Dream Team

Returning to Mary Robison's "Coach," I have to say that the ending caught me completely by surprise. Let me tease out this ending. As with the opening scene, the closing scene features the family triangle—Coach, wife Sherry, and daughter Daphne—in the kitchen. Coach is still mired in fantasy, although this time it's further fueled by his beer binge. Here's how the scene starts:

Coach was drunk at the kitchen table. He was enjoying the largeness of the room, and he was making out a roster of his dream team. He had put the best kids from his fifteen years of coaching in the postions they had played for him. He was puzzling over the tight-end spot. "Jim Wyckoff or Jerry Kinney?" he said aloud. He penciled "Kinney" into his diagram. [57, again, page refererences are to the Nonpareil Books edition]

Daphne, having adjusted best to the new locale, has made friends and now wants to stay:

" . . . This guy I met—well, these two guys, really—who work at Campus World, they gave it to me. It's dumb, but I want you to see I care. I do care. Not just for you, but because I want to stay here. Do you think we can maybe? Do your people look any good this year? [58]

And Sherry?

"Is there any beer left for me?" Sherry said. "I want to drown my disappointment. I can't paint!"
"You can paint," Coach said.
"Let's face it," Sherry said. "An artist? The wife of a coach?" [59]

And the story ends right there. It's a wide open ending where nothing has been resolved. We are left with huge questions about the characters. Will Coach produce a winning season and get the varsity job? Is Sherry's disappointment the result of a bad day? Or has she realized that in fact she really can't paint? Will Coach and Sherry form any connection? Or are they kaput? And the one answer we do have at the end of the story, is an answer to a question not even posed in the story. We see that Daphne is making her own friends—friends that are not, as Sherry indicates, Coach's people—and she is creating a life for herself outside the family triangle.

What strikes me about this story is that while it is ostensibly about Coach, and we follow him through a series of scenes, he remains static. The hidden story—the story we were not expecting after the beginning scene—is Daphne's movement out into the world. In the opening scene Coach is pushing her away. But in the closing scene—perhaps realizing that she'll be gone soon—he is drawing her towards him (even asking her to sit down and have a beer with him!). And the one event the story forecasted in the opening scene, but didn't deliver—Sherry's permanent move out of the house—seems undermined and no longer certain by the final sentences.

This inconclusive style of ending is not for all readers, particularly those who seek a sense of satisfaction when they reach the end of a story. On the other hand, this kind of ending does invite you back into the story. Its surprise and inconclusiveness, its movement away from where we thought it would go, invites us to read it again with new expectations of what we will discover. I think that is a greater gift a writer can give than to merely deliver the story we expect from the opening scene.

Dorito Breath

Here's the first paragraph from Ann Bronston's story "Obedience School, " which won the 1999 Mississippi Review Prize in Fiction:

I have been saying fuck to my children a lot lately, not out loud, not usually. But in my mind, under my breath, I hear myself saying, Because it’s too fucking expensive, that’s why. You don’t fucking talk to me like that. Get it the fuck yourself. My children are seven, twelve, and fourteen, all boys. I imagine soon they’ll be doing the same to me, if they’re not already whispering inaudible fucks. I listen for it sometimes. I walk past my oldest, James, so close I am aware of the scent of his oily skin and scalp, but all that rides out on his breath is the smell of Doritos chips. I’m not surprised. I don’t really expect him to let loose that kind of language, not even timidly, under his breath. He seems too lost and confused, too passive to focus his anger, too depressed. Nor do I really expect it from my middle son, Jeremy, who just seems too happy to harbor unspoken fucks. Why do families do that, name their children with the same letter? I guess we thought we were uniting ourselves, gaining control of randomness, creating children who wouldn’t disappear from each other in the endless sea of other schoolchildren. But, in fact, it only seems to confuse people as to who’s who. And as I get older it trips up my brain, and when trying to reprimand, I struggle to pronounce the right name, so my anger escalates as I stutteringly yell, "Jason!" He is the one. He matches my anger breath for breath, unspoken words filling the air, clouding the space between us. He’s only seven.

