I’m sick. There’s some virus-inspired cough making the rounds, and my son brought it home from school. It’s just a cough. A bit of a headache. Maybe a sore throat. But now my eleven year old and I are stuck at home for a week. He’s spending the time looking up international football camps that I have no intention of sending him to, and I’m working even though I have the time off because we’re hitting end of year coding freezes and I’ve yet to deliver my main project. Between groaning about sore shoulders at the home-desk, I’m listening to Shirley Jackson.
Because it’s award season and the Jackson is the one award I want. And because I haven’t read her shorts in a good three years. And damn. How can I hold so much respect for a writer, know that I love them, and then forget in three years how good their writing actually is? It’s as if I press it into my brain. I remember, logically, that Jackson was a genius. But I forget the way the stories stick in my chest when I read them. I forget the tightening of my stomach. I forget the way she entwines horror and sorrow into the same emotion.
For perspective, I’m listening to the audio book of The Lottery and Other Stories, which begins with part one exploring the horror of other people’s lives. How easy it is to step into someone else’s life. Which decisions lead us into a different life. But yesterday I was listening to part two: the horror of raising children. In the car, Charles came on. I tried to get my eleven year old son interested. His only question: “Was Shirley Jackson Percy Jackson’s mom?” So… errr… no go there. But then, why would the child be interested in a story that is gutting to a mother? Haha, he is Charles. Haha, we have no control ver our children once we send them into the world. And sometimes, they are absolute gremlins. Haha.
Last night, the story was Afternoon In Linen. I’ve read this book before, but I didn’t remember this story in detail. Listening to it was like passing someone on the street, thinking they look familiar, calling hello, only to realize they weren’t at all who I thought. In the end, I know who they are. And it’s not like I called the wrong name, just held the wrong person in my head as we exchanged pleasantries. They had no idea I thought they were someone else, and yet I still get a flood of shame when I realize the mistake. Yes. Afternoon In Linen felt like a rushed meeting on a sunny street, and when I got to the end I thought, “How could I not remember this one? This one is her best.”
The story captures, so well, that moment when a child turns from seeking the approval of their family to seeking the approval of their peers. There is such a delicious sorrow in that moment, held by both the grandmother and the granddaughter. Though the grandmother has the power to not break the bond, she fails to see the child as a person and doesn’t even realize what she’s doing until it’s too late. Instead we get the roiling battle in a ten year old, told subtly, with the drumbeat of “he will tell the whole neighborhood”. It follows the theme of “evil” children, but also simply children doing the unexpected. And it’s the first story in that part of the book that looks further into the child’s inspiration for their actions. The balance of the story is held perfectly.
I wonder if my son would have understood that one. How many times have we suggested he perform for other adults? Play the piano. Show them your drawing. We think we’re drawing a shy child into the spotlight and allowing them to present themselves when we are turning a child into a monkey, playing for peanuts. And for years, a child may love it, until they moment they don’t. Then, in one moment, everything can shatter.
This story is that moment. It is the cutting of a thin thread that precariously holds child to family. It is the blossoming of a child… but not beautiful and celebrated. Bittersweet and painful. It is absolutely horrific, and it is nothing more than a casual exchange in a living room on a sunny afternoon. To me, it is perfection.
This is what I want in my writing. The perfect example of “know how complex it is, and write it simply.”
