A Powerful Story of Quiet Desperation

“The Apartment," in the Aug. 31, 2015 issue of The New Yorker, is a powerful story of quiet desperation, set in Sweden, a country more “buttoned up” than America, author Jensen Beach says in one of the magazine’s regular author interviews.

Louise, married with a grown child and seemingly leading a comfortable middle-class life, is actually a hollowed-out alcoholic who hates her husband, her son and presumably just about everyone else. In the background, is the road not taken – an affair with an Iranian graduate student when she was at university. Instead of pursuing that, she opted for a conventional marriage with another Swede.

 

“She’d always been at ease with the idea of being the mother of a child who was like everyone else. It was a relief to exist so close to the middle. There were so many fewer risks.”

Or were there?

Louise is reminded of the past affair when a new neighbor with a last name similar to that of her former lover moves into a problematic apartment in the same complex, but across a courtyard. An elderly woman who had lived there had died, unnoticed even by her children who lived elsewhere, and her corpse hadn’t been discovered until its stench eventually permeated other areas of the building. Like the woman who died, Louise is outwardly integrated into society, but actually totally alone. She goes through the motions of an adjusted life, having lunch with her son and making a note to reimburse his bank account when he insists on paying, but her thoughts are elsewhere.

Unwilling or unable to try something new, she has taken to drinking.

Although a compelling read, the story is incomplete, particularly with respect to Louise’s husband and how he reacts and relates to his wife. In the interview, Beach explains that “The Apartment” is actually part of a collection of inter-related stories to be published next year under the title “Swallowed by the Cold” and readers will learn more about Martin – Louise’s husband -- there. One also will learn more about how Louise’s drinking came about.

”One of the reasons I so enjoy fiction is that, like life, it’s so morally ambiguous. There are bad characters capable of all sorts of bad actions in history and novels alike, to be sure, but for the most part I’d argue that the best characters, like most real people, elicit both sympathy and judgment. Neither Louise nor Martin has been honest with the other, or with themselves, about who they are or about what they differently wanted out of life. To me that’s really sad. And that sadness struck me as an interesting one to explore.”  So said Beach in the interview.

Readers of "The Apartment" may also want to take a look at the Aug. 27 New York Times Modern Love feature entitled "No One to Rescue Me From My Drinking."