was born, and knowing that everything would change, she held him to her and clung, perhaps a bit too tightly.

“Ow, Mom, she kicked me,” he said, pulling away.

“You two are fighting already?” She had felt it too, a little foot wedged between them.

“I just hope she likes trains,” he said, sighing.

“Me too,” Elm said.

__________

ALLISON AMEND, a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, is the author of the Independent Publisher Book Award-winning short story collection THINGS THAT PASS FOR LOVE and the novel STATIONS WEST, which was a finalist for the 2011 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Oklahoma Book Award. Her new novel, A NEARLY PERFECT COPY, will be published on April 9, 2013. She lives in New York City, where she teaches creative writing at Lehman College and for the Red Earth MFA program. Visit her on the web at: http://www.allisonamend.com or http://www.facebook.com/AllisonAmendAuthor

Adapted from A Nearly Perfect Copy by Allison Amend. Copyright © 2013 by Allison Amend. With the permission of the publisher, Nan A. Talese.

Photo by Aaron “tango” Tang.

One year you were an American exchange student living in Paris and the next you return (with a Fulbright) to study at the French National Circus School. The circus! What happened?

Yeah, I’m still as surprised as everyone. Basically, I discovered it by coincidence. My exchange program was a “critical studies” program with an emphasis on cinema and philosophy, and the goal was to expose us to as much Parisian culture as possible. On one of the outings we went to a “nouveau cirque,” a kind of contemporary circus, and I was blown away. It was absolutely nothing like the clichéd image of the circus that I had in my head. It was athletic and dynamic and dark, more like a piece of physical theater, with very able performers. I started seeing more shows and got hooked.

What is your first memory of the circus? Were you a longtime fan?

Not at all. To be honest, I can’t even say that I have a first memory. I did see a circus or two as a kid but the images in my head are vague, some kind of traditional show, with animals and chubby trapezists. I was actually pretty turned off for most of my youth. I barely thought about the circus. It struck me as a dead art.

At the school you underwent a broad curriculum, learning juggling, tumbling, clowning etc. Which was your favorite skill? Which most challenging?

God, they were all challenging in unique ways. I’d say my immediate favorite was juggling, because it was so accessible. With acrobatics and clowning, it can be months, even years before you begin to feel at ease in the movements or the characters. With a little instruction, almost anyone can learn to juggle three balls in a night.

In addition to trying to master trapeze, tumbling, and the like, you also did a lot of research on the origin of these skills. Are they new or old, and did they all spring from the circus?

It’s a complicated question. Technically what scholars call “the circus arts” date back thousands of years, before the arrival of written language. The Chinese, for instance, put the rise of acrobatics around 3,000 B.C., around when Troy was being founded. The Romans purportedly taught elephants to walk on tightropes. In many cases, the arts weren’t even arts, but religious or ceremonial practices: a shaman springing onto his hands to simulate an animal, a cavalier dipping off the side of his horse to scoop his gun off the battlefield.

The circus as complete performance form came together much later, relatively recently in fact. In 1768, an English cavalier named Philip Astley combined these disparate “feats of activity” with equestrian demonstrations, and this became the basic form of the art—horsemanship mixed with spectacular skills—for almost two hundred years.

Can you share a few of your favorite discoveries from circus history?

My two personal favorites are probably Madame Saqui and Jules Léotard. Saqui was a rope-dancer in Paris the first half of the nineteenth century. She was this enormous star, as big as Madonna today, known all over Europe for her skills and attitude, which one critic described as “robust.” Women in Paris imitated her fashion decisions. Napoleon took her as a mistress. She even performed at Napoleon’s second wedding, to Marie Louise of Austria, who apparently wasn’t too keen on the choice of entertainment.

Jules Léotard, who invented the flying trapeze in Toulouse, was another enormous star. If Saqui was Madonna, Léotard was like Bieber. Women and young girls literally fought outside the theater to see him. His memoirs are one of the great documents of circus literature. The book, published when he was only twenty-two, consists almost entirely of love letters penned by the ladies of Paris. I learned a little something about nineteenth century manners in that one. The women were shockingly open about their desires—at the risk of being salacious, there’s a reason the word ménage à trois is French.

The circus evokes daring, mystery, and spectacle. Can you talk a bit about the lasting mystique of the circus? And were there any misconceptions you had overturned, or surprises?

The interesting thing about the “mystique” of the circus is that it came not from the art but from the way it was propagated. I mean when we think of the circus we’re as likely to think of what happens after the show, on the backlot: the ceaseless touring, the putting up and taking down of the massive tent, these people who live outside of society. It’s hard to think of a contemporary parallel to that way of thinking. It’s a bit like imagining a professional baseball player in the locker rooms rather than on the field. A lot of the contemporary circus movement has been, in a sense, walking people back from these ideas, redirecting their attention to what’s happening in the ring, largely by making what’s happening more interesting, variable, and related to the modern world.

As far as misconceptions, yes, there were plenty. Especially in America, we have this image of the circus as a low form, a popular, dangerous, even somewhat salacious art for children, and we assume—or at least I assumed—that this image applied everywhere and for all time. But of course that’s just one shape of the circus, one form, and it developed that way for very specific reasons related to the development of America—namely related to the culture of the west, to our fascination with violence, to our emphasis on popular rather than high culture.

Elsewhere the circus was different. In nineteenth century Paris, circus was highbrow, as high at one period as the ballet or the opera. Shows were performed not in tents but in buildings, some of which were architectural gems, with neo-classical friezes and stone columns, like opera houses. The aristocrats would attend on Wednesdays and Saturdays in top-hats, tails, and dresses. When the Shah of Persia visited the city, he spent the afternoon at the Louvre and the evening at the circus.

 What are the differences between traditional circus, new circus, and contemporary circus?

Pascal Jacob, a circus historian who I meet in the book, likes to talk about the history of the circus as a tree. The roots are the circus arts, the disparate skills that have been practiced for millennia. The trunk begins in 1768, when Philip Astley created the circus proper. For two hundred years, the circus stuck to this relatively hard and consistent form—horse acts interspersed with feats of activity, animals and dangerous skill acts.

Then, at the end of the sixties, the form broke apart—like the branches of the tree. Circus artists began incorporating theatrical techniques, including story and character and dance. They tried to give their acts meaning and political or social significance. Archoas, for example, a famous French company, created a circus about the rebellion of the slaves in Brazil.

The statistics of this flourishing are incredible. In France, there are over 400 new circus companies, over 500 schools. Professional circus schools, most of which focus on “new circus” work have emerged around the world, from Mexico to Belgium to Morocco.

Today scholars consider this movement the “new circus,” or nouveau cirque in French, and that’s roughly where we still are in North America. In Europe, where most of the book is set, they’ve moved on to what they call the “contemporary circus,” which is even more progressive and avant-garde. Circus artists and directors express themselves through circus, much as a choreographer might express herself through dance, or a film director through his film. It’s what the French call a “complete art.”

You got to visit Cirque du Soleil’s training area and backstage. How was that experience? And what do you think sets Cirque du Soleil so apart?

Cirque du Soleil is unparalleled. It’s literally the biggest, most successful circus not just in the world, but in history. Their headquarters in Montreal looks like a movie studio or an aluminum factory. Their shows in Las Vegas alone gross more than all of Broadway combined. It’s almost unfathomable.

What sets them apart? I asked them a similar question, and I think they gave me an accurate response: timing and culture. The new circus movement really took off in Europe, but Soleil brought to North America. And they did so with a certain attitude and series of skills. In Europe, and in France especially, the companies are mostly small and government-subsidized, like theater or dance companies. Soleil recognized that there remained a commercial potential for the circus, and then demonstrated an almost savant-like ability to exploit that potential. They basically started growing and never stopped. And they still haven’t stopped. According to some people in the business, they’ll eventually eclipse the old clichés to become the new definition of circus in the world. I can’t say that I disagree.

What does the US circus scene look like right now? Are we behind or on the cutting edge, as compared with other countries? Is there a lot of interest in the circus in the states? 

Well, it depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, yes, we’re well behind Europe in terms of the quality and quantity of professional work. Because the government refuses to support the arts here, it’s been incredibly hard for artists and companies to sustain themselves for any extended period of time. I could give you a few names: Cirque Mechanics, the Wanderlust Circus, Teatro Zinzanni in Seattle, the Lucent Dossier Experience in Los Angeles. But these are rare cases, and most Americans probably aren’t even aware that there is a contemporary circus movement out there.

That said, in another way America is actually quite developed. Because it’s incredibly hard to support yourself as a creative circus artist, most professionals eventually become teachers or entrepreneurs of circus schools, and the result is an almost unique amateur circus movement. There are over 100 circus schools around the country. Dozens more are emerging every year. Most major cities have at least one, and almost every major director I’ve spoken with has a waiting list.

So yes, it’s clear that people in America love to do the circus. Whether they are willing to pay to watch it remains unproven, aside from Cirque du Soleil of course. But I think even that’s changing. Producers and theater programmers are already beginning to wake up and realize, ‘Oh wow, the circus sells!’—which is of course what will determine it’s future.

Are you involved with the circus now and if so, how?

Yeah, for awhile afterwards I had a sort of macabre clown theater company, The Candidatos. Now I try to keep more in the wings. I’m working on some circus-related screenplays and teach circus history and criticism at the National Circus School in Montreal. I serve on the boards of a couple of circus organizations and do consulting work through CRKO, a digital agency. But you know once you’re in the circus, you’re never really outside it again. In the old days they had an expression, “sawdust in the veins.” I think I have a little bit of that.

______________

Duncan Wall studied as a Fulbright scholar at France’s École Nationale des Arts du Cirque de Rosny-sous-Bois. He is on the board of directors for the American Youth Circus Organization and was the founder and co–artistic director of the Candidatos, an acclaimed clown-theater company recognized by The New York Times for its contribution to the flowering of contemporary clowning. He lives in Montreal, where he teaches circus history and criticism at the École Nationale de Cirque, Canada’s national circus school.

Some of Nayu’s memories, I know, are real memories; others have been constructed from listening to her parents and siblings recount their own experiences of the earthquake, the goudougoudou as many call it in Port-au-Prince.

It’s been years now; schools have reopened and Nayu has finally started eighth grade at Sainte Rose de Lima, the Catholic school that I myself attended as a child. Nayu asks me about South Florida, the life I live there, then passes the phone to her mother, my sister, Nathalie.

Nathalie’s voice is languid. The school has called. Nayu left the classroom screaming in the middle of the lesson. Again.

“She says she hears voices,” Nathalie says. She pauses. “Hold on.” I hear her yell at Nayu to get out of the room and get some homework done. I don’t want you to talk about me behind my back, Nayu screams back. Get out of the room, Nathalie says. Then my sister is back on the phone. “Well, not voices. A voice.  Coralie’s voice.”

Coralie was a flower girl at my wedding. Skinny little thing with a great smile. The color yellow suited her well. She was one of Nayu’s good friends. After the earthquake, she remained buried for hours under concrete. She died of internal bleeding the day after they dug her out.

“I don’t know how to deal with her,” Nathalie says. “Do you think she’s lost it?”

The child psychologist says PTSD, a type of anxiety disorder.

“Maybe she really does hear Coralie,” Nathalie adds.

She wants to believe that Nayu is an Indigo child.

Indigo children are believed to possess special, unusual and sometimes supernatural traits or abilities. They’re said to have reached the next stage in human evolution, being more empathic and creative than their peers. Indigo children are supposed to represent an expanded human consciousness that can see way outside the box of the earthly mind.

“I don’t know,” I say.

Accepting the PTSD diagnosis would be denying the possibility that the voice Nayu hears is real.

It would be denying the existence of ghosts.

It would be denying Etienne.

I didn’t just hear Etienne, though. I saw him, too.

I lived in the neighborhood of Christ-Roi, in Port-au-Prince, until I was nine years old.  What I mostly remember about the house at the corner of Christ-Roi Street and Brutus Lane are my parents’ nightly fights, the sound of violent shoves and slaps, one of  my sisters jumping off the balcony.  Growing up, I tried to rationalize these experiences, telling myself that I must have dramatized my memories; that the fights must have happened only once or twice, but were so traumatic that they seemed to multiply.  “No,” Nathalie says.  “It was almost every night. You remember well.”

To compensate for the lack of emotional stability at home, my parents provided me with at least four dozens Barbie dolls, and every single Care Bare sold at the local K-Dis. Mother had Bòs Fan, the neighborhood carpenter, create miniature replicas of every single piece of furniture we had at home, so that I could play house with my dolls.

Because I was very imaginative, my sister Patricia, who is two years older than I, would often just watch me play. She called it “Jessica’s theater.” She usually just lay on the three-seater sofa, but one time decided to use the loveseat. “Not there,” I said. “Etienne usually sits there.”

She smiled. She thought I was making him up.

I knew Etienne wasn’t flesh and bones. I knew that I was the only one who could see him—a twelve year-old boy who looked a bit like Patricia, slender with sharp features. Somehow I knew I should never (never!) answer him. I also knew I shouldn’t tell anyone about him. In the first place, who would believe me? Plus I was afraid that once I shared that secret, Etienne would be gone. There was something about him—a something that radiated from his boneless being, engulfing me in warmth and hope; something I imagined to be love in its purest form. I needed him.

It never occurred to me that something might be wrong with my head. I guess a person aware that she is experiencing hallucinations is a lot different from one who thinks the things she’s seeing or hearing are real. Even as a child, I knew that Etienne was only real to me. PTSD? According to Nayu’s doctor, people with post-traumatic stress disorder sometimes hear voices that no one else can hear, or see things that are not really there.

Etienne first appeared to me when I was six. Several times a day, I would catch him walking around the house, opening and closing the wooden doors. Sometimes he whispered in my ear. “You’re safe,” he said one night as I awoke from a nightmare.  He was tucked in bed next to me.