That get your attention? Great story openings have that affect on us. They don't dawdle along as we passively filter words. They demand a response. Even if you are offended by the language in the first few sentences, my guess is it's hard to stop reading. Why is that? Because it's real, its honest. Maybe you've said those words to your kids. Or thought them. Maybe you wanted to say them, but didn't. Here's a story that does it for you. Or maybe you were a kid on the receiving end of those words—or fragments of them muttered almost, but not quite, inaudibly. Here's a story that gives you a glimpse of why a parent thinks, feels, and says those words.

This opening paragraph has more than that confession of suppressed anger and frustration going for it. The pitch-perfect detail: "all that rides out on his breath is the smell of Doritos chips." And the way each of the three boys are first characterized by their emotional states, so that the first hook of attachment, to carring about what happens to them, becomes embedded within us. That's great affective writing. So, Bronston grabs us with language, with emotion, and finally, in those last three sentences, she hooks us with conflict, with plot.

I'll post more on this story in the days ahead, but for now go read Ann Bronston's story in the Mississippi Review.

Speaking in Tongues

Whenever I feel in a bit of a writing rut I read some contemporary Scottish fiction. While American literature has been busy adding diversity to its voice, Scotland has spent the past 25 or so years birthing, okay, spewing its voice. Long suppressed by English colonialism (England spent centuries perfecting its colonoizing technique north of Hadrian's wall before trying it out on other continents) the Scots voice is now vibrant. Although the Edinburgh based writers were heavily hyped in the 90's following the success of Trainspotting, Scottish literature has not gone the way of grunge. The Barcelona Review in particular continues to showcase Scots. If you haven't read much Scottish fiction, one book to start with is the collection of six novellas—Children of Albion Rovers: An Anthology of New Scottish Writing—edited by Kevin Williamson. Here's my review:

“Pop Life” by Gordon Legge struck me as weak, plodding to its predictable ending. The characters are more analyzed than present in the story. It doesn’t have the energy that his shorter pieces have. So definitely check out his collection In Between Talking About the Football.

“After the Vision” by Alan Warner is an excerpt from a novel that has yet to appear. This peice doesn’t resolve as novella, perhaps because it describes one incident from the whole. Great realism of a drinking and drugging weekend though, with several funny scenes. The language is fresh in places, with some new Scots words I haven’t seen before. If you've yet to read Warner's Morvern Callar, These Demented Lands, and The Sopranos, well, what are you waiting for? Morvern is particularly worth studying because of the way Warner controls voice and tone. Warner's story "Costa Pool Bum" is one I'll discuss from the craft perspective next week. The Barcelona Review also has an article about Warner and an interview. The Spike Magazine interview is also entertaining. Further Warner irreverence.

“The Brown Pint of Courage” by James Meek is a funny farce about traffic wardens in Edinburgh. It has a seemingly contrapuntal frame that turns back on itself, seems to miss the mark, but is actually a scenic commentary on the rest of the story. Check out Meek's stories "These Lovers" and "And the Days Grow Shorter" in the Barcelona Review.

“Submission” by Paul Reekie is social commentary under the guise of a letter. The energy of the letter writer’s prose is quite powerful, but that isn’t obvious until the embedded manuscript, the submission that he is responding too, is presented and commented on (“Wee bit quality lit”). Then, because of the contrast, you realize how much better writing the letter writer’s voice is than the quality lit.

“The Dilating Pupil” by Laura Hird is a quite funny Lolita-ish story. Full of her energetic writing, and her usual spare no sympathy for her characters style, but the ending lacked punch; like Warner’s story, the incident came to an end. Of course the irony of nothing really happening is the motif that runs through a lot off contemporary Scottish fiction; what I call the all sound and fury signifying nothing theme. The Scots are still taking energia from their fictional king Macbeth. For a different take on Hird, try her story "Routes". Also worth reading is her novel Born Free, where she uses four different first-person narrators. In the early chapters the voices all run together, but as the novel progreses and the characters move on separate arcs, the voices become distinct. Here's an extract.

