Two recent reads: adultery and activism
We Don’t Live Here Anymore by Andre Dubus: This book is composed of three novellas that were originally published in different collections, but that concern the same characters and theme. The characters are two young couples-Jack and Terry, and Hank and Edith-and the theme is adultery, or perhaps marriage (can’t have one without the other, after all). The first novella, “We Don’t Live Here Anymore,” is the longest and by far the best of the three. This novella is told from Jack’s perspective and focuses on his affair with Edith and the problems in his marriage with Terry. It’s a visceral and violent story, full of fighting and sex and people being terrible to each other. Jack is an asshole and doesn’t (won't?) see the way that Terry’s life hurts and degrades her, yet Dubus (writing from Jack’s perspective, no less) makes the trap that Terry is in so absolutely palpable. Really amazing.
The other two novellas are less successful. “Adultery,” set a few years after “We Don’t Live Here Anymore,” tells the story of Edith’s affair with a former priest who discovers that he’s dying after he and Edith become involved. There are some very lovely and tender scenes between Edith and her lover, but the story feels like it doesn’t add up to much in the end. The last novella, “Finding a Girl in America,” was flat-out annoying. Perhaps I was sick of reading about these character by the time I got to this one, but I couldn’t muster even a little bit of sympathy for Hank in this novella, and didn’t really care that he had finally found happiness by having a relationship with one of his nineteen-year-old students. Nevertheless, they were interesting to read, if only to see someone other than Updike take on subject matter that seems so quintessentially Updikean.
Strange as This Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake: I had a couple of opportunities to spend time with Ann Pancake during her recent visit to Penn State, and I took part in some very interesting conversations with her about writing and activism, and the struggle to reconcile artistic goals with activist goals. Her novel, the story of a poor family in southern West Virginia and the impact that Mountaintop Removal Mining has on their lives, has a clear activist stance that doesn’t always jibe perfectly with her literary ambition. Pancake tells her story from several different perspectives, and while she does a good job at establishing distinct voices for all of these characters, only a couple of them really come to life. The use of multiple characters also seemed to make the book a bit repetitive-every time I read a chapter about Dane, for instance, he seemed to be saying pretty much the same things. Pancake’s biggest strength is in her powerful descriptions of the devastation wrought by Mountaintop Removal, and of the fear and anger of the powerless people who live below these mines. Still, I wanted her to go further; it felt like the novel was building up to some really awful event, but Pancake shied away from giving it to us in the end. Even so, I really enjoyed digging in to this story and watching it unfold, despite its imperfections.
I feel compelled to add that Ann Pancake is an awesome person, and I was very happy to get to meet her and spend time with her while she was here. She gave a lot of her time to us MFA students, and was as sincerely interested in hearing about our writing as she was in talking about her own. Reading the second half of this book after hearing her voice really enhanced my appreciation of her prose. If you have an opportunity to hear her read, I highly suggest you take it. And, though Strange as This Weather Has Been may not meet all of Pancake's artistic goals, its activism succeeds: after I finished the book, I called Ms. E just to make sure that we’re buying our power from PECO Wind, because I wanted nothing at all to do with coal.
The other two novellas are less successful. “Adultery,” set a few years after “We Don’t Live Here Anymore,” tells the story of Edith’s affair with a former priest who discovers that he’s dying after he and Edith become involved. There are some very lovely and tender scenes between Edith and her lover, but the story feels like it doesn’t add up to much in the end. The last novella, “Finding a Girl in America,” was flat-out annoying. Perhaps I was sick of reading about these character by the time I got to this one, but I couldn’t muster even a little bit of sympathy for Hank in this novella, and didn’t really care that he had finally found happiness by having a relationship with one of his nineteen-year-old students. Nevertheless, they were interesting to read, if only to see someone other than Updike take on subject matter that seems so quintessentially Updikean.
Strange as This Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake: I had a couple of opportunities to spend time with Ann Pancake during her recent visit to Penn State, and I took part in some very interesting conversations with her about writing and activism, and the struggle to reconcile artistic goals with activist goals. Her novel, the story of a poor family in southern West Virginia and the impact that Mountaintop Removal Mining has on their lives, has a clear activist stance that doesn’t always jibe perfectly with her literary ambition. Pancake tells her story from several different perspectives, and while she does a good job at establishing distinct voices for all of these characters, only a couple of them really come to life. The use of multiple characters also seemed to make the book a bit repetitive-every time I read a chapter about Dane, for instance, he seemed to be saying pretty much the same things. Pancake’s biggest strength is in her powerful descriptions of the devastation wrought by Mountaintop Removal, and of the fear and anger of the powerless people who live below these mines. Still, I wanted her to go further; it felt like the novel was building up to some really awful event, but Pancake shied away from giving it to us in the end. Even so, I really enjoyed digging in to this story and watching it unfold, despite its imperfections.
I feel compelled to add that Ann Pancake is an awesome person, and I was very happy to get to meet her and spend time with her while she was here. She gave a lot of her time to us MFA students, and was as sincerely interested in hearing about our writing as she was in talking about her own. Reading the second half of this book after hearing her voice really enhanced my appreciation of her prose. If you have an opportunity to hear her read, I highly suggest you take it. And, though Strange as This Weather Has Been may not meet all of Pancake's artistic goals, its activism succeeds: after I finished the book, I called Ms. E just to make sure that we’re buying our power from PECO Wind, because I wanted nothing at all to do with coal.