I loved watching his face. How amused he was when he watched me play.  Euphoric when Patricia and I decided to turn the balcony into a sliding rink, splashing bokit of water and dissolving batons of laundry soap so we could slide on our butts. Disapproving when Patricia told me Santa Claus didn’t exist and showed me where Mother kept the Christmas gifts—dozens of packages carefully wrapped with rectangular stickers that read “Bisous du Père Noël.” Sympathetic when I cried myself to sleep.

Of course, I had theories. To explain Etienne’s resemblance to my sister, I figured that he must be that brother Mother had miscarried, back in 1977, before Patricia and I were born. I asked Mother about it once. “Oh, it was so early during the pregnancy,” she said. “I don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl.”

Sometimes I thought that he must have been a boy who’d lived in the house before us; he must have died there.  One time when the landlord came to collect rent, I tried to ask him about the previous tenants, but Father interrupted me to ask Mr. St. Surin whether he could repaint the balcony.

At school, the nuns talked about saints and guardian angels; we all had our own. They loved us despite our despicable human nature, our ingrained sins and failures. Etienne must be my angel.

The idea that I loved best was that I had willed him into existence.

I was on the balcony one day, reading Comtesse de Segur, the sweet smell of cake batter drifting from the kitchen, when I became distracted by the shape of my thumbs holding the pages of the book. The fingers reminded me of my father’s hands, and a powerful self-hatred gripped at my nine year-old throat.

I felt Etienne’s presence then.

“Why are you here?” I asked. I was suddenly furious at myself, furious at the world, both physical and supernatural.

I didn’t get an answer. When Etienne disappeared that day, I never saw him again. And I’ve longed for him since.

Etienne’s face has become blurry in memory. But I do recall his voice.

Because I sill hear it.

It’s the voice I heard back in 1990 as I was about to cross a New Jersey street. I wasn’t paying attention, didn’t see the car coming full speed. Suddenly, I heard the strident “Jessica,” just in time for me to step back, the car only grazing my thighs.

It’s the voice I heard behind the wheel of my old sports car in 2005, after an eight-hour internship at Cushman School, followed by a six-hour shift as a clerical assistant at Barry University, and another four hours of essay writing. I fell asleep behind the wheel and let go of the brake pedal under a red light on 441. As the car started gliding, I heard someone calling my name, waking me from my slumber, leading me to the realization that I was in the middle of the intersection. Réveille-toi!

I’ve never told anyone about Etienne before. If he was, in fact, a figment of my imagination, a way for me to deal with the violence that rocked my parents’ marriage, how do I explain the warnings I continue to get from him? How do I explain the faceless, one-way conversations we sometimes have when I’m asleep, the monologues too detailed, too logical to only be dreams? He is the voice who addresses me directly in my sleep. What you feel, this emptiness, is longing for a connection that is difficult to find in your earthly body.

Nathalie lets me speak to Nayu again.

“Don’t answer her,” I say to my niece. “Coralie—I mean.”

I don’t know why it’s important. But it is.

“Okay,” Nayu says.

“Love you, baby,” I whisper.

Maybe Nayu and I simply share a genetic predisposition to imagining things, or maybe it’s that we’re simply dealing with the similar results of dissimilar traumatic events.  Still, even if there is no such thing as an Indigo child, I know my niece is special. After all the horrible things that she witnessed on January 12, 2010, she started writing.  When I read her poems, which are moving beyond many of the texts I read these days, I can’t help wonder about these “super humans,” born with a great capacity to connect to the true purpose of existence, which I assume to be love.

Playa del Rey and Venice Beach, California

7:05 p.m.: Seated at a fine restaurant. Intelligent, attractive, interesting and sometimes flammable man on one side of the table. Me across.

Trout with almonds. Carrot soup. Half a bottle of chardonnay. Mountain elk.

Dessert: the one on the cover of a magazine that made me want to dip my finger onto the page and come away with a drip of chocolate. The photo that led us here.

9:15 p.m.: Relocated to Venice. Began to drink a hallucinogenic tea by which I would break away from this particular plane for a while. Tried not to laugh while listening to music blast from the flammable man’s bungalow as we sat outside next to his green, non-operational VW van. The leaves began to breathe, the tendrils of the fig tree reached out to me.

9:45 p.m.: Readied for a walk. Considered all the times my mother and the media have warned me against walking around Venice at night. A klieg light was observed in the distance, and it was decided that we locate it simply by walking toward it. The flammable man turned off lights, locked doors, while I made a phone call. A phone call Out. I immediately wanted to go back In. It felt portentous that the flammable man’s understanding of klieg light was from a Lou Reed song. I thought he might turn the lights on, put the needle on the record. Instead, we set out onto the streets of Venice.

10:30? 11:30 p.m.? The houses astounded. Every block an amalgamation of contrasting modes of architecture. Observed: a house with a big open porch on its first floor, and on its second floor, a large wheel, like you could steer the house away and down the street. This boat seemed to be posing as a house. We stood away from the house, looking, looking. Our investigation amounted to nil. We walked in the middle of the street amid much laughter, which appeared to be ours.

At an undetermined time, the klieg light was found. It was parked in front of a fictitious business. A dance party undulated inside, and we could see the inhabitants from the windows, behind the FOR LEASE sign.

1 a.m.: The ocean. The reason I moved back to Los Angeles. To be closer to this place, the ocean I knew so intimately I could fall asleep feeling its rhythm after a long day in its waters. The full moon. Jupiter, visible in the black cloth. Stood in the sand, letting my feet sink in, me and the flammable man sometimes looking at each other full in the face during innumerable conversations, which were actually a series of character sketches of people we know, people who are enigmas to us. Including us.

We walked towards the Santa Monica Pier. Everyone we encountered stood by, shadowed, empty of harm. Hilarious uproars burst out of our mouths. I picked up a seashell. I could feel every single grain of sand on my fingers, which felt strangely comforting.

1:45 a.m.: Back at the bungalow. Did I want to drink the rest of my mug of tea? No. We broke open bottles of cold beer instead. A chessboard was set up. Moves and strategies and rules were discussed, the Los Angeles Times Chess News was consulted. Black won two pawns.  The beer coached us along.

3:30 a.m.: Photographs of each other were taken from across the chess board. We were opponents. Still, we helped each other with every move. We got up from our chairs, looked at the board from a variety of angles. The flammable man stood at a diagonal, his eyes on the board as he tipped another brown bottle back. I stood, with my back against the linen cupboard, across the bungalow, watching the chess board, keeping safe harbor for my queen. It was speculated aloud how we wanted to react to the other person’s move. It was discussed how this method of playing chess is sometimes like life, but not often enough like life. A Love Supreme played on the radio in its entirety. And then: The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady.

5:30 a.m.: We took to bed. Small, slow breaths. Daylight threatened. Closed my eyes. Fell.

(2)

Killradio Office, Los Angeles

The office reminded me of a clubhouse. We walked up the stairs past several closed doors with posters and flyers for psychics, vitamin and herb sellers, a therapy group.

After unlocking the door we brought in our twelve pack of Negro Modelo and set it on the industrial green carpet of the inner sanctum, past the room of computers flickering their own witchy energy into the stale air. In the room where DJs arrive at all hours of day and night, there were flyers of political and musical persuasion competing on every inch of wallspace.

I liked that I could smoke in there.

I asked for an ashtray and Boy Howdy (hereafter referred to as BH), the DJ on that night, that hour, located one from a cupboard filled with audio equipment. It was the same gold-colored glass ashtray my mother had, has had since I was a tiny kid.

The studio reminded me of my own days as a DJ at KAOS radio in Olympia, Washington. I had a solo show for one year, but it was everything BH could do to make me say ten words on the air.

“Air”—it was an internet radio station.

That place, thick with record albums, compact discs, old mugs filled with pencils and scissors, fans, mikes, flyers, was the perfect place to empty out the contents of your pockets, and it appeared that many different people had.

The studio reminded me that I used to date musicians habitually and I had recently broken that cycle without intention. Eating burritos across the street after the show, ten o’clock at night, I was also reminded that this kind of thing was a sometime ritual for me, years before: the stacks of music, the freeform folks walking in and out, the empty pockets and piles of ephemera, the loud music, the late-evening dinner after two beers on an empty stomach.

I missed it.

In this studio of an internet-sometime-pirate radio station, there was a certain scent I liked, that light mildewed carpet smell that reminded me of band practice in the garage and the loveability of people who don’t give a shit that the place is a mess. If you could peel back the first layer of band flyers, various political posters, newspaper clippings and photos of someone’s arm or half of their face, what would be left?

The DJ played nineteen-eighties music and I felt that twitch in my eye muscle and wondered if my eye sockets still looked bruised and if this eighties music thread was going to last, and if not, which direction it would go next.

The DJ played old David Bowie. He quietly tried to pierce my heart with what he loved, knowing or not knowing that it was what I loved, too.

In the same way that that place reminded me of band practice and emptied pockets and stubs of cigarettes, it reminded me of my friend the monk. His birthday had just passed and I thought of him but did not email him, nor did I send a card in advance. He seemed beyond birthdays now and he was beyond all the plans I now made, the ones I vowed never to make, like living with a lover again, and taking on two new cats, and getting married. My monk was in a West Virginia monastery. We once thought we would marry each other for the potential gift registry at Dees in downtown Olympia.

After I spilled beer across the DJ’s Husker Dü album I wiped it down with a dirty canvas bag on the table that wasn’t mine. I thought for the third time how much my innermost soul would like some Purell. I touched the bottle opener one too many times.

There was a baby doll high up in a corner with a pink and white checked dress silkscreened with the name of the station. There was a plastic cup with plastic spoon and knife on a table. I detected a very slight smell of reefer. The DJ, a man with thready limbs, knobby veins, leaned over the turntable.

I spotted a precariously hung newspaper clipping: “Girl Scouts Burn U.S. Flags—Out of Respect for Old Glory.”

My fingers were sticky. Dry.

I wondered why I must always succumb. Especially in italics. Like that. Succumb.

Another poster announced: “WE ARE A WEBCAST STATION.” Underneath that, in red marker, “Gorilla.” A homemade cardboard sign, blue, with red marker letters: “be your values.” A small, dorm refrigerator, covered in stickers. Papa Smurf played guitar on a shelf of compact discs.

I wished I could fuck the DJ in there. He was playing Devo. I wanted to fuck him because of his thready limbs and knobby veins and his short, short hair and his shiny black shoes. Maybe because Devo was playing. I could even forego the Purell. Maybe.

It’s good that I’ve decided to marry him, I thought.

There was a poster for a vintage film called “Cobra Woman.” In a blue photocopied poster of someone in their plaid underpants, I couldn’t tell if I was looking at their front or back end.

Out the window, someone jog-shuffled across Beverly Boulevard.

I teetered in my chair. A bottle fell over and dribbled beer onto the carpet. The carpet that had absorbed so much already.

Arriving to class early, I spent a few minutes milling around with the other students, making small talk. There were only three of them: Maud, Fanny, and Boris. All were French, all about twenty or so. None were particularly impressive physically. Fanny might have stepped out of a Woodstock poster. Her hair was knotted into dreadlocks, and she wore a ragged wool sweater and a pair of cutoff sweatpants, both of which looked voluminous on her tiny frame. Only slightly taller and thinner, Maud flaunted a tongue ring and a panoply of ear piercings. Boris had broad shoulders and a chiseled jaw, but even he didn’t seem particularly athletic, more like a soldier than an acrobat. In my white Adidas T–shirt and black track pants, I was feeling confident.

After a few minutes, Luc, our paunchy acrobatics professor, arrived. He introduced himself and announced our goal for the day: we would begin with a “reference test,” a simulation of the school’s entrance exam, to gauge our progress over the year. But first, he said, we should take a few minutes to stretch before we got started.

Whereupon I hit my first snag. As I lay there on the ground, arms and legs pitched to the side, the hall lights sparking in my eyes, it occurred to me that I had no idea how an acrobat might stretch. My primary sport while growing up had been soccer, and soccer players don’t worry much about their arms or their necks.

As a temporary solution, I imagined a relief pitcher stretching in a bullpen. I waggled my arm like a dead fish. I pulled my biceps across my chest and gave my arm a good tug. When I had extinguished this line of possibility, I stole a glance over at my cohorts for inspiration. All three of them were gyrating vigorously on the ground, as if engaged in a group Pilates class.

Maud was bouncing her nose toward her knees. Boris had rolled over backward, as if trying to catch a whiff of his crotch, and was alternately popping his legs skyward, then lowering them and squeezing his thighs against his chest. Nearest to me, Fanny lay sprawled on her back, sweeping her legs confidently from side to side—-right over left, left over right. The cuff of her pants made a percussive swishing against the carpet. Swish, swish. Swish, swish.

I decided to give it a shot. Unfolding, as if to make a snow angel, I opened my arms and legs as wide as I could, gave a sigh to expel the air from my lungs, and twisted swiftly at the waist, so that my right leg swept across my left.

Immediately, a series of deeply unhealthy cracking sounds cascaded up my spine—-pop, pop, pop, pop, pop! I had never heard my body make such sounds before. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fanny lift her head off the carpet. She eyed me, concerned. “Was that your body?”

I looked at her blankly and shrugged as if I didn’t know what she was talking about. She scrutinized me and then went back to sweeping her legs. I rolled over for some more arm stretches.

It was my first sense that I was out of my league. It would only get worse.

“All right, who wants to go first?”

Stretching complete, Luc had summoned us to the spring–loaded runway, where he lounged on a black cube, a clipboard on his knee. Our “reference test,” he had explained, would consist of a series of acrobatic movements, from basic to difficult. We would have three shots at each. Luc would score each movement: 0 was for not attempting, 5 for perfect. We would start with a basic somersault. “C’mon,” he coaxed again, “somebody has to start.” Maud emerged from our pack.

