When I was reading and writing here more frequently, I
remember the feeling when the story delivered a surprise. I’m not talking about
something within the story…but usually some odd connection that comes through
something in the story or, in the case of this story, information about the
author.
Pulling up his Wikipedia page, I learned that Christopher
Tilghman served three years in the Navy. The page also provides a link to a
story that appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review in the Spring of 1986. The
story titled Norfolk, 1969, describes Norfolk in such a way that he had to have
spent some time in my old city. What a pleasant surprise to read about
neighborhoods, streets, and places I knew so well. Pulled a little at my
heartstrings. We’ve been out of Norfolk for more than a couple of years, and
this time has allowed memories to reappear – good and bad. Of course, the
digital world brings images and friends from Norfolk to me daily, but I’ve
found that more personal feelings and emotions are being stirred. I miss
Norfolk – not enough to return permanently, but the city where I spent most of
my life is still part of me.
The Way People Run was first published in the New Yorker on September
9, 1991. In September 1991, I was just beginning my sophomore year at Norwich.
I think the strongest memory from that time was hearing Nirvana for the first
time on our college radio station and blasting the Pearl Jam CD from my roommate's
stereo system. My sophomore year was a huge difference from my freshman year,
and we had a great time.
I’ve always felt that stories published in The New Yorker
had a certain “feel” to them, and this, too, has that “feel.”
My introduction
to BASS 1981 where Hortense Calisher describes the typical New Yorker story
– and I believe, that 10 years later, in 1991, her assessment holds up.
“Perhaps this is a good place to talk about the “typical”
New Yorker short story, since the proportion of my inclusions from that
magazine will give pain to some. There is no typical one, really, but I can
describe what people think it is: a story of suburbia or other middle-class to
“upper” milieu, which exists to record the delicate observation of the small
fauna, terrors, and fatuities of a domestic existence, sometimes leveled in
with a larger terror—a death, say, or a mortal disease—so that we may respond
to the seamlessness of life, and of the recorder’s style. To move on
casually from these stories, as we often do, is a guilt, since they are as
often, if subduedly, about the guilt of moving on. Muted response is the
virtue. Never break out.”
I’m excited though to see how her assessment holds up in
2001, 2011 and 2021!
Down a little side path here – I haven’t read New Yorker
fiction in quite some time…I also feel that there has been a shift in the New
Yorker where what they publish isn’t of interest to me anymore. I think I’m still
part of their targeted readership?!
Back in the main path – in the Contributor’s Notes at the
back of the volume, Tilghman states that he “composed “The Way People Run” as a
collage of visual images I have collected on the northern Plains.”
I immediately felt this composition when first reading this
story, before turning to the back of the book and him laying it out in his
notes.
I can’t stress enough how much I appreciate these
anthologies' Contributor’s Notes section. They provide such insight into the
author, and like their short stories, I feel that they work hard to really
provide a rich, detailed look into the author’s mind around the time of inclusion
in the anthology and perhaps a reflection of where they were (in their heads)
when they wrote the story,
I found this last passage of his notes interesting.
“About
a year later I was driving through the boarded-up towns of rural Virginia (it
could have been anywhere in the U.S.A., of course), and my character Barry came
back to me as a simple image of economic decline and moral exhaustion. I
realized my story was not about the West, where it is set, but about the
coasts, from which Barry has run. The fact of decay seemed to offer its own
sufficient reason, so I polished up the first draft and sent it off. I don't
like describing things that are falling apart — it's the shape of the story
that bothers me more than the pessimism - but I'm afraid we'd all better get
used to it.”
“…but
I'm afraid we'd all better get used to it.” And here we are over 30 years
later.
No comments:
Post a Comment