What do you think about Lorrie Moore?  I think she’s a little overrated.  Let me clarify:  I think when she’s good, she’s brilliant (“Birds in America”), and when she’s bad, she’s irritating.  She’s a little too pun-heavy for my taste, for one thing.  Fortunately, there’s not much of that going on here.  Keep in mind that “Childcare” is actually the first chapter in her new novel, “A Gate at the Stairs,” so we can’t really judge it as we would a short story.  It’s not a stand-alone piece.

Moore gets a lot of credit for touching on human truths, but I don’t think people talk as much about the sheer beauty of her writing.  I mean, read the first line of this piece a few times (“The cold came late that fall and the songbirds were caught off guard …”)  So lyrical.  Later, when Tassie and Sarah meet, Tassie marvels at the way Sarah studies her face: “I had always felt as hidden as the hull in a berry, as secret and fetal as the curled fortune in a cookie, and such hiddenness was not without its advantages, its egotisms, its grief-fed grandiosities.”  Damn.  Read that one a few times in order to fully appreciate it.

Well, I went on earlier about how this story affected me as a mother, but I definitely don’t think you have to be a mother to appreciate it.  A big question the story seems to ask is, why does Sarah want to be a mother in the first place?  Why do any of us?  It’s clear she has a full life, married with an interesting and time-consuming career.  When can she possibly squeeze in childcare?  She clearly hasn’t thought it through.  In a moment of hit-you-over-the-head symbolism, Tassie notices dead plants and unopened phone books on her front porch when she first visits her.  The obvious message is:  this is a woman who can’t nurture a plant and hasn’t the time to take a telephone book inside.  Why the hell would she make a good mother? Of course, it’s easy to place all the blame on the mothers when, as Tassie notes during her interviews, the fathers are conspicuously absent. Their qualifications as parents aren’t held under the same type of microscope. Do you feel that Moore’s depictions of gender dynamics here is fair?

I heard Moore being interviewed on NPR about “A Gate at the Stairs,” and she said a major theme of the book is how people deal with their own limitatations.  Sarah, especially, seems to have more than her share.  Her mothering abilities are especially called into question during her interaction with Amber.  As a former high school teacher, I cringed when she scolded this girl she had just met.  Not only does that kind of talk not fly with teenagers, it reveals what I think is a misconception all would-be parents have:  that you are going to be a successful parent because you have so much wisdom to impart.  Then you have a child and realize, to put it bluntly, that you don’t know shit.  And that kids can teach you a lot more than you can teach them.

On the flip side, Sarah handles Amber’s smart-ass “gift” at the restaurant exactly right, so maybe I’m being too hard on her.  She is such a multi-faceted character and seems to operate on a very instictual level.  It’s not clear why she jumps to hire Tassie, with her less-than-stellar resume and awkward interviewing skills. Does she sense a deep connection with Tassie or has she simply not taken the time to interview many candidates?  She certainly doesn’t have much time on her hands, as Amber points out.

Sometimes Moore hits on truths with such precision, I can only stand back and marvel at her work rather than dissect it.  I’m thinking of Tassie’s descriptions of going from the farm to college, her heartbreaking observations of the pregnant women who interview her, and her wonderful ambivalence about childcare itself:  ”I was not especially skilled at minding children for long spells; I grew bored, perhaps like my own mother. After I’d spent too much time playing their games, my mind grew peckish and longed to lose itself in some book I had in my backpack. I was ever hopeful of early bedtimes and long naps.”

I’ll leave the rest up to you.  I hope you all enjoyed this story as much as I did.

You can find the story for free on the New Yorker website at http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/07/06/090706fi_fiction_moore

Please read this story in the next couple weeks and get ready to share your thoughts starting Sunday, November 15.

I always enjoy reading McCorkle’s stories because of her sharp wit and insight into people particularly family and how characters relate to each other. I always enjoy reading stories about family dynamics probably because I enjoy writing them as well. I don’t know who are the writers (besides Nina and myself) on the board but I wouldn’t mind discussing craft as well as what we thought about the story and its characters.

When Nina emailed me to nudge me to start blogging about this story she asked if I thought Debby was bitter. I think that question brings us to a good starting point for our discussion. My immediate response was that she wasn’t bitter but when I look back at the description of the sisters and mother, I do wonder if McCorckle’s intention was to show Debra’s bitterness by her description and portrayal of the sisters. We can’t hear what Debby is thinking because the story is not in her voice. We learn about Debby’s thoughts and feeling s though the narrator who describes the sisters in such a bitter, negative way. If the story was in first person we might have been turned off by Debby, labeling her a Bitter Betty. In limited third person we may laugh at the sisters and yet sympathize with Debby while rooting for her escape. 

Back to the question: is Debby bitter? I don’t think so. If anything she is grateful not be like them. “God don’t let me turn into them[her family], she prayed in that moment…” during her graduation ceremony. The story is she against them which makes me wonder if she is a little bit righteous.

Why does McCorkle use such sarcastic humor in the descriptions of the sisters? They are almost caricatures and don’t seem real. Yes, it’s humor for the purpose of being funny but what else (if any) is the purpose of portraying them this way? I’ll let you answer this one.