I had chatted a bit with her before class. She was dainty, with blond hair styled in a pixie cut, a button nose, and green eyes that sparked energetically. She seemed kind and a bit shy. Recounting her experience working as a mascot at Disneyland Paris, she had rolled her eyes, covered her mouth, and laughed an endearing, airy laugh.

But as Maud assumed her position at the head of the runway, there was a demonstrable shift in her demeanor. While Luc repeated the instructions—-three somersaults per pass—-she bounced on her toes and jiggled her arms like a sprinter prepping to settle into the blocks. Gone was tender Maud, the Disneyland Daisy. In her stead was someone darker and fiercer. Toeing the line, she gave a soldierly nod and exhaled sharply, almost snorting. Then she sprang.

It was a spring to behold. With her chin tucked, her toes pointed, and her whole frame taut, Maud arched through the air. Curling just before she hit the ground, she rolled and emerged on her feet, finishing with a little hop, her hands in the air. She paused only momentarily before pouncing again through a second somersault, then a third, each as flawless as the first, like a porpoise cutting waves.

I felt myself shudder. This wasn’t rumpus room; it was Romanian. In the course of her young life, Maud had probably performed hundreds if not thousands of somersaults. To calm myself, I looked to the other students. They seemed unimpressed. Boris had bent over for some toe touches. Fanny was unraveling a loose seam on her sweatpants.

“Next!” called Luc sluggishly

Excerpted from The Ordinary Acrobat by Duncan Wall. Copyright © 2013 by Duncan Wall. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

_______________

Duncan Wall studied as a Fulbright scholar at France’s École Nationale des Arts du Cirque de Rosny-sous-Bois. He is on the board of directors for the American Youth Circus Organization and was the founder and co–artistic director of the Candidatos, an acclaimed clown-theater company recognized by The New York Times for its contribution to the flowering of contemporary clowning. He lives in Montreal, where he teaches circus history and criticism at the École Nationale de Cirque, Canada’s national circus school.

Michelle Orange is the guest. Her new essay collection, This is Running for Your Life, is now available from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.

Get the free official app. Subscribe for free at iTunes.

Del Rey’s music is a melding of somber crooning and propulsive beats, ironic posturing and genuine sadness, of girlishness and Thanatos. Her music and persona, as presented in songs like “Born to Die” and “Ride,” are bewildering and retro. In nearly all of her music videos, she is somehow being restrained or forced by male characters—in “Blue Jeans,” a male character puts his fingers down her throat; in “Born to Die,” she is forcefully kissed, her mouth smashed against his mouth; and in“Ride” she is bent over a pinball machine.

Her characters welcome this, though. In almost every song, the speaker is begging to be viewed voyeuristically:

I’m in his favorite sun dress/Watching me get undressed

Watch me in the swimming pool bright blue ripples you/Sitting sipping on your black Cristal

Likes to watch me in the glass room bathroom, Chateau Marmont/Slippin’ on my red dress, puttin’ on my makeup

Every Saturday night I get dressed up to ride for you, baby.

Every lyric is about performing for someone. Her characters seem to have no inner world aside from a desire to be driven somewhere, anywhere, fast, “fucked hard,” and, well, to die. And this is where Lana Del Rey gets weird.

Here, she reminds me of another doomed female heroine, Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks. Like Palmer, Del Rey’s characters continually flirt with disaster and death. Her songs both acknowledge and welcome the dangers of chasing away a deadening sadness by taking too many drugs, driving too fast, and burning out while still glamorous. The videos, too, depict this. In “Born to Die,” Del Rey’s character seems to be singing from a big, empty heaven, as we see her climb into a car and end up bloodied and dead, held in the arms of her heavily-tattooed boyfriend.

This courting of death makes her unique among the current female singers with a masochistic streak: while Rihanna makes videos about the effects of living fast and free (as in“We Found Love”), the idea is that you can have fun—but must pay for it later. Lana Del Rey’s music makes paying for it the point.

So, what’s appealing to a woman about this persona of a death-seeking sex doll who begs men to see her as an object? I think it comes from the fact that we’re not supposed to want the things that Del Rey’s characters want. They are everything a modern woman doesn’t allow herself to be. And so it lingers, a shadow femininity, one that women are both attracted to and repelled by. To be frank, it is sometimes exciting to be completely dominated by another person and, sometimes, to be an object, admired as one might admire a painting. It is also damaging, obviously, to not be seen as fully human. Still, objects have power. When the character in the song “Off to the Races” says Tell me you own me, she also says, Who else would put up with me this way?”  In a relationship where she is objectified, she is also free. There will be no pesky interventions and no limits on what she is allowed to do, as there would be in a mutual relationship. She is free to kill herself from drinking or overdosing, still free as long as she has youth (something else with which Del Rey’s music is obsessed). It makes sense, then, that these characters would also court death—what will they have after their beauty, youth, and desirability fade?

Del Rey’s music, persona, and videos all play to this shadow side, but do it cannily, in a way that demonstrates self-awareness. Her songs reference Walt Whitman and Nabokov as well as hip-hop, classic films, and doomed icons such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis. This mix of both high and low culture doesn’t mean that she always gets it exactly right—songs like “Gods and Monsters” and “Cola” are too on-the-nose and outright goofy to be effective—but the consistency of her obsessions suggests that she isn’t blind to the impact of her choices.

But back to that Livejournal account. I’ve asked many people whom I knew from those early LJ days if they remember this account, and none of them do. I wonder, sometimes, if I made it up myself, if it was some kind of shadow side of my own life at the time. Even at eighteen, in 1999, I was living an adult, responsible life, attending a Southern Baptist college full-time and working thirty hours a week. I neither drank nor smoked, and lived miles and miles away from beaches. Maybe I needed a Lolita from somewhere far off, a girl full of cocktails, sunshine, and seashores, and created her all on my own. Lana Del Rey, too, feels like a culturally-created specter, her presence more an exorcism than a rehashing of old stereotypes. She is the poster child for dark, death-obsessed, objectified femininity, and her persona feels dangerous because it is—representative of the edge that contemporary women are often flirting with and pushing against and, sometimes, going over.

When do we begin to decide what books we love? At what point do we start choosing to read books about one subject, but not another?

There can be no argument anymore about the lesser affection in this country for books by and about subjects usually associated with women. The third VIDA: Women in Literary Arts count has been out for a while, and the 2012 numbers aren’t significantly different, overall, from the numbers for 2010 and 2011. Women are still seriously underrepresented in America’s most prestigious publications. Book reviewers are still mostly men, reading books by men, too.  Last month, Meg Wolitzer criticized major booksellers and publishers for the part they play in undermining female authors. On Tuesday, Deborah Copaken Kogan detailed her “So-called ‘Post-Feminist’ Life in Arts and Letters” in a powerful essay in The Nation. As Kogan puts it,

It’s a proven fact, backed by simple math even my first grader can understand: the number of reviews of books by men is greater than the number of reviews of books by women; the number of male reviewers is greater than the number of female reviewers. Men, in other words, are still the arbiters of taste, the cultural gatekeepers, and the recipients of what little attention still gets paid to books.

Over and over, women writers’ stories reinforce what the VIDA count tells us about the state of American arts and letters. Things haven’t changed as much as we’d hoped they would.

And yet, things are changing, subtly, slowly. As VIDA notes, a small number of high-profile publications, such as Tin House, are, in fact, changing their practices. The same day that Kogan’s essay was posted on The Nation’s website, the New York Times announced that Pamela Paul would be replacing Sam Tanenhaus as the editor of The New York Times Book Review. Surely, with a woman in charge there, things will change. Or will they?

Every book my daughter laid out on the living room floor that night a few weeks ago was a book I had chosen carefully for her, because I believe that the stories I read to her at this age will help to construct her understanding of the world, her taste, her foundation for a whole life of reading.  But I wonder what books the other kids brought to school. I wonder what they read at home, how much they do read. I bet the girls’ parents read them stories about boys, just like I do for my daughter. How could I raise a child without reading her Jack and the Beanstalk? Who doesn’t love the magical surprise of the beans, the alliterative villainy of fee, fi, fo, fum, and cheering for Jack when he chops down the stalk and fells the evil giant at the end? But how many parents think to read their sons books with female protagonists? Not traditional tales like Red Riding Hood or Rapunzel in which the title character is passive and/or disobedient, only to be miraculously rescued by a male hero at the end. But books like poet Matthea Harvey’s Cecil, the Pet Glacier in which a “normal little girl” inherits a not-so-normal pet on a trip with her oddball parents to Norway, a story in which the protagonist’s sex seems beside the point. Or Mary Pope Osborne’s Kate and the Beanstalk, a beautifully illustrated retelling of the traditional tale in which the standard lazy male protagonist is replaced with a much more heroic female character, who seems an improvement upon the original.

If we really want to fix the problem of books by women being ghettoized and not taken as seriously as books by men, it’s not enough to read our daughters books about strong female characters. We need to begin reading our sons those books too, and encourage them to keep reading them as they get older. Because if we don’t, no matter what their teachers tell them, no matter how many books by and about women they encounter in school, they will have already learned the lesson, early on, that only Jack is interesting.

How would you describe Wedlocked?

Wedlocked is an intimate, uncensored self-portrait of a man (once a boy) leaning towards infidelity. Perhaps that Leaning towards The Other began as I watched my older brothers and father leave my mom, our dog (a black lab named Bump), and me in the house in the woods, and perhaps that Leaning gained space-shuttle lift when I failed to cope with something as ordinary as marital loneliness. Wedlocked describes (among other things) my desire for The Other inflating my sense of self, filling my sense of self with POTENT PONTERI SELFDOM. This book is the car ride to the collision, the dark hallway to the Void, the burnt bulb dangling by wire from the ceiling.

And you think somebody wants to read that?

ABSOLUTELY I think people want to read this book. There are readers who want the words they read to combine sorrow and beauty (the beauty of made things, the beauty of words formed into sentences, the beauty of human expression). There are readers who enjoy human sorrow made beautiful. And it’s not just sorrow. It’s comedic self-consciousness, thoughtful self-reflection, and darkly imaginative self-expansion. The best case scenario for me is readers, having felt my marital loneliness, might feel less alone in theirs.

What is your favorite section of the book?

There are two sections: pages 36 to 40 and pages 106 to 111. Both sections were written late in the writing process, which is also to say, both are emblematic of the writing I’m doing now, which I describe as unplotted prose stripped of cause and effect, maybe (not) a trace of instance framing deep self-reflexive meditation and dream, i.e., the poem as a field of action (William Carlos Williams). More essay, more poetry, less memory but not entirely devoid of memory either. I think of it as highly associative meditative self-portraiture. Ashbery with much more self.

Why did you choose to publish a book that seems so potentially hurtful to your wife and son and parents? Why wasn’t it good enough to write this book and let it be?

I would be disingenuous if I didn’t say up front that I write prose and poetry to share with others (even though when I’m doing it, I’m mainly speaking to myself). I finished Wedlocked in 2009 and sat on it for three years as my wife and I continued to strengthen our marriage and encounter (together) the difficulty around my need to share this work with others. It has been a process that has tested our relationship just as much if not more than the transgressions the book reveals. Wedlocked is not merely self-portraiture, not merely my memory of my young marriage no longer young. Wedlocked enacts the need for MORE uncensored self-revelation. Thus publishing Wedlocked, sharing it with others, ensures that revelation. It’s also worth noting I never set out to write an “expose” of my marriage. I needed to consider what was happening inside of me, needed to express the divided-ness I felt in life, in my marriage, in my parent’s marriage. My expressions, my sentences, scared me, seemed terrible, but beautiful too. In short I felt myself speaking unspoken thoughts, and those thoughts materialized into sentences will only truly complete themselves when others see and/or hear them.

Like your wife?

Yes, like my wife. And my parents. And friends. And complete strangers. And the people of France. Because I don’t censor myself in this book, the people who know me or know my wife and me as a married couple might, upon reading it, confront something starkly unfamiliar, something that doesn’t at all get expressed in our ordinary interactions, over coffee or on the telephone or at dinner parties or visits home to the Midwest or in the hallways of our childrens’ schools. I’m revealing the inside skin. I mean, one cannot deny that Americans struggle to talk with any kind of specificity or sincerity about marital / monogamy failure. How many times have you heard somebody say, “You never know what happens inside a marriage.” That’s so oppressive and stifling to me. My response is this: So maybe we don’t know what happens inside that other person’s marriage but let’s talk about our own. The essayist Adam Phillips, one of only a few male writers who have written literary nonfiction about marriage, says that once we consider adultery (not monogamy) as the norm, then we can begin a serious consideration of monogamy. As one of my writing teachers (Susan Neville) once said, Literature begins where illusion ends.

Why do people struggle to talk about marital / monogamy failure?

They do and they don’t. I find that a couple might talk about their own relationship (in therapy?), but that talk tends to remain under lock and key, doesn’t become a larger discussion among couples, or at best, the conversation remains inside the minds’ of our therapists whom we demand keep our secrets. Imagine how terrible we’d be as parents if we didn’t speak about our struggles and failures with other parents. Women, more often than men, might speak “across relationships,” say, with friends, with their mothers and grandmothers, but my experience is men don’t do this, or if they do, it’s not till they’ve been in the marriage for a long time. And couples don’t often speak with other couples. To answer your question directly: people don’t like to talk about things they tend to fuck up or fail at, and people don’t like to talk about things their parents didn’t talk about, that is until the silence begins to really damage the core. People also don’t like to talk about things that are terribly confusing and complicated, things strife with irreconcilable contradiction. I’m complicit here. I find it all very difficult to discuss. One must start a practice of doing it, of reaching out to others in difficult moments, of encountering difficulty and frustration together.

Do you have a question for me?

I do. Why do you doubt me so much?

