A Feminist New Yorker Short Story by Lauren Groff

 Lauren Groff's short story "Annunciation" in the Feb 7, 2022 New Yorker is probably about as feminist as it gets, although not so much in terms of third wave "intersectionality." This is a woman-focused story in which men, to the extent they only vaguely appear, are disinterested, ineffectual, distant or in two cases, while no longer present, clearly malevolent. It's a story in which a woman can do a man's work and in which women rely on each other for support. 

Before going further, I need to say that "a clanger" created a hurdle for me at the start.  In her third sentence, Groff describes her unnamed heroine running in the hills above Palo Alto, California, as "the mist falls in starched sheets over the distant hills, the ones that press against the Bay."  I'm very familiar with that region and there are no hills the protagonist can see that "press against the Bay."  The south bay is surrounded by flat lands with big freeways running through them. The hills are well back from the water.  

But most readers probably wouldn't be that familiar with the terrain and I suppose one can write this off to artistic license.  "Annunciation" is a work of fiction after all.

Groff's story begins with a woman graduating from a college in New England. No one in her large family attends and as a result, with little money, she gets into an awkward old car given to her by a grandfather and heads west, ending up in a San Francisco youth hostel.  Although the story ends late in the protagonists' life, that's almost the last readers hear of her original family. At one point, the protagonist's mother does tracks her down, but their reunion is very short-lived. Graff's heroine has no need for her mother.

After the brief stay in San Francisco, the protagonist finds a job down the Peninsula in Redwood City ("Climate best by Government Test," although that isn't mentioned in the story) and takes a low-wage clerical job in a government welfare agency. There she befriends a down-and out co-worker, a victim of domestic violence who lives with a young daughter in a Volkswagen Vanagon -- in one of the wealthiest areas of the U.S. 

Groff's heroine has also found cheap housing close to her job in the compound of a strange, somewhat spooky woman who eventually dies of the law of unintended consequences, sending Groff's heroine on her way. 

The two connections mentioned above -- they seem to fall short of real friendships or relationships -- are described in great detail by Groff, but in the end, neither one goes anywhere. This is not "sisterhood" feminism. 

From here, readers are suddenly taken to a point significantly later in the life of Groff's heroine -- in Italy where readers are told she is now living a life of "grace," fundamentally a Christian concept, but in this case associated with such things as birds singing amid "beauty."

In the interim, readers learn that the woman in question created a family of her own and while it "has become my true north," it is one from which she apparently episodically flees. -- thinking good things about this behavior because she has so far always eventually returned.  No mention of a husband, but she claims to be a mother who "sees her children fully." One wonders if they see it that way, but readers learn nothing of them.

One thing she likes about Italy is that she is surrounded by a thousand Madonnas, with a thousand different faces" (in churches), all unnamed, but wearing "the particular mortal face of a woman the artist loved."  One supposes that's the way she would like to think of herself. 

In the usual New Yorker interview, one learns Groff struggled with versions this story for a decade, apparently because she had no idea where it was supposed to go. Then she made a bet with another writer on who could first write a short story with a happy ending (a rarity readers are told) and voila!

Grace, wherever it came from and for whatever reason Groff's protagonist was worthy of it, is where it's at. And who needs men?

Amen, those of a feminist persuasion might say.

"American Dirt:" Cultural Appropriation, Polemical Fiction?

"In contemporary literary circles, there is a serious and legitimate sensitivity to people writing about heritages that are not their own because, at its worst, this practice perpetuates the evils of colonization, stealing the stories of oppressed people for the profit of the dominant."

That paragraph jumped out at me when it read Lauren Groff's review of the recent, rather controversial novel "American Dirt," by Jeanine Cummings, because it seemed to call into question the fundamental nature of fiction: it's invented so no holds barred.

Here's the very first thing the contemporary God of Knowledge, Wikipedia, has to say about it: "Fiction generally is a narrative form, in any medium, consisting of people, events, or places that are imaginary—in other words, not based strictly on history or fact."

Let's repeat that: not based strictly on history or fact.

So, whether "American Dirt" gets Mexican culture right or not doesn't matter. No one has to read -- or finish reading this book.  On the other hand, if you like the story whatever you think about the verisimilitude of the setting (how about any number of movies?), you can brush aside certain perceived shortcomings.  Groff said that despite her objections, weeks after reading "American Dirt," the story remained alive in her.

Novels are arguably mostly written to provide entertainment for readers and income for authors. But according to Groff, not all of them.  "American Dirt," she argues, falls into a category known as polemical fiction -- in effect, propaganda masquerading as literature. Polemical fiction, Groff says, is designed to make its readers act in a way that corresponds to the writer's vision and in her view, the purpose of "American Dirt" is "fiercely polemical."

If then, it is essentially propaganda, why was it  awarded a full-page review in the Jan. 26, 2020 New York Times Sunday "Book Review" section? Perhaps like the old comic strip "Pogo," which some newspapers eventually banished to the op-ed pages, Groff's review should have experienced a similar fate.

I wonder how she might characterize certain of Charles Dicken's novels, or Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness?"

But, then, when I first sent drafts my novella "Gina/Diane," which centers on a botched abortion, to female friends for comment, some were quick to see it as polemical, or to argue that if could be so interpreted even if I didn't intend it to be. But arguments could go either way, I pointed out. Because Gina's abortion had not gone well and had life-long consequences, it could be seen as a treatise against a woman's right to choose.  But it could also be seen as an argument in favor of safe, legal abortion procedures.

But what about perpetuating the evils of colonization by writing a story about a culture that is not one's own? I think I'll leave that one for another day -- and perhaps put on a CD of Puccini's opera "Madam Butterfly" to help me get through the pandemic.

 

Where to Start When Writing a Novel?

One often hears that good stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. So it might seem logical that someone wishing to write one would start where the tale begins and march forward to the conclusion. But that’s not always the way it works.

The New York-based Center for Fiction recently interviewed Matthew Thomas, author of We Are Not Ourselves, which won the Center’s 2014 Flaherty-Dunnan prize for a first novel.

Among other things, Thomas was asked to identify the “entry point” – where he began writing – because the novel took over 10 years to complete and because it covers a great deal of ground.

“The very first thing I wrote in the novel was an in medias res [in the middle of things] moment -- a version of the section in the book where Eileen gives Ed a surprise party for his birthday. I had an idea of the sweep of the life of this character and this family, but I wanted to start somewhere in the middle. There's something useful about getting into the middle of something and looking around to see where you are,” Thomas explained.

Then he wrote Eileen’s back story before continuing forward.