Thanks for the awesome pick, Andrea.

Interesting because the story felt so remote and out of reach at first, but then came the immaculate details, the matter-of-factness and humor despite the suffering, the profound insights and poignant dialogue, and every glimpse that felt like real life. So many brilliant lines and details stacked one on one upon each other, adding up to some real emotions that took me by surprise. I couldn’t help but to share them again here for our discussion…

“I cheered loudly, although the coffin reminded me of Aunty Ifeka, Mama’s half-sister, the woman whose breast I sucked because Mama’s dried up after I was born. Aunty Ifeka was killed during the massacres in the north. So was Arize, her pregnant daughter. They must have cut open Arize’s stomach and beheaded the baby first—it was what they did to the pregnant women.”

“As I left the hostel, I saw a girl’s stylish sandal left lying on the stairs.”

“Mama invited Nnamdi over and made him a mango pie. “Your uniform is so debonair, darling,” she said, and hung around him as if he were her son…”

“Afterward, Mama and I walked home (we didn’t drive, to save petrol) and when Papa came home in the evenings, during those slow months, we would sit on the veranda and eat fresh anara with groundnut paste and listen to Radio Biafra, the kerosene lamp casting amber shadows all around.”

“I hoarded that memory, and every other memory of Nnamdi, used each sparingly. I used them most during the air raids, when the screeching ka-ka-ka of the antiaircraft guns disrupted a hot afternoon and everybody in the yard dashed to the bunker—the room-size hole in the ground covered with logs—and slid into the moist earth underneath. Exhilarating, Obi called it, even though he got scratches and cuts. I would smell the organic walls and floor, like a freshly tilled farm, and watch the children crawl around looking for crickets and earthworms, until the bombing stopped. I would rub the soil between my fingers and savor thoughts of Nnamdi’s teeth, tongue, voice.”

“Sometimes even I forgot how young he was. “Do you remember when I used to half-chew your beef and then put it in your mouth so it would be easier for you to chew?” I teased. And Obi made a face and said he did not remember.”

“The soldiers looked inside the latrine, asked Mama if she was sure she was not hiding anybody, because that would make her a saboteur and saboteurs were worse than Nigerians. Mama smiled at them, then used her old voice, the voice of when she hosted three-course dinners for Papa’s friends, and offered them some water before they left. Afterward, Obi said he would enlist when he felt better. He owed it to Biafra and besides, fifteen-year-olds had fought in the Persian war. Before Mama left the room, she walked up to Obi and slapped his face so hard I saw the immediate slender welts on his cheek.”

“There was salt in Nigeria; salt was the reason our people were crossing the border to the other side, salt was the reason a woman down the road was said to have run out of her kitchen and torn her clothes off and rolled in the dirt, wailing. I sat on the kitchen floor and listened to the chatter and tried to remember what salt tasted like. It seemed surreal now, that we had a crystal saltshaker back home. That I had even wasted salt, rinsing away the clumpy bottom before refilling the shaker. Fresh salt. I interspersed thoughts of Nnamdi with thoughts of salty food.”

Did anyone else have a similar experience? Or even the opposite (did the story remain foreign from start to finish)?

Side note: Thanks to my pal Amy Oberhelman (also a FitLitter), I’ve also read “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda”—an amazing non-fiction book by Philip Gourevitch about the genocide of Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda in 1994. This book was painful because the tragedy was so outrageous and unbelievable—it was hard to swallow the fact that something like it could happened in my lifetime. I felt some of that same emotion coming up in this story.

I am also always curious about the role of our imagination (especially in traumatic situations). I loved Adichie’s awareness of the difference in the way that she and her brother, Obi, taught. She notices that the children respond to him differently and speculates that “perhaps it was because he mixed learning and playing.” I enjoy thinking about her observation in reference to the art of living and the ways in which we learn from or are inspired by others and the impact that has in times of transition or grief/loss.

I felt like this story was obviously a journey from innocence to experience for the narrator, as she realizes that there are two sides in life: the winners and losers (hence the name of her nemesis, “Mrs. Winner”). Here she has been, studiously trying to align herself with the winners’ side, when she realizes that all along she’s been on the side of the losers. How does she correct this at the end? She screws over poor dumb cousin Ernie, the most innocent one in the story and the epitome of a rule-follower, a hard-working rube, and thus, someone firmly in the “loser” category. She does this partly to separate herself from her rural, working-class upbringing, but mostly because she realizes that the only way to fully succeed in life is by discovering your own wickedness, by going from the victim to the victimizer. Is that a fair way to view success? To what extent must we all victimize others in order to meet society’s definition of success?

The ending was so classic Munro! So deliciously cruel. She always manages to kick you in the ass with her endings.

I also wanted to open the discussion this month to some “VISUAL DIALOGUE”. I was playing with a collage or light drawing to go with this reading…and then trying to scan it in to post here. So….I wanted to open that up to everyone to play! We’ll see how that goes. Happy Firecracka Day!

“We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners, but here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie knows what is at stake, and what to do about it. She is fearless, or she would not have taken on the intimidating horror of Nigeria’s civil war. Adichie came almost fully made.”— Chinua Achebe