Self-doubt is where I begin. I can give you plenty of reasons (youngest of 3 boys; lived in an incubator for two months before I felt the touch of my mother’s hands; came of age in the Reagan ’80s) but regardless, my work, my practice, is to not stay mired in self-doubt, to drag myself through it and out of it, and reading and writing and teaching students and being a husband to a beautiful woman and a father to an amazing son and a handler to two wooky pugs all help me move out of self-doubt towards other more soulful mind-states, like generosity, humility, silliness, curiosity, and even confusion. I embrace confusion and messiness because those things feel so very real to me. Self-doubt is the darkly lit tunnel through which I pass to arrive at meaning, poignancy. And beauty.

____________________

Jay Ponteri directs the undergraduate creative writing program at Marylhurst University and Show: Tell, The Workshop for Teen Writers & Artists. He is the founding editor of both the online literary magazine M Review and HABIT Books. His work has appeared in Tin House, Puerto Del Sol, Seattle Review and “Listen to This,” was chosen as a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2010. Jay lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and son.

Jennifer Spiegel is the guest. In 2012, she published two books: The Freak Chronicles, a story collection, now available from Dzanc Books; and Love Slave, a novel out from Unbridled Books.

Get the free official app. Subscribe for free at iTunes.

She said to me, “I’m conducting research on the imagination.” She looked out at the parking lot. We were standing in front of Jon’s Grocery.

“Can you imagine a tree standing in the middle of this parking lot?” she asked. I looked out at the blacktop teeming with parked cars, some moving like sharks. “Yeah,” I said. I can imagine pretty much anything.

“What kind of tree would be best here?” she inquired.

I thought for a second. “Well, it depends,” I heard myself say. “It depends on whether we’re talking ‘best here’ for me, or for these cars, or for the community…”

She agreed that this might be the case, it was circumstantial in a way. She seemed pleased. The skin on her face was tight but crinkling in all the smile parts, and her gray hair was straight and bluntly cut one length. She held a small clipboard with her notes.

“So what kind of tree could you imagine?” she asked me. We kept looking at the parking lot. I told her what kind. She smiled and nodded. “Would you be able to smell it?” she asked finally. I stopped and tried, and told her I knew I could if I wasn’t thinking of so many other things, and where I had to be. I wanted to tell her about how I used to make the sounds of the 170 freeway turn into ocean waves, but there was no time. I looked towards the hospital and she released me.

This is a fiercely original book—at once intimate and epic, visceral and philosophical—that sent me scurrying for adjectives, for precedents, for cover.   —Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins

In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods tells the story of a newly married couple who take up a lonely existence in the title’s mythical location. In this blank and barren plot far from the world they’ve known, they mean to start the family the unnamed husband wants so obsessively. But their every pregnancy fails, and as their grief swells, the husband─a hot-tempered and impatient fisherman and trapper─attempts to prove his dominion in other ways, emptying both the lake and the woods of their many beasts. As the years pass, the wife changes too, her suddenly powerful voice singing some new series of objects into being, including a threatening moon hung above their house, its doomed weight already slowly falling, bending their now-starless sky.
 
In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods is about marriage, parenthood, and the dreams parents have for their children─as well as what happens to a marriage whose success is measured solely by the children it produces, or else the grief that marks their absence.

Please note that this title has already shipped and is no longer available.

Subscription Options

Select —– U. S. Domestic : $9.99USD – monthly International : $19.99USD – monthly

Celebrated journalist, TV personality, and award-winning author Touré investigates one of the most enigmatic and fascinating figures in contemporary American culture: PRINCE

Drawing on new research and enlivened by Touré’s unique pop-cultural fluency, “I Would Die 4 U” relies on surprising and in-depth interviews with Prince’s band members, former girlfriends, musicologists, and even Bible scholars to deconstruct the artist’s life and work.

Prince’s baby boomer status allowed him to play a wise older brother to the latchkey kids of generation X.  Defying traditional categories of race, gender, and sexuality, he nonetheless presents a very traditional conception of religion and God in his music.  He was an MTV megastar and a religious evangelist, using images of sex and profanity to invite us into a musical conversation about the healing power of God.  By demystifying the man and his music, “I Would Die 4 U” shows us how Prince defined a generation.

Prince deconstruction?  Musicologists and Bible scholars?  I’ve been waiting to talk to Touré all my life…

JMB:  Can I read you a bit of a paper I wrote in Abnormal Psych about Prince?

Touré:  Oh yeah.

“Chesterton said that when a man knocks on a harlot’s door he is really looking for the heart of God and that is Prince’s essential conflict, the contrast that makes his art compelling, heaven and hell, love and lust, ego and insecurity, brokenness and hope, searching for salvation through sex, happiness through hedonism — yet discovering, same as King Solomon — that its end is emptiness…”

I think you nailed the duality of the spiritual and the profane in one life.  Prince wants both.  He doesn’t want Saturday night and hardline Sunday morning.  He wants it all wrapped up in one.  Plus, he wants black/white, male/female, rock/soul – and I think that’s part of why so many people fell in love with him.

Here’s one I used to ponder:  If “Little Red Corvette” is just a song about casual sex with some whore, why is it so powerful?

I don’t think she’s a whore…

She’s got a pocket full of Trojans!  Some of them used!

I know, I know.  But that’s one of the things you see in Prince’s music and his perspective towards women.  Prince doesn’t judge a woman for being sexual and adventurous.  Listen to “Darling Nikki” or “Lady Cab Driver”.  He doesn’t think negatively of women for being hypersexual.  Which is why I think a lot of women respond positively to Prince whereas others can have a similar song and come off vulgar.  Because the message in other lyrics is: “If you are a sexual woman, you are a whore.”  ”Little Red Corvette” is a sweet story.  He’s young, naïve, sort of a neer-do-well – we all remember being that person.  And then this girl comes in and blows his mind.  Prince is wondering if he can live up to the performance because she’s older, more experienced, more sexual… am I gonna be able to rise to the occasion and please her?

I can see that.  It sexually empowers women not as whores but someone who is confident.  But what’s really interesting is you have Prince – the coolest of the cool – and he’s nervous and shy and…

… I wondered if I had enough class!

Exactly.  It’s not your average rock and roll boast.  He’s kinda frightened, not sure of himself.  That’s endearing.  People can identify with that.

It’s a theme.  Again, songs like “Darling Nikki” or even “Raspberry Beret”.  This really experienced, sexual woman picks up on him but he never laughs at her, never looks down on her.  But it’s not one or the other – he wants to worship God via sex.  He sees it all as one, sex as part of the worship mode.

You call Prince “The most important religious artist ever.” Explain how you could assert this over artists such as Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Bono…

I think Prince is bringing a serious discussion about God and Jesus into the public square – where people maybe don’t want to talk about these things.  So like Christ, he’s taking the conversation to the people who aren’t looking for it.  Traditional religious artists are preaching to the choir.  Literally.  Going outside of the traditional church crowd makes Prince a more powerful evangelist.  Also, I think the amount of conversation Prince is having about God and Jesus is much higher than most of those other artists.  And he’s taking it to a larger audience.

INT.  CLUB — NIGHT

TRILL of a church organ fills the room.  CLOSE-UP on various faces.  Black, white.  Male, female.  Straight, gay.  Freaks and misfits, angels of the night.

On stage, a figure EMERGES from the blinding light.

PRINCE

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life…

What do you think happened to Prince?

What do you mean?

He strolls on stage late at the 2004 Hall of Fame performance and slays the legends — even the great Tom Petty – then, as Eric Leeds says in your book, after he reminds us how incredible he is, the guy throws down his guitar, shoots the audience a dismissive look and walks off the stage like a jerk.  Why hasn’t Prince found a way to ease into legend status like a Tom Petty or Bono or AC/DC — or even a funky Roger Waters ¹, you know? 

I’m not sure I agree that hasn’t entirely happened.  In my mind you’re overestimating Tom Petty, maybe?  But you’re not overestimating Bono.  Bono is in an extraordinary position.

But if anybody’s capable, right?  I guess I’m talking more as a fan now.  Prince spoke to a lot of us, telling us we didn’t have to fit in some certain place, that we could make our own place and God was big enough to be there with us.  He doesn’t have to make “Purple Rain Jr. Part II”².

Well, okay.  The guy loses his child and obviously, that changes him.  He gets older.  I think when you get past forty-five it becomes extremely hard to make music that is popular and relevant and competing with the cultural register.  Part of the difference in his later career and some of the musicians you’ve named is that Prince has rejected the traditional industry model.  So that’s gonna put a crimp in your ability to sell lots of records.

I was listening to “She’s Always In My Hair” just before this and thinking, Man, this was just a B-side!  Give us something this powerful and relevant today…  I just wonder sometimes – is it insulation?  Unopposed narcissism?  Because there seems to be a sense of Prince as primarily an 80s artist and that’s really heart breaking.

I believe it was John Mayer who talked about how the ability to write pop songs after the age of forty – songs that impact people – plummets.  We can look to performers who have beat the odds like U2 — although they seem to be trending downwards, Radiohead — even though they appear to be running out of steam.  People like Madonna and Jay-Z are trying to hang on.  But between forty and forty-five it gets really difficult to make relevant pop music.  Your life is so different, you are just not in that world anymore.  This is youth culture.  Very difficult even for people who are extraordinary songwriters and performers like Prince.  To be able to make statements that resonate throughout a generation.  I mean, you know, you and I were kids when we were getting into “She’s Always in my Hair”, playing it a million times… What does a 45 year old have to say to a 20 year old that the 20 year old would find meaningful and important?

Talk about time and aging and how hard it is to lose a child?  About spirituality as life moves on and how you stay real? (laughs) Sorry man, I’m rambling.  Maybe I want Prince to become like Neil Young or something.  Maybe I’m hoping for something that just isn’t going to happen.  I don’t think I’m the only one though.

You know, if Prince were willing to deal with the music industry that would be much more likely.

You’re right.

Prince made more great albums than any other artist in the last thirty years.  Dirty Mind.  1999.  Purple Rain.  Sign of the Times. There are eight or nine classic albums in there.

Absolutely.

Who else did that?  Over a ten year period?  So I guess the question is how many times can you do it?  How many times can you rock the culture?

And so much great unreleased music from that era too.   Sounds like you were as big a fan as I was – what was your favorite unauthorized recording?

Unauthor-what?

Uh, bootleg. 

Oh man, I worked at a record store in Atlanta and there was this four-sided live vinyl release.  It had a recording of “Nothing Compares to You” that was just… unreal.  At that point we only knew it as the Sinead O’Connor song – but his version just blew me away.

I got my first bootleg in Atlanta too, at that shop right out of Buckhead.  The First Avenue show.  It had the 10 minute version of “Purple Rain” with the extra verse and the song they cut from the movie, “Electric Intercourse”.  Just incredible stuff.  What song still does it for you every time³?

So many.  The great ones never get old. “Adore”, “International Lover”, “Pop Life”, “Take Me With U”… I could go on.

How about the more recent stuff?

I loved “Illusion, Coma, Pimp & Circumstance”.  It has this great funky beginning.

For me it would be “P Control” or “Shhh” from The Gold Experience. 

I haven’t totally gotten into the new stuff yet but this guy is always working, always coming up with something new.  A lot of artists go to the studio when they’re inspired.  He’s just there.  Always.  Now people are talking about that performance of “Bambi”⁴ on Fallon like, Whoa! Here we go again….

We’re all pulling for him.  Like, please, blow our minds again.  Hey, I wanted to throw one more thing out there.

Sure.

My favorite part of the book is where you go to Paisley Park and play basketball.  How surreal is it to be playing one-on-one with Prince?  So many questions were going through my mind — did he seem really short in sneakers, what did you think when you saw the Charlie Murphy bit…

Charlie stole my story!  That’s the first thing I thought!  I had to keep reminding myself that Prince has probably played basketball with many, many people.  That’s how he relates ⁵.  I’ve heard stories of him taking girls home from the club to play basketball.

But what was your gist of him as a person?  Did he seem sad or lonely or just eccentric?  Did you get the feeling he was at peace?

You know, when we were playing basketball he seemed like a normal dude.  Like, he wasn’t performing or anything he was just… chilling.  It was like playing ball with the guys from my childhood.  Just talkin’ shit and trying to beat each other.  Having a good time.  It was the most normal moment with him I’ve encountered.  When we were done he took off the sneakers and went back to the persona, the performance of the personality.  Back to being Prince.

That’s why the story connects.  We want to see a little normality at this point in his life.  There was a time when I needed him to be The Kid with the mirror shades and the motorcycle.  I don’t need that anymore.  Just be okay being you.  At least you got to see that, for a little while, and you showed it to the rest of us.  Thanks, brother.

Oh, man, thank you.

Postscript:  Saw this recent live clip just after the interview.  You know, if you’re this head-&-shoulders-above-the-rest kind of awesome, I guess you can be as eccentric as you need to be.  Ride on, Prince.

_____________

Touré is a co-host of MSNBC’s The Cycle and a columnist for Time.com. He is the author of four books, including Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness?, a New York Times and Washington Post notable book. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two kids.  Follow @Toure on Twitter.

Your own experiences going through an open adoption have informed The Mothers.  Why do you think people keep asking you this?

I think people are obsessed with reading fiction as truth. I would count my family in this category , as well as my friends. Anyone who knows a writer is looking for the reality, for themselves, as if it is a puzzle. As if novelists have no imaginations.  But there is logic to this, as fiction writers tend to take what can be our own experiences—even if it’s just what interests us as people–and grow them into fiction. And so there is a reason I did not write a primer on adoption, or, more realistically, a memoir about my experience.

You sound pretty defensive.