Finally, there's “The Rosewell Incident” by Irvine Welsh. I don't think this foray into sci-fi compares to his other work. It does, however, have the hysterical premise of a Scottish street thug kidnapped by aliens—the one earthling they intend to study. The Scot teaches the aliens English and gets them addicted to cigarettes, so that when they come to conquer earth they are chain smoking and speaking with a Scots dialect inflected with Edinburgh football hooligan slang. Great idea, but the story as a whole is poorly implemented, kind of like he started writing a novel and ran out of energy. It also has these amazing lines that are part Bahktin from Discourse on the Novel and part Alasdair MacIntyre from After Virtue: “Drysdale had prepared well. Interviews were all about cracking codes, finding the current vogue; one minute liberal rhetoric, the next the hard line. The best professional in any bureaucracy was always the one who could control his or her prejudices and learn the dominant spiel with conviction. How one acted, of course, was totally irrelevant, as long as the espousal was effective.” (207-208) That’s virtually a commentary on the famous scene in Trainspotting where Renton, in front of the judge and being grilled by the prosecutor, drops out of dialect to discourse on Kierkegaard, then stops himself because “Ah cut myself short. They hate a smart cunt. It’s easy to talk yourself into a bigger fine, or fuck sake, a higher sentence.” (165-166, Trainspotting. New York: Norton, 1996). The internet is full of Welsh links, including his own site (dig the giant font), and the Spike site, but try this story, this interview, and this POMO review of Glue.

Away you go.

"You're thinking too slow."

Mary Robison's story "Coach," which was chosen for the Best American Short Stories 1982, and collected in her book An Amateur's Guide to the Night is, despite being the longest story in that collection, the one demanding the most from readers. I say this in the context of the Minimalist label pasted target-like on Robison. Despite the extra generosity within this story, its many un-minimalist features, the reader has to dig in and provide the meaning, do the work Robison won't do for them. (A take that story. You want more? I'll give you more. See? It's less. Now take your labels and insert into appropriate orifices.) Robison expects smart readers, readers willing to work for meaning.

One theme explored in "Coach" is the powerlessness that Coach feels amidst change. The story's opening scene has the Coach's wife renting an apartment so she can get out of his way and go off by herself to paint. As the scene continues Coach tries to convince his teenage daughter to leave the house before a reporter arrives for an interview; but she hangs around anyway. In this first glimpse of Coach, he's thwarted. A classic bit of showing that, by itself, would launch this story. But look at the additional texture Robison weaves into this scene:

"I'm thinking," Coach said.

His wife coasted from appliance to appliance. She swiped the face of the oven clock with her sponge. "You're thinking too slow. Your reporter's coming at nine and it's way after eight now. Should I give them a deposit on the studio or not? Yes or no?"

Coach was staring at the sink, at a thread of water that came from one of the taps. He thought of the lake place where they used to go when in North Carolina. He saw green water being thickly sliced by a powerboat; the boat towing Sherry, who was blonde and laughing on her skis, her rounded back strong, her suit shining red.

"Of course, of course, give them the money," he said. [39-40]

His wife is renting an apartment and Coach is drifting through an idealized reverie of times gone by. Then Daphne, their daughter, enters the kitchen and amid banter about whether she can stay for the reporter, Robison gives us:

Daphne was nodding at the food jars racked on the wide refrigerator door. "Hey, lookit," she said. She blew a breath in front of the freezer compartment and made a short jet of mist.

Coach remembered a fall night, a Friday-game night, long ago, when he had put Daphne on the playing field...[40].

Which begins a lengthy idealized reverie that ends the section. [Page references are to the Boston: Non Pareil Books, 1989 edition.]

Now there are many literary perspectives from which this section could be interpreted, but I'll only be looking at it with an eye towards craft. First off, note how smoothly the two reveries begin from an association. Next, this opening section accomplishes several reader captivating objectives: (1) the conflict between Coach, wife, and daughter; (2) all three character's uniqueness are caputred in both dialogue and action; (3) the backward looking, idealizing, aspect of Coach's character—amid change he can't control—is focalized; and (4) although you don't know this as you finish reading this first section of the story, it sets up a powerful and surprising ending.

If you haven't read the story, I won't spoil the surprise of the ending just yet, but will return to look at it in a few days.

Catalyst

Captivating stories take us to surprising places, leave us there panting, wrung out, without a compass.