I read many of Hilma Wolitzer's novels years ago. She was one of a myriad of women novelists writing about domestic life in the sixties, seventies, eighties. Her stories are warm hearted; even when her characters are flawed she sympathizes with them. In the title story (1966) a young pregnant woman is waiting in line to pay for her groceries when a young mother blocks her passage, muttering, "There is just no end to it." She says more nonsensical things while her children hang onto her. The mother's distress grows as does her son's who needs a bathroom. The store manager and our narrator try to ID her but cannot find anything in her purse. A crowd gathers with various customers making suggestions. Finally someone knows her and her husband is summoned. That night our narrator is sitting in the bathtub weeping and when her husband comes in she sounds much like the woman who went mad in the supermarket. This story drives home how close all of us are to madness. And maybe especially women in the sixties whose whole life revolved around domestic chores and their children.
The second story "Waiting for Daddy" concerns a child unable to pin her mother (or grandmother) down on anything concerning the identity of her father.
I know these summaries make the subjects sound trite or prosaic but the writing is strong and this is the stuff of everyday life. I find it easier to be successful with a short story that relies on character and mood rather than plot. What do you think? Of course, one great exception to this that comes to mind is Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" which manages to do it all.
8 comments:
The short stories sound interesting. I have never read any of her novels. Probably because books that focus on domestic life are not high on my list of things I like to read about. Just like I don't care for novels about Wall Street or Washington D.C.
I do like stories that focus on real life - on everyday life. And it sounds as though these are stories of what you might call ordinary people - those can really resonate.
This has been on my list since I first heard about it. I have never read one of her novels. It's nice to see her getting this attention at 90.
Currently reading BEST EATEN COLD, a collection of stories by "Northern" writers that Rick Robinson reviewed last week. The writers are Martin Edwards (also the editor), Ann Cleeves, Cath Staincliffe, Margaret Murphy and Stuart Pawson. Cleeves starts things off with a Vera Stanhope story, "The Habit of Silence," which is very good if somewhat of a cheat. A man is killed in the Silent Room of a library and there is some disagreement among the people working there as to his character. But Vera uses her personal knowledge to figure the motive and pinpoint the killer. Cleeves does a nice job with the atmosphere of the place, and of course Vera is a wonderful crusty character.
Most of the collection of crime short stories I have read have been Best of the Year collections. This sounds like a good one to try. And I do like stories about everyday life. I don't like stories about the military, Wall Street, the super rich, drugs, cartels.
Diane's Book Club has read books by Hilma Wolitzer and Meg Wolitzer.
I am pretty sure I read this in a handout in High School English. I think it was my Junior year which would have made it 78-79. I remember it because my English teacher broke down in the middle of class as she did the mandatory read aloud thing and was gone for the rest of the day. Came home and told my Mom about it. I was 17 and did not get much out of it.
Mom took it and read it and then told me, "You'll get it when you are older." Something she said a lot when I was in High School and thought I knew way more than I did.
Having worked more than two decades in retail and another in a local school system, I can safely say that breaking down in store or school setting is fairly common. Especially the last couple of years. I know the story is way more than just that, but keep your head on a swivel, people. Let's be safe out there.
Hilma Wolitzer is not familiar to me but I will look out for books or stories by her. When I was growing up I always thought I would be a wife and mother, no thoughts or mention of college. Even though I made extremely good grades all through school. I sometimes wonder how my life would have been if I had not gone to college unexpectedly and if my first husband had not encouraged me to finish college.
Glad you did, Tracy, and back when it made even more difference than it does now. Albeit now a degree might be necessary to get one into the first interviews in many places. (My sister is well-off, to say the least, as a software engineer who has taken three credits at the college level in her life, so far.)
Patti, you've sold me on this collection. Even though the notion of domino-effect mental disorder needs to be handled very carefully in fiction...I never forgave Kin Platt for his ham-handed YA novel HEY, DUMMY, which utterly botches this, and I understood that even then. A notably unsuccessful example in crime fiction is Richard Neely's THE JAPANESE MISTRESS.
I'm willing to read novels and shorter fiction about nearly anything, as long as they are honest, and not prolix (unless entertainingly prolix). Tracts, such as the fictional works of Ayn Rand, or, in my adult years, Richard Bach (who seemed preachy to me even as child), not so much.
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