Do I? I am. I know I am. For a variety of reasons.  To my mind, a memoir—at least the ones I have admired most—have at least a trace of analysis to the experience at hand. There needs to be a sense of where the writer is now in order to understand the level of reflection that is going on in the book.  A novel feels very different to me. The analysis is embedded—implicit even—in the plot, characters, setting.  In the end, one either writes this way or they do not. I am not saying a writer can’t do both—I, in fact, do both—but I really saw this as a novel that took on the serious, complex and strange issues I was experiencing in my life.

You went from writing about different aspects of history in the novels before this. How did you make the switch? Why not write about adoption in the past, giving it historical heft?

I have always felt if I did not write a “big” novel, which is to say a broad, social one, as we expect from male writers,  I would not be taken seriously as a writer.  This meant: big ideas, third person, a lot of pages, extensive research.  But that is not always what makes a great novel.  What makes a great novel is something that terrifies and compels its writer.  That makes her brave on the page, whether it’s formally, or content-wise, or whatever it is that makes her take chances. And for me, this time around, that was a first person contemporary woman telling her first person contemporary story, with those concerns.  I am embarrassed I hadn’t thought about that sooner, or more, assumed that this way of writing and thinking was not fiction-worthy.

You are a new mother now.

Yes.

Are you concerned about how motherhood will affect your work?

I have wanted a baby and tried to get one for almost a decade.  I have been writing novels for longer. With or without a baby, I dread the beginning of a book. I am beginning a new one now.  I have less time, but the dread, well, that hasn’t changed a bit.

_________

JENNIFER GILMORE is the author of two novels, Golden Country, a 2006 New York Times Notable Book and finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the National Jewish Book Award, and Something Red, a New York Times Notable Book of 2010. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Allure, Bomb, Bookforum, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, Salon, Self, Tin House, Vogue, and The Washington Post. She has been a MacDowell Colony fellow and has taught writing and literature at Cornell University, Barnard College, Eugene Lang College at the New School, and New York University. Currently, she teaches at Princeton University and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Though we were well into fall, the heat and gas from the cars rose up in waves; looking out it could have been a summer day, except for the trees lining the blocks off the highway, their branches reaching up, sky slipping through brittle claws. Ramon’s hands were tight on the steering wheel. And Harriet, sweet Harriet, sat behind me, panting in my ear.

“Honey.” I reached back to calm her. “Settle down, darling.”

We were dropping her off at her favorite place on earth: my parents’ house in Northern Virginia where she ate scraps of grassfed venison and beef tenderloin, fetched tennis balls on the lawn, and where at night my father carried her, curled in his arms, up and down the stairs.

We were leaving Harriet and heading down south, to North Carolina, for a training session at a national adoption agency.

Ramon’s hands went white, then relaxed, the color returning to them, as if pigment were being poured into the casing of his skin.

“We’re not in a hurry.” I craned my neck to see ahead.

“No,” he said.

“We can just get there whenever.”

“That’s not really true. I mean, we need to be in Raleigh by six.”

“We’ve got plenty of time,” I said.

Ramon looked at me and laughed. “We don’t actually. And since when did you become so easygoing?”

“I am willing it so,” I told him, but inside? I did the math like I always did the math, though I am not a math person: It’s 7:30 a.m. If we get to Virginia by noon, and stay fifteen minutes, we’ll be fine. Other math: If I have a baby right this minute, I will be seventy-six when the child is my age now. But I am not pregnant, so I have to add on nine months and change the equation: if I get pregnant right this minute. But of course, I’m not getting pregnant. Which is why we’re taking this trip in the first place.

Four hours and fifteen minutes after leaving Brooklyn, we pulled up in front of my parents’ house, once my home, but now my home is a fourth-floor walk-up in Brooklyn. Not for the first time, I realized that the sweep of their corner yard and the way the hill at the front led around back to a rose stone patio with wrought iron tables and cushioned chairs, a barbecue flanking the house ringed by azaleas and hydrangea bushes and, marking the end of the property, a large woodpile to feed the fireplace in winter, were all too enviable. I saw myself as a child running in the sprinkler out back, a rainbow arcing in the mist. I saw Lucy trying to catch hold of me and I shielded my eyes from the memory.

When had I stopped disparaging my parents’ way of life and had instead begun to covet it?

Ramon parked on the street, leaving enough room for my mother to zoom out of the garage, as she often did, without hitting our car. Madame Harriet took the quickest of pisses before she bounded up the lawn to the front door and sat, tail wagging, waiting for my mother to let her in. In and out of this door, summer nights thick with lightning bugs. Winter, trailing in snow from the treads of our Moon Boots. The soft white light of the kitchen.

“Hello!” The door swung open. Harriet reared up on her back legs, squealing and snorting. And there she was:

The Mother.

“Hey, Mom.” I entered the hallway.

“Hi, honey.”

“Joanne!” Ramon embraced her.

“You two want some lunch before you get back on the road?” my mother asked.

“Quickly,” I said.

“Thank you so much for taking Harriet.” Ramon handed over the leash.

“Are you kidding? We love watching her. She’s our granddog!”

I breathed in sharply at this, as we didn’t have a grandkid to offer up, but a dog. Lucy, three years younger, was off teaching in South America. Or she was surfing there and building huts? Or scuba diving? Whatever she was doing, there didn’t seem to be a deep commitment to family on her part. She’d lived away for over five years now, and I hadn’t seen her in nearly three.

Lucy and I had had no falling-out to speak of, no argument that had divided us, and yet we rarely communicated now; we had not spoken in ages when we caught each other on the phone last week.

“Jesse?” I had heard birds squawking in the background; had there also been the sound of the ocean?

“Lucy!” I cried on hearing her voice. “How are you? Where are you?”

“Panama?” she said. “With a friend.”

A parrot screamed in Spanish, ¿Dónde está la carne de res?

Last time we’d spoken, my sister had been in Costa Rica. Now, in Panama, she was doing some sort of community outreach with an animal refuge and making jewelry with disabled young mothers. All this she’d told me with a sigh of exhaustion, as if she’d acquired seventeen companies or traveled to the moon; and she was also helping this friend open a café specializing in Greek food. And she was surfing, too, which was why she had originally landed in Costa Rica. She had become a surfer, my sister, Lucy.

As she spoke I made a note to never send my hypothetical child to college in California.

My sister and I knew so little about each other now. The last time we’d talked I told her I was about to embark on my final fertility treatment. I hadn’t followed up to tell her it was unsuccessful, and she hadn’t called to find out. She was off, out there, somewhere; it was hard to fix an actual image of her that held still, that wasn’t in motion.

My mother, however, was here before me, before a backdrop I knew well, but she too had become unrecognizable. My whole life, she’d worked, traveling for months at a time. It was our housekeeper, Claudine, who raised us by day. She kept her entire wallet stuffed in her brassiere and wore an Afro wig of fake, gleaming black hair that she would take off when she was in the house, revealing that her head was bald in parts, the remaining hair straightened, greased with pomade, and pinned back.

“Just one minute, let me make you a sandwich for the road,” my mother said, as if she had been feeding me lunch and milk and cookies every day of my life.

“And coffee,” I called after her, enabling her fantasy—and mine—that she had always been here just to serve me.

What is a mother? I have asked myself this often. As Ramon and I hauled back into the car, waving good-bye to my mother and Harriet, who didn’t give a lick that we were leaving, I thought about my own mother’s arrivals, her unpacking, Lucy and I anticipating our gifts. We sat cross-legged on her bed watching her remove her travel kits and her perfectly folded garments as we waited for our packages to emerge from the depths of her suitcase, which smelled of saffron, or cleaning solution, or used bookstores. She would then turn to face us. That was back when my mother let herself go out into the sun without the sunscreen that could protect her from a nuclear explosion, and her face was several shades darker, her nose and cheekbones sprinkled with the freckles I have inherited. Why, I wondered then, was the developing world, where I knew my mother went, always in the sun?

The gifts were regional and various: small woven baskets, iron figurines, wooden napkin holders carved into elephants and giraffes, a cloth envelope containing three clay beads. One particular time, she handed me a small package folded in a wrinkled, waxy brown paper bag and wrapped in one of her long peasant skirts. Inside were several copper bracelets.

“They’re pretty,” I’d told my mother. But in truth I didn’t like them. What I really wanted was a dangling metal heart suspended on a golden chain, tilted on its side, like my Andy Gibb–loving babysitter wore. I didn’t want what was for purchase in a marketplace in Africa.

Now I wonder how she could have left us for so long, what that was like for her.

“Bye,” I yelled, watching my mother and Harriet in the front yard, her waving as we pulled away.

Ramon and I met in Italy when I was traveling there alone. I’d been working on my dissertation—a small portion was on gender and generational politics in contemporary Italy—which enabled me to receive grant money for the visit. I hadn’t known when I planned the trip how anxious I’d be when traveling alone, securing hostels, acquiring proper currency. On night trains, fearing Gypsies, I wore my passport taped to my heart.

I have often imagined that I would never have met Ramon had I had companionship in those tired, dusty afternoons. In Rome, I slept in a hostel run by nuns. Ramon was visiting his mother in Terracina, not two hours from Rome, where he’d come to stay with friends, and he too was unaccompanied when we met in Santa Maria in Trastevere.

My mother’s sadistic touristic rigor had put me off cathedrals altogether—villages across France must bear the heavy marks of my dragging footsteps as I was pulled in to investigate each town’s church—but on this trip they offered relief from the heat, and I remember walking out of the sun and into the familiar musty darkness.

Why do synagogues contain light, churches darkness? I wondered at this, looking up at the dusky ceilings, the dark walls embossed in gold, the carved decorations. I crept into the chamber behind the altar, where their relic was stored: Saint Apollonia’s skull encased in glass on a bed of red velvet.

There was a slot to insert a coin and when I dropped a lira in, the skull lit up and in the trembling church light I could see its grooves, the wavy lines separating the different parts of the cranium. The light did not last long and when it switched off I turned to see Ramon waiting behind me.

“Want to watch again?” He held a coin between his thumb and forefinger.

And then there it was, illuminated. Like a heartbeat, I thought.

I had not been thinking of a child’s then. Once all the math I did was mere subtraction: I had been ill—I’d had cancer—but I had survived my illness. Perhaps I was thinking only of the surprising durability of my own heart.

That first night, Ramon spoke with the nuns at the convent where I had secured my little cot in the row of women, the bed’s sheets pulled up tight like a scared child’s, like the girls in the Madeline books, as I retrieved my bag from the convent. As I walked away, I knew the sisters were thinking that the stories they’d heard about American women—especially the Jewish ones—had been true. That night in Rome was the first time since I’d had my surgeries that I’d let someone touch me. The moonlight streamed in through the window, and when I lifted my shirt, tentatively, the line that bisected me, that jagged cut, was illuminated in the eerie gray light.

Ramon had paused. “Looks like you lost that catfight,” he’d said before moving on.

After two days of pizza and pasta and coffee and ice cream and fried artichokes and street cafés and piazzas filled up with pigeons, and the exchange of stories about our separate lives in New York City, where Ramon now lived, we sat eating at a place in Campo de’Fiori. The restaurant boasted a choice of no less than 3,456 types of mozzarella and as far as I could tell not one of them was not the most delicious, creamy, delectable morsel I’d ever tasted. I was on not my first, second, or third “taste” when Ramon asked me if I’d like to meet his mother.

Beneath my deep uncomplicated love of the mozzarella, I liked Ramon. But I did not know if this was a lasting relationship. So, no, I was not dying, just then, to meet his mother. And yet I was intrigued. When Lucy and I traveled with my parents, they sought out a farmer to cook a typical meal for us, or a restaurant with four chairs in the mountains one couldn’t find in a guidebook (or without one, it turns out), a special ceremony only locals—which somehow seemed to include us?—could attend. The goal: a true experience that legitimized the privilege of our tourism, rendering it authentic and therefore qualifying us as atypical Americans. When traveling, never turn down the opportunity to visit the home of an indigenous person, I thought, and so I told Ramon that I would love to meet his mother.

I thought of all the indigenous objects my mother had brought from her travels: a mask from Kenya that had been danced in a renewal ceremony and so had once come alive; a voodoo doll from Haiti with rusted pins in its back; a Moroccan woven basket. As we drove from the highway onto the dirt road that took us to Ramon’s home in an agricultural section outside of the commune, I wondered what I could bring back, proof that I had traveled there.

Ramon explained that his mother, Paola, had grown up in Terracina, which is a town in the region of Lazio. “But she’s just come back to live permanently only recently,” he said.

Ramon had described his experience of living all over the world due to his Spanish father’s work for BP. He told me about living in West Africa and Argentina, about Holland and Colombia, about how his mother held him so close, afraid of what lay beyond the confines of their company-provided homes.

“Where’s your father?” I asked as we made our way down the pitted road.

“He’s still in Jakarta,” he said. “Now they’re temporarily separated.”

“Jakarta!” Did I even have an image to attach to this place? Had my mother ever brought me a gift—a hand-painted puppet made of paper, batik cloth—from there? I saw a city with the tallest building in the world. I saw women covered head to toe. “Temporarily?” I asked.

“Yes. It’s just temporary.” Ramon looked straight ahead.

I glanced at him, but he did not turn to catch my eye, and so I sat back, my bare feet on the dusty dashboard of his navy blue VW Golf (the car of a Nazi, my grandmother would have said, just as she told my father when he bought his used Volkswagen from a hippie in Arlington). The road was bumpy, and edged by high stone walls and swaying cane, so that we could see only straight ahead, an endless path of loose dirt and gray stones.

“Anyway, my mother’s family is from here,” Ramon continued. “Their old stone house is actually on our lot, but now there is the new house,” he said. “Long story, but my mother told everyone in the village I was an architect. In order to keep up the ruse, she and my father asked me to design the house, like an architect would.”

The car thumped along, and Ramon kept his eye on the road. I loved his profile. Like a man on a nickel.

“Seriously?”

He turned toward me. He stopped the car and took his hand off the gearshift. “Yes,” he said, placing it on my knee.

“She thought  a graphic artist meant painting billboards, like the ones in Rome, which made her think that I would have to stand on a ladder to paint them, which of course meant that I could fall, and not only that I could fall, but that I most certainly would fall, and so, better to be an architect, leave New York, and come back to Terracina and build up the village.”

“Wow,” I said.

“Yes.” Ramon removed his hand from my knee and began again to drive. “And so it was built and so the house makes no sense.”

“You mean to tell me you actually drew up the plans and then someone just built the house?” A little ways up a truck was making its way toward us rather speedily, alarming, as there was only room for one car on this road.

“The point is, this is not what you would call an American family situation.” This seemed to be an insult of some kind and I thought of the earlier girlfriends Ramon had told me he’d brought home to Paola: a Swiss ballerina, a Mexican painter, and most recently, a photographer from Brazil who had visited Java with Ramon. They had taken a trip into the jungle and had hiked down into a special cave and Ramon had opened an umbrella in front of his face to keep the bats away.

I looked at Ramon. What did he see when he looked at me, aside from my Americanness?

What he didn’t seem to notice or care about was the pickup truck barreling toward us. “Also,” he said, “you need to get rid of everything before you come in the house. Cigarettes, condoms, any kind of alcohol.”

I pointed at the truck. “Alcohol? And all my firearms?”

Ramon put the car in reverse and began backing up at an uncomfortably rapid pace.

“Ramon!” I grabbed what I thought was the armrest on the door but turned out to be the manual window crank. It promptly fell off in my hand. “Shit.” I felt my anxiety rise.

Ramon had backed into a little patch of flattened cane and we watched the truck scream by, its wheels rattling as they spit dust and stones at us.

“Close the window!” He reached over me.

“Here.” I handed the plastic contraption over to Ramon.

He leaned over me again, sticking it back on with a focused push. “It has fallen off for years,” he said. “You really have to be careful not to pull it at all, just push it, gently.”

“Have you thought of fixing it?” I asked, afraid now to touch the handle.

“Why? If you handle it gently, properly, there’s no problem,” he said. “Anyway, listen, here’s where you need to dump any cigarettes, condoms, anything of this nature.”

“Yes, but I don’t have any of those things.”

“You sure?” Ramon pulled out onto the road. “Do you have any lingerie? Because my mother will go through your bags. She will search everything,” Ramon said.

“First of all, had I backpacked through Europe alone, with lingerie, and met some Italian-Spanish guy who lives in New York who I’d been sleeping with for three nights, don’t you think he might have seen it by now? The lingerie, I mean.”

He smiled.

“And second of all? That’s ridiculous,” I said. “You’re how old, thirty-five?”

He nodded again. “Well, thirty-three.”

I was twenty-nine then.

He couldn’t be serious, I thought as he slowed down to a stop in front of a large metal door, sea blue, a color I have only seen painted on toy boats and the twirled domes of the churches on Greek islands. Pink and pinker bougainvillea and twisted bright green vines climbed up the sides and over the doors.

Ramon took a key out of the clean ashtray. He went to the door and pushed it open: a flash of light and then the tips of citrus trees with their green waxy leaves, branches heavy with lemons and oranges. Then he returned to the car and drove us slowly inside, gravel crunching beneath our tires.

There was the house, the house that Ramon had planned, with a red clay roof and wooden shutters, opened wide (the windows, I soon realized, were sealed shut), and a marble staircase leading up to a small terrace overlooking the driveway. Mountains rose up, hazy, in the distance.

There at the top of those stairs stood a stout woman, her black hair swept up, her tanned arms folded across her chest. She was screaming in Italian, a language I could barely make out even when it was not being shot off like artillery fire. And then there was wild pointing, at the car, or at me, perhaps both, as I pushed my way out, as if I were defying gravity, and then, before I could greet her with an Italian Buongiorno! I’d been practicing—inwardly—in the car, there was more screaming. Ramon opened his arms wide, his head tilted as he walked up the steps to her and took her in his arms.

“Mama!” he said.

Her voice was muffled now, but still, she made wild gestures with her hands, even as she hugged her son. I could see a sliver of her mouth curve into a smile:

The Mother.

___________

JENNIFER GILMORE is the author of two novels, Golden Country, a 2006 New York Times Notable Book and finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the National Jewish Book Award, and Something Red, a New York Times Notable Book of 2010. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Allure, Bomb, Bookforum, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, Salon, Self, Tin House, Vogue, and The Washington Post. She has been a MacDowell Colony fellow and has taught writing and literature at Cornell University, Barnard College, Eugene Lang College at the New School, and New York University. Currently, she teaches at Princeton University and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Adapted from The Mothers by Jennifer Gilmore. Copyright © 2013 by Jennifer Gilmore. With the permission of the publisher, Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster.

I hate to say this, but I think of you as a younger man.

I normally admire your forthright nature. At any rate, I’m aware of certain changes.

It’s not that you’re not appealing. You’re still the most interesting person in the entire universe as far as I’m concerned. I mean, I’m obsessed with you.

Look, I know exactly how you feel. I can’t get you out of my mind. And yet, you do seem different somehow.

I am different. I’m tired, for one thing. I’ve also made some mistakes along the way, and I think maybe you’re not quite as enchanted with me because you’re more aware of my flaws then you used to be.

I think you’re right. But I appreciate what you said just now. It takes a lot to admit.

We’d better talk about the book.

Right.

So, when your family and friends heard you had a book coming out called A Man of Misconceptions, they assumed it was a memoir?

Ha. Not really. That’s just a joke you stole from a former colleague, Dave Vecsey. The book is about someone named Athanasius Kircher, who has been called “the coolest guy ever.” He lived 400 years ago.

And didn’t he invent some kind of musical cat-torturing device? How horrible!

You’re just playing with me.

Should we just let people look it up?

Definitely.

So, what do you want people to know about this book?

Hold on: How about you do one of those long wind-ups to the question that includes a lot of really complimentary stuff?

Right! So … your book is a great story about an unbelievable figure and about a lot of really interesting ideas. I also found that the writing, or actually the reading experience, is up there with that of any literary work being published today. It’s also extremely funny. I guess the question I’d like to ask is: what is that you want people to understand about the book?

First of all, thank you so much. That means a lot. I worked really hard on it. I think one idea that interested me as I did the research on this period in history and began to write, is that almost nothing is as consistent, orderly, or rational as we like to think it is. Or, anyway, nothing in which human beings are involved. And the book kind of celebrates that.

I like it. The research you mention was obviously very extensive, and I have to tell you that you did a really impressive job with it. What was the most interesting thing you learned?

Thank you, again. That’s very kind. The larger discovery or lesson for me was one of perspective. When you really become immersed in what happened a few hundred years ago, and see how so little gets remembered, you begin to feel that pop-culture stuff or whatever it is that you’re looking at on your smart-phone at the moment must truly be trivial. Unless it’s a picture of your kid.

Amen! Of course, you are pretty addicted to your phone.

I totally am. And I enjoy some pretty ridiculous TV. But you know what I mean.

You know I do. Even if you write more than thirty of the most strangely influential, thousand-page books ever produced, like the subject of my, our book, it won’t be long before most people forget you even existed. Life is short.

But that’s why it I think it’s important to understand how we’re connected to people who have lived these short lives before us, to gain some better sense of who we are and how the hell we got here.

I completely agree. I want you to know that I still have very strong feelings for you.

And I love you just the way you are.

______________

John Glassie is the author of A Man of Misconceptions: The Life of an Eccentric in an Age of Change, a nonfiction book about a 17th-century genius/crackpot named Athanasius Kircher. A former contributing editor to The New York Times Magazine, John has written for publications such as The Believer, The New Republic, The Paris Review Daily, Salon, and Wired. He is also the author of a photo book, Bicycles Locked to Poles, and lives in Brooklyn.

This was 2010. Nico had agreed to produce the screenplay version of my first novel, Stuck Outside of Phoenix–a screenplay I hadn’t started yet–and he was no doubt concerned about what I might hand over. I’d never written a screenplay, but with more than a decade of daily writing under my belt, I felt I had what it took to crank out a feature-length version of my own novel. Still, I bought a copy of Story as insurance. It lingered in a pile of books for a few months, and after the first draft of the screenplay was finished, I sold it back.

Flash forward to the summer of 2012. The movie version of Stuck Outside of Phoenix is in the can, and I’m officially a big shot. I’ve taken to wearing sunglasses at night, and I’m looking into changing my name to Hollywood. The writing of Stuck the screenplay had come so easily I’d already knocked out a draft of the screenplay of my second novel, Ghost Notes. I passed this on to a friend, Los Angeles film editor Josh, and I waited impatiently for his comments, wondering if he was aware of all the money we were losing by not taking this thing straight into production.

Josh replied with a critique that was long, detailed and largely negative. Namely, he felt the script suffered from being a too-literal adaptation of my book. Such a translation had been perfect for Stuck Outside of Phoenix, a narrative told from a single third-person point of view and with conflicts that are largely external. All I’d done with Stuck was move each scene into screenplay form, and after making some changes suggested by Nico, it was finished. Ghost Notes, on the other hand, is told from multiple points of view in the first person, and the conflicts tend to be internal. Ghost Notes does have a simple three-act structure, but that’s where its easy translation to the screen ends. My first stab at Ghost Notes the screenplay, Josh said in so many words, completely sucked. I took my sunglasses off and went to Powell’s and again bought that expensive fucking hardback, Story by Robert McKee.  I dragged myself to my couch, plopped down and cracked the book’s spine.

And proceeded to have my mind blown.

Story is the best book on the mechanics of narrative writing–not screenwriting, but any kind of narrative writing–I’ve ever read. It breaks the art of storytelling down into its most basic components–conflict, character, plot, climax, etc.; all of the things you’ll hear about in any writing workshop–but McKee explains them with unusual clarity and depth.  “Structure and Setting,” “Act Design,” “Scene Design”—there’s no superfluous chapter, and the dictums delivered are widely applicable.

All of which makes me wonder: Why aren’t M.F.A. writing students required to study screenwriting as a prerequisite to longer forms like novel or memoir? During my own graduate work at the University of San Francisco’s ten years ago, the subject was somewhat taboo.  I remember one teacher not wanting students to refer to flashbacks as “backstory,” describing it dismissively as “screenplay talk.”

And surely there are good reasons to have literary-minded writing students avoid screenwriting. Novels and memoirs are endgames, while screenplays are drafts that will be altered and embellished by actors, directors, and the like before they reach their final form. Moreover, beginning prose writers need to get used to describing things with words, as opposed to merely indicating where things happen. No character in a novel simply “looks sad.” The novelist needs to use language to describe this sadness in a way that makes the reader care about it. In a film, making the viewer care is a collaborative effort. The novelist is all by herself.

Still, must novelists ignore all that screenwriting can teach us? Any creative writing program teaches fundamentals like conflict, character, escalating action and climax, but often this is done from a pretty high vantage point, so much so that the lessons are useful only in a broad sense. “There needs to be more conflict,” an instructor might write at the end of a student’s story. Okay, but what kind of conflict? Inner? Personal? “Extra-Personal” (McKee term)? Where should it happen in the story? What might trigger it? What kind of secondary character might cause it? All of these McKee attempts to parse out.

There will no doubt be those writers who hear “screenwriting” and scoff. “Novel and memoir writing are far more complicated than screenwriting.” Yes, screenwriting is simpler, and that’s why every long-form narrative writer should be able to master its principles.

I know there’s a long-standing belief that screenwriting ruins novel writers by making them focus too much on plot. No doubt the novel form allows more freedom to meander than the feature film, and I wouldn’t want to change a word of slower-paced and tangent-happy classics like Moby-Dick or Infinite Jest. The slowness of these novels plays to the overall purposes of the works. Still, can I honestly say, as much as I love Moby-Dick, that Melville’s 40-page explanation of the different kinds of whale blubber wasn’t pretty boring? Wasn’t I waiting the whole time to get back to Ishmael and Queequeg and the rest of the wonderful cast of characters? When reading Infinite Jest, didn’t I have nights when I struggled to stay awake? While deep in The Guermantes Way, didn’t I sometimes want to choke Proust for his tedious attention to some ridiculously small splinter of life? Yes, yes and god yes. Can I look myself in the mirror and say “These are wonderful examples of narrative prose writing”? I would prefer not to.

The beauty of screenwriting’s application to the novel form is that it can be applied when warranted. Of course you wouldn’t utilize its tenets all the time. Is mastering the free throw going to ruin a basketball player’s game inside the paint? More likely, mastering both skills will make him a complete player.

I remember, while in graduate school, the program director asked me to talk to a roomful of prospective students. I sat with her at the head of a long table with about twenty would-be M.F.A. candidates in attendance, and we spent an hour fielding questions. One student asked me, with a scrupulous look, if the program had changed my writing in any way.  I answered, “Absolutely,” and went on to explain how my work had improved in one way or another since starting the program.

It was only later, on my way home, that I realized the student had wanted to ask a completely different question: “Has the program changed your writing in a way that fundamentally cuts against the direction you’d hoped it would take?” In other words, did the program inflict its dogma on me in a way that destroyed my creative goals? That made me a lesser writer? At the time, all I could think was, why would you pay for a writing program and not want your writing changed?

That’s what writers fret about when taking a book like Story to heart. They don’t want their perceptions muddied by “inferior” rules from a related media. But there’s no such thing as an inferior writing rule, only a writer’s inability to know when and when not to apply it.

Owen King is the guest. His new novel, Double Feature, is now available from Scribner. (Photo credit: Michael York | AP Photo.)

Get the free official app. Subscribe for free at iTunes.

Meg’s new book, The Interestings, is her ninth novel.  It’s a bigger book than her previous ones – longer, deeper, taking place over a greater span of contemporary history – about a group of friends who meet at the age of 15 at a summer camp for the arts in the Berkshires and what happens to them and their relationships over time.

A self-described “writer of stories about women,” Meg’s earlier work has often dealt with crossroads – “junctures” is the word she would use – in the lives of women.  The Uncoupling is an exploration of desire, looking at what happens to a group of women when sex – for better and for worse – is removed from the equation.  The Ten Year Nap explores a group of friends who’ve taken time away from work to raise children, and what happens when the women are ready for work again.

“Explores” is the right word for Meg’s fiction: she is interested in “what would happen if,” and The Interestings is an exploration as well – of how talent develops, or doesn’t; of how friendships bridge time or don’t.  In this book, though, she’s expanded her palette, taken her time to explore lifetimes – from adolescence through middle age – of a group that includes women and men.

Meg and I live a block away from each other in Manhattan, and the day we met to talk about questions of art, publishing, her new book, women in fiction, we ran into each other on the street, both of us headed for a little food shop we both like, she to pick up dinner, me to get mini-cupcakes to fortify us while we talked.

EZ: I’ve heard you talk about how your books don’t start with the picture of a character, but with an idea.  What was the genesis of this book?

MW: In The Interestings I wanted to write about what happens to talent over time.  In some people talent blooms, in others it falls away. And, relatedly, there are other ideas in here, like about the quiet envy people can have even for those they love and what happens to friendship over years and decades.

I’m surprised I hadn’t thought to do this book earlier, because my experience as an adolescent at “this” camp  [a similar camp she went to in a similar setting at age 15] was the spark for so many things.  There are junctures in life, times when things change.  This was one for me.

In the novel you have characters with no real talent, characters with a little, characters who abandon their talent or neglect it and one – Ethan – with a singular, creative mind, a true gift.  Ash, Ethan’s wife and a feminist who wants to expand opportunities for women in theatre, isn’t highly talented.  Was this intentional?

I think of Ethan as a real creative thinker whose stuff originates with him and who has the ability to go very deeply with it.  Ash has a talent, but it’s of a more familiar type.  You can’t turn feminism plus a minor talent into a big thing.  It’s painful for some of these characters to recognize the ceiling of their talent.  If you have money plus a modest talent [as Ash does] and access – that can allow you all kinds of big things.

The book is set – or begins – in the 70s.  Why?  Could it have been set at another time?

It’s set in the 70s partly because I’m exactly the age of these characters.  It’s easier for me to locate the characters in time, culturally.  And I wanted to write about a changing New York City – the way artists were pushed out, the way Manhattan became unlivable for most people.  That’s all gone.  It’s bewildering.

I also wanted to move ahead into the 80s and write about AIDS, because there are still things to be said about that period of time, particularly late in the decade when everyone knew people who were dying.  I was there then and saw some of this and felt that I wanted to put it in a novel.  It’s a small piece of my book, but I was very moved thinking about it and about that time.

So, really, the book couldn’t be set in any other time period?

Culturally it could.  You could write a book about people coming to NY in the 1950s, about the beat culture, but I wanted to give this book the flavor of its time.  I wanted to use the 70s – which is when I came of age – and the 80s to enhance the characters.  They are products of their time.

The Interestings is a long book (468 pages.)  Was this an intentional response to critics who dismiss women as writers of “the short and soft?”  Or was it the length the book needed to be?

The book was intended to be more expansive, time-wise.  I wanted to track people and friendship over a long period.  The Interestings is definitely the length the book needed to be.  It would be disingenuous to say that writing a book at the length you want to write it isn’t something that’s important to me; to know that that’s something I’m allowed to do and can do.  I just want to write the book I want to write.

As we’ve talked about before, I think men believe themselves to be uninterested in domestic life as portrayed in fiction; that they deem it “women’s territory” and don’t read – or review – it much.  That the reason a ‘domestic’ novel by a man like Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections or Tom Perotta’s work is seen as revelatory is because it’s as if men are encountering the subject matter for the first time.

What matters in a big way is subject matter and men with very few exceptions, won’t read books about women.  Something nebulous and thought-based – a book of ideas – people seem much more willing to have that from a man than a woman.

If you’ve written a powerful book about a woman and your publisher then puts a “feminine” image on the cover, it ‘types’ the book.  Serious books with ‘dreamy’ covers – many with women in water, floating or swimming, as though what’s contained within is a kind of dreamy inessential thing – the covers themselves are off-putting.  Very few men want to go into what appears to be this sort of dream world.  I’m known as a writer of stories about women but I wanted to write a pretty co-ed book this time.  With Ethan, I feel I know him as well as anyone.

Do you see a difference in the way men and women write?

It’s hard to generalize.  Good writing is good writing, and I’m so happy when I read it.  One thing I’ve noticed that’s a kind of disturbing trend is fiction about and by women who the reader is meant to feel “comfortable” around – what I call slumber party fiction – as though the characters are stand-ins for your best friends.­  When I was younger, the books I liked to read were different from what I was writing.  As I thought about that more vigorously, I found that I was often reading books that seemed kind of nervy, not hushed.  I admired the authors’ freedom and access to sides of their own thinking that might in other people – well, in me – be more hidden and difficult to get to.

When I wrote The Interestings, I wanted to let time unspool, to give the book the feeling of time passing.  I had to allow myself the freedom to move back and forth in time freely, and to trust that readers would accept this.  And I wanted to show characters being vulnerable, grandiose, sexual, envious.  I just wanted to write more freely.

You’ve said “It seems no coincidence that some of the most esteemed women writing today came to prominence when the women’s movement could be felt everywhere.”  Your mother [the writer Hilma Wolitzer] came of age as a writer during that period.  Was having a mother who’s also a writer a big influence on you?

It was very powerful, very positive, having a mother who’s a writer.  She was a housewife who became a writer.  She sold her first story to the Saturday Evening Post and bought a car, freeing her from our little suburban house.  I had no illusions about what it felt like and looked like to be a writer.  Sometimes I’d come home and it would be clear my mother had had a day of struggle with her work.  But seeing that didn’t dissuade me, and she never said, ‘You should go to law school.’  If you have a kid who wants to do something – even if statistically they aren’t going to be ‘successful’ at it – it’s very important to encourage that.

Conversely – or relatedly – having a child changed me as a writer.  Did becoming a mother change you?

Having children opened up a world of new possibilities.  As a writer you treat motherhood with this intense anthropology and detail.  The shock of motherhood, even the tedium of the ‘small animal care’ parts of it – those feelings are fully worth examining in fiction.

When children get older you sort of see the spectrum – the arc of their growth.  I want novels to show the spectrum.  I don’t want to feel the writer didn’t go there because he or she couldn’t.  There’s no perfect way to live, and novels show the variety of imperfect ways you can live.

Why do people prefer memoir to fiction these days? 

We’re in an era of fascination with what seems to be real and true.  People want to read stories they think are true, even if the truth is a manufactured one.  I don’t write much non-fiction.  I just want to push the little fiction cart along.  I’ve made myself a student of the novel.  I like reading as many good novels as I can.

The internet has had an impact on fiction – on writing in general – in a lot of ways.  For one thing, it’s easy for people to call themselves writers – just press “publish.”  And research is much easier than it used to be.

Yes, there’s the taint of Wikipedia on fiction, the moments where everything in a novel stops, in order for the author to impart information.  I don’t do too much research, it’s not a strength of mine, except on an ‘as needs’ basis.

I do, but the research can’t interfere with the book.  I abandoned a book recently because the information took over, I couldn’t hear the character’s voice.

I abandoned a novel years ago based on Freud’s patient Dora.  I went to Austria to do research, my publisher liked the idea, but I decided I couldn’t write it.  I realized I would need to be faithful to too many external constraints – including what she actually sounded like.  Every book is a juncture of character and writer, but I didn’t know how to include both those things in that book.

In the book, “the Interestings” is what the group of friends who meet at camp call themselves.  How important is a title to you?

It’s a very important thing to me to have a title when I’m writing.  Novels that don’t have titles while they’re being written, sometimes maybe it’s because the writer’s not sure what the book’s about, and that can be reflected in the work.  You want to feel the reassurance of circling back to the title.  The Interestings is meant to be an awkward title – that they would call themselves that, even as a joke.  The book is so much about self-conscious irony.  When the group decides to call themselves “the Interestings” it seemed to be the title.

Titles, for me, are an organic part of the work.  I had to change the original title of my second novel because my editor felt it was too close to someone else’s title. 

Some people told me they weren’t crazy about the title The Ten Year Nap before it came out; they said it seemed possibly snarky.  But I meant it to reflect that time when your children are very small and you’re inside raising them, and then you emerge from that time, as if from a nap.

A well-known writer once said he could tell in the first sentence if a book was written by a man or a woman.  Do you think that’s true?

No.  What I look for in a novel is a kind of exciting engagement with the prose – muscularity.  You long for a novel that fulfills your fantasy of what a novel should be – whatever that is.  Some are by men and some are by women.  I’m very equal opportunity when it comes to reading fiction.

Kircher’s mother was “the daughter of an upright citizen,” his father a learned man with “expertise in expounding complicated matters.” They lived in a hilltop town called Geisa, part of the old principality of Fulda, in a valley of the gentle and green Rhön Mountains. (Fulda was also the name of the small city at the center of the principality; the trip there from Geisa took about three hours on foot.) For a long time before Kircher was born in 1602, his parents were caught up in the conflict that had disrupted northern Europe since 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Catholics and the new Lutherans felt the special kind of hatred for each other that comes from a split within the same religion, as did the Catholics and the Calvinists, the followers of John Calvin.

The effects of the Reformation were especially ugly in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation—neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire, as Voltaire would later say. It was more like an agglomeration, to use his word, of three hundred more or less autonomous entities loosely organized under the auspices of the Hapsburgs in Vienna, relatives of the king who controlled Spain, Portugal, the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of Milan, and a great deal of the new world. The Holy Roman Empire, such as it was, included feudal lands, secular territories, free cities, Catholic abbeys, and prince-bishoprics with many overlapping interests and internal faith-based animosities.

Kircher’s father worked as a magistrate under the ruling Catholic prince of Fulda, a man named Balthasar von Dernbach. In 1576, as Kircher described it, the prince was “driven out by the persecution of heretics into exile.” The “heretics” who threw him out of office and drove him all of three miles away were mainly Lutherans fed up with von Dernbach’s effort to re-Catholicize the region, which included throwing Lutherans out of office and installing people like Kircher’s father in their place. Although Kircher’s father “favored Balthasar’s most just cause and defended him with all his might against the attacking heretics,” he too was “vexed by the persecution of the heretics,” to say nothing of “the insolence of the heretics,” and was forced to leave his post.

Von Dernbach and his lawyers spent twenty-six years building the case for his reinstatement, which finally occurred in 1602, near the feast day of Saint Athanasius, who himself had been forced into exile for staunchly defending orthodox Christianity against a powerful heretical sect. The birth of the ninth Kircher child on this feast day, so close to such an important occasion, meant that the child would get an important-sounding name: Athanasius comes from the Greek word for “immortal”; Kircher is a variation on the German for “church.”

From a modern point of view, daily life in Geisa had a harshness and a reek about it regardless. Although Kircher’s family probably lived in the kind of half-timbered house that now evokes Old World charm, they also lived within short range of their animals and their own waste. Unsanitary conditions were exacerbated by the fact that, as one historian has put it, “Westerners at this time looked on water with great suspicion,” though, given the number of waterborne diseases, they were probably right to.

The family’s house was steps away from Geisa’s market square, at the top of the long hill that led to the center of the town. The variety of available goods must have been fairly limited. People lived chiefly on soups, porridges, hard brown bread, and some meat, though Catholics ate fish and vegetables on fast days, particularly during Lent. When Kircher was a boy, potatoes, coffee, tea, tobacco, chocolate, and corn, not to mention the fork, were very likely unknown to him. (By the time he died, he had become an advocate of tea from China as treatment for kidney stones and hangovers.)

Despite the difficulties inherent in the way of life, the hilltop town of Geisa, overlooking the valley of the Ulster River, would have been a pleasant place to grow up. And from an early age, as might be expected of a boy who would later call himself “master of a hundred arts,” Kircher displayed a “not ordinary aptitude” for learning. This was thought to go along with his somewhat earthy complexion, his dark skin and dark hair, coloring believed to indicate an excess of black bile, called melancholia. Melancholic types were said to be pensive, dreamy, and intellectual, suited to deep study and the attainment of knowledge, even capable of genius. Moreover, Kircher’s head was large, generally agreed to suggest, as one seventeenth-century writer put it, “a wonderful intellect and a most tenacious memory.” Kircher’s father, a scholar of philosophy, theology, and rhetoric, who kept “thousands of books,” apparently took an aging parent’s interest in his youngest, most promising child. As his older sons “entered orders of various religions and daughters were joined in matrimony,” old Kircher taught the boy music, Latin, and the fundamentals of geography—or as Kircher later described it, the study of “the world according to its divisions.”

When not receiving lessons from his father, or from a rabbi his father hired to teach him Hebrew, he seems to have received attention from above. Young Kircher was athletic but accident-prone, a bit of an absentminded professor even as a boy, and sometimes he got into the kind of trouble that, he claimed, only the Virgin Mary could get him out of.

One hot summer day, he and some friends walked down to the bottom of the hill to cool off in the river. “It happened that in the midst of a certain mill house, the course of the river, in the manner of a lofty waterfall, was fl owing with a more swift current because of the colossal trough of the mill wheel,” he recalled. “Carried to this trough by boyish ignorance and snatched up with the current, I was completely incapable of resisting the force, and now closer and closer to the wheel, with the name of Jesus and the customary prayer to Mary, I trembled at the danger of death and the grinding of my entire body.”

The friends who saw him being “snatched beneath the wheel headlong” all gave up on his survival, “especially since the wheel missed the bottom of the channel by so little that my body would scarcely be able to sustain itself without the pulverizing of all my limbs.” When they finally found him downstream they were hardly able to believe their eyes: “By the singular protection of God and the Virgin Mary I emerged safe from the other side in such a way that no sign of harm was apparent on me.” Having been “restored thus by divine mercy” to them, Kircher rejoiced with his friends and they all “acknowledged the apparent miracle.”

______________

John Glassie is the author of A Man of Misconceptions: The Life of an Eccentric in an Age of Change, a nonfiction book about a 17th-century genius/crackpot named Athanasius Kircher. A former contributing editor to The New York Times Magazine, John has written for publications such as The Believer, The New Republic, The Paris Review Daily, Salon, and Wired. He is also the author of a photo book, Bicycles Locked to Poles, and lives in Brooklyn.

I remember speaking on the telephone long-distance to a friend, a female friend. We were catching up with each other, e.g., children birthed, books read, votes cast. My pregnant wife was out in the backyard, mowing the dandelions, or I thought she was till I heard a knock at the back door, which meant my wife was locked out and needed back in the house. Continuing to speak on the telephone, I unlocked, then opened the back door to my wife, her eyes swollen, cheeks tear-streaked, and lips crumpled and cracked. I knew right away she’d been in our garage-turned-studio, reading manuscript pages not meant for her to read, manuscript pages to this very book. The work was very rough. I had yet to make up names for secondary characters, which is to say, the women I wrote about, the women I thought and fantasized about or had had past relationships with weren’t named Frannie, the name of my composite character, the name of my female ideal. I’d used actual names of real women, e.g., Georgia Peterson or Elaine Von Waggoner or Missy Navarro, names familiar to my wife because they were friends, co-workers, ex-girlfriends. Even though I write a combination of memoir and essay, the truth is I fabricate brief instances, exaggerate dramatic encounters, and amplify (thus distort) discussions with my various selves, digging for what I do not know, like I do not know how two people can sustain a marriage over a lifetime or how and why we give up erotic love for companionship or why, just as I’ve created something meaningful and, dare I say it, healthy, I punch the self-destruct button or why erotic love, once consummated, begins to vanish or why the best sex I’ve ever had is in my head. (Not that I’ve figured any of this out now having written and revised the manuscript.) My wife had known I felt uncertain about our marriage. In couples therapy, I’d told her there was so much inside me I couldn’t share with her and all of our issues (my struggle with touch and my shameful fear of rejecting her) seemed to press right up against this concealed inner life. What was I dissembling? I had been thinking a lot about Frannie. I couldn’t go ten seconds without conjuring up Frannie’s sullen, hazel-freckled face. — What are you smiling about? My wife would ask, handing me her basket of dirty laundry. — Nothing, I’d say, recalling a disparaging comment Frannie had made earlier in the day over coffee, the kind of bitchy prattle in which my wife would never indulge. — A joke, I’d say to my wife, — One I heard at work. No, I had not initiated any extramarital touch but each afternoon I’d visit the café in which Frannie worked. We’d talk about literature, music, our dogs and she’d pour me free decaf lattes. I didn’t ogle her or linger at the counter like other men who held crushes on her yet inside I constructed a beautifully blistering alternate reality in which Frannie and I muddled around together like teen lovers, broken, lascivious, uncomfortably confessional, unapologetically unhealthy, a life of coffee, cigarettes, and gravy fries. Mine and Frannie’s friendship in reality helped me to populate my capacious and insatiable fantasy life with players and situations, and the loneliness and sadness engendered by such dreams became the manuscript’s raw material. I wrote about imagining my wife’s death and letting Frannie console me. I wrote about my proclivity to sit in cafés dreaming up varying scenarios of meeting women. Certainly one could argue the book, that is, the manuscript taken in its entirety, is a single, sustained dream of the other but that would be reducing the work because it’s about other things too and honestly the writer is not the best person to say what his book is about. The point is the women in my fantasies had drastically different personalities than my wife. Of course there were other daydreams about which I did not write: a first kiss on the steps of a church in Frannie’s neighborhood; a quiet, studious life in North Berkeley, a shabby cottage amidst an unkempt and overgrown yard and inside, unlit rooms that seem to swallow whole the yard’s cool shade, rooms with hardwoods that creak and buckle as our shadows leap out in front of our steps, Frannie standing at our wall of shared books, fisted hands in pockets and head tilted, scanning spines for a title to bring with her to bed, me kneeling before her mons pubis. What was more beautiful than the mons pubis of the woman about whom I dreamt? Perhaps more beautiful were her bare legs tangled in blue sheets. Her body in repose. Mine and Frannie’s life is not heavily scheduled. We do not have a baby or pets. We do not obsess over house repairs or lawn and garden care because we rent. We sit around and read sad books and listen to sad records and watch sad movies and we fuck a lot too and if we leave the house, it is for food or coffee or a book and occasionally we ride BART into the city and we don’t stay in touch with extended family nor do we discuss 401(k)s, drywall materials, or getting together with So-and-So for dinner. Very romantic stuff, I admit. I didn’t imagine the painful route I’d have to take to arrive at a new relationship: screams, fist poundings, door slams, the spit of our incompetence, a frosty separation followed by a soul-killing divorce and a new apartment in which my son couldn’t fall asleep, the dark hallway (bulb burnt out) connecting his new bedroom to the living area with kitchenette and lumpy futon. Or if I imagined cheating on my wife, did I imagine the elaborate lies and the shabby network of visible tunnels through which adulterers must move, did I imagine the substantial time commitment necessary to flip between two relationships or the bodily exhaustion of living so close to the heart’s white knuckle or my wife’s face upon finding a condom wrapper in the basement? Which is to ask, did I imagine the reality of adultery, that it rarely lasted? Did I imagine the chiseling pain and unending disappointment my wife might feel after finding out I had betrayed her? Did I imagine the indefatigable shame I might feel about my own behavior? My secret desire for Frannie seemed to fasten me to an illusory present moment, but not any foreseeable future. And of course I realized human beings were naturally inclined to share meals with other human beings, and yes, I enjoyed the company of my adult siblings and parents and great aunt but I wished to free myself from activity that didn’t bring me the kind of pleasure I felt from solitude, beauty, and desire. I still felt like that kid tired of being dragged around by his parents on this or that errand or to that family brunch or Sunday mass or golf club. My dreams pulled me out of bed, placed one foot in front of the other, padded the lonely walls up against which my life threw me. Mine and my wife’s marriage seemed to  balloon with inventory. We owned a house, two dogs, a car, we shared bank accounts and credit cards and my wife scheduled nights and weekends with activities (dinner parties, movies, etc…) and now, a baby? This inventory required cataloguing, monitoring, maintenance. My wife kept a calendar on which I forgot to write down all of my important events. I needed to take the car in for an oil change and then check and reset the rat traps. My head felt overcrowded with to-dos: work, doctors’ appointments, electronic bill pay, household chores, grocery lists, weekend plans, weekday plans, weeknight plans. My secret, imagined life consoled me while erasing my wife into a smooth, blank space, an empty screen on which to project more dreams. I flew to Berkeley by myself to conduct research for a story I was writing and I recall walking up Shattuck Avenue towards Black Oak Books, nurturing a Frannie dream, spotting a bungalow I liked, a ramshackle, leaning house with untended garden. This house became a reality prop with which I could now use to furnish the house I truly wanted to inhabit – the one of my dreams. Braiding the real with strands of the fantastic distorted my sense of self enough to mute the loneliness I felt. I thought, Frannie, let’s deal with overgrown myrtle next year, or: Is my copy of Too Loud A Solitude in your to-read pile? Or:

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Woman.
Woman Who.
Woman Whom you love.

I didn’t exactly breathe complications into my fantasies, that is, in fantasy I turned away from (not towards) complexity and mystery. In fantasy the mist-filled atmosphere, the loose dress, the minimal furnishings, the scratched timbre of two voices folding into each other – it all lacked ordinariness, the accumulation of burnished years. Dried skin flaked off to reveal moist dermis vulnerable to any touch. In fantasy I was not becoming my father (and not-my-father) nor did I scratch myself or fart. Nobody was beating me up or making me watch. No sour breath or lumps in breasts or funerals I felt guilty for not attending, no car pools, no stained underpants balled up inside a dirty T-shirt or denial or awareness of said denial, no hard and cold lips on my stubbly cheeks. No broken bicycle, no empty wallet. The moment I brushed up against such mystery, the fantasy ended. I didn’t understand that the elation wrought by my dreams was, at best, fleeting and at worst, intoxicating. I woke up in a bad mood for no discernible reason. The day seemed to end before it really did. A child comes upon a closet in a cold unfinished basement, dark, seemingly endless, unfathomable, and he retreats back upstairs. My dreams seemed to say, Come to me, follow along, but there was no place to go except away. Some images I could have never dreamt, could only attain through experience, e.g., what her face looked like when it was close to mine, her clammy skin and hair tumbling, her eyes sort of lolling beneath halfopen lids, her wolfing mouth rising to mine. Meanwhile my wife, five-months preggers, dined with close friends and discussed the alien inside her body, possible names, would there be a shower, with or without those stupid games, the benefits of midwifery, ten fingers and ten toes. In other words, very real things.

Excerpted from Wedlocked (2013), by Jay Ponteri, with permission from Hawthorne Books.

____________________

Jay Ponteri directs the undergraduate creative writing program at Marylhurst University and Show: Tell, The Workshop for Teen Writers & Artists. He is the founding editor of both the online literary magazine M Review and HABIT Books. His work has appeared in Tin House, Puerto Del Sol, Seattle Review and “Listen to This,” was chosen as a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2010. Jay lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and son.

My husband is Hispanic and I am white. We are an interracial couple. Until I got pregnant, I rarely thought about this. We’re both quirky, creative, slightly odd individuals and that’s why we work, not because of the boxes we check on government forms. But something about that round belly forced me to start thinking about it. Why? Because I wondered how our blend of cultures would impact our child. And because people are nuts about interracial kids. Really, really loco. The bigger my belly grew, the more strange, stereotypical, and sometimes downright prejudiced comments started coming our way. Here are three offenders that nearly sent me into pre-term labor:

Oooh, I love mixed babies! 

Seriously? Why? What do you have against non-mixed babies? And how do you “just always seem to know” which babies are which?

We heard this one A LOT. And we seemed to hear it more in the so-called liberal haunts. Whole Foods, for example. There we were, in all our brown and whiteness, trudging around one day when I was a week or two away from giving birth. This woman stopped us and literally squealed. “Boy or a girl?” she asked. “Do you know?”

“Boy,” we both said fast. By now we’d had enough of the crazy people who act like you’re BFFs just because you’re pregnant. Fast answers seem to keep the loons at bay. But no, not this loon.

“A boy!” she exclaimed. “I have to see him when he arrives. Mark my words, he’ll have jet black hair and crystal blue eyes. The rarest combo. You are so blessed. Oooh, I love mixed babies!”

Our son had the nerve to show up without those baby blues. Does that mean we’re less blessed? Confused.

He’s so cute.  Must be all that interracial DNA swirling around in there.

Yeah, it must be. My hub and I are trolls so there is no way his cuteness has anything to do with us. It’s just that magical gene cocktail that gets shaken up when two people of different races come together under a rainbow of love and diversity.

I won’t be modest here. My kid is adorable. Like, Baby Gap window adorable. If I weren’t exhausted all the time from him still needing to nurse twice a night, I’d get him an agent. Or at least send a pic in to one of those contests. College funds, people, college funds.

So okay, we have a catalog-ready baby. But while we aren’t supermodels, we aren’t unattractive either. In fact, I’d say we’re both pretty good-looking. Couldn’t that have something to do with it? Doesn’t anyone realize it’s a wee bit offensive to tell us our baby is cute and act like it’s only because he’s interracial? I’ll just say it—I’ve seen plenty of other “mixed babies,” and they aren’t all stunners. Some of them have faces that only a mother could love. Or a Papi.

You’re going to teach him Spanish, aren’t you?

Why yes, we are, even though it’s none of your business. Are you teaching your children Spanish? Oh wait, you don’t have any kids? You just like telling other people how to raise theirs? Wonderful, sign me up for the rest of your unsolicited and inexperienced advice. Dying to hear what you have to say about breastfeeding.

The decision to have a bi-lingual household is not an easy one. And being an interracial couple does not make it mandatory, just as it’s not mandatory for white couples or black couples or Asian couples. I know many Hispanic men and women who don’t know a lick of Spanish. What would you say to them?

For the record, my husband does speak English and Spanish fluently. I had dreams of writing in cafes in Paris, so I took French in school. If only I could have seen my romantic future. Before our relationship got serious, the extent of my Español was “gracias,” “senorita,” and “baño.” Raising our son to know Spanish means I need to know it, too. I’m learning gradually, but it’s tough.  I struggle to communicate with my in-laws who speak and understand very little English. Do I want to be able to bust out with more than an “hola?” Do I want my son to be able to talk with his abuelos? Do I want him to learn AT LEAST two languages? Si, si, and more si’s. But it’s not like choosing between cloth and disposable diapers, although someone actually made that comparison to me once. One involves more laundry; the other demands a lifelong commitment. I’m glad you bought that Baby Einstein DVD, but that’s probably not going to get the job done.

My kid is not just another “mixed baby.” He’s not cute because he has special strands of DNA that non-interracial offspring don’t.  And even though we’d like him to, he doesn’t have to speak Spanish just because he’s half-Hispanic.

The thing is, I know most mean well. It wasn’t too long ago that interracial marriages were illegal and interracial kids were scorned. People want to show you that they’re accepting and open and it usually just comes out in funny ways. But you know how you can really be accepting? By treating me, my husband, and our son as individuals, not as races. It’s really as simple as that.