The Way People Run – Christopher Tilghman

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Annick Smith - It's Come to This

In most of my reflections on these stories, I write about how they provide an outlet for discovery – mostly self-discovery. This story did just that during the reading and thinking about it, but it was in the research of Annick Smith that there was additional discovery. Nothing earth-shattering…just kinda cool.

In the “Contributor’s Notes” at the end of the anthology, it’s casually mentioned that Annick is a writer and filmmaker who lives in western Montana. Additionally, “She was the executive producer of Heartland, a feature film about a woman homesteader’s life on the Great Plans, and helped to develop Robert Redford’s forthcoming film, A River Runs Through It, based on the novella by Norman Maclean.”…”this is her first published short story.”

Okaaaayyyy…

Smith writes: “The heart of “It’s Come to This” is true to my life; the rest is fiction.”

It’s worth your time to read this story. I struggled through it but was rewarded at its conclusion.

Honestly, I’ve found it very difficult to get through these stories, and this one really threw up a huge speed bump in my path. I had such high hopes for the stories of the early '90s
…but I think the problem is not with them but with me.

I have lost my way.

As I mentioned above, one of the purposes of reading these stories and the writing that I place here following the readings has been mostly about self-discovery. Looking back to the introduction of this volume, I see that I uploaded it to this site on Feb. 20, 2020. Since beginning this volume, I’ve only read and written about 15 stories. I’ve found it hard to focus and concentrate on reading fiction over these past three years and nine months. I haven’t stopped reading, but I noticed that most of my reading has to do with work or current events. I’ve paid close attention to make sure that this reading hasn’t impacted my mental health. I believe that I have been able to pull away from the news when I need to, and there are times when I can go a couple of days without reading it (weekends) and not miss it.

Now, I do feel that there has been a huge impact on my attention span and the ability to focus on reading at length – both fiction and non-fiction. I have started to adopt some behaviors that I hope will allow me to regain my focus. One of those behaviors is an attempt at picking this writing back up on a more regular reading and writing schedule.

I need to get back on the path. 

The Fare to the Moon – Reynolds Price

 

Spanning pages 230-269 in the anthology, and with my battle to regain my attention span, I found this story to be a mountain to climb. In preparation for writing about the story and researching Price, I think this is one of those entries on this blog that will be short, revealing more of my discovery of the author and the publication that ran the story. Having lived in the south my whole life and knowing that Price was just a few hours away in the next state over – both now and before we moved, I always feel a special connection to these southern writers. This story first appeared in The Southern Review – a perfect host. I once had a nice collection of this particular literary journal and found that it featured stories worthy of its reputation. The story was written in the early 90s, with its genesis springing from an encounter Price had at a grocery store, witnessing the interactions between an interracial couple during his adolescence (1940s?). The story shines a light on race relations, an issue that remained and evolved from the 40s to the 90s and remains today in the 20s. It always amazes me where authors can find inspiration. According to my spreadsheet, Price made four appearances in BASS, but only one will be reviewed in this project.

The Names and Faces of Heroes – 1964

Night And Day at Panacea – 1975

Broad Day – 1976

The Fare to The Moon - 1992  

It has also been said that Price did not receive a great deal of scholarly attention …less than other members of his generation, such as John Updike, Philip Roth, Thomas Pynchon, Joyce Carol Oates, Toni Morrison, John Barth, Sylvia Plath, Susan Sontag, Don DeLillo, and Cynthia Ozick. Admittedly, this is the first time I’ve heard of him.

Of course, if I had made my way through my reading at a regular pace, I might have encountered his story before his death.

Price died at the age of 77 on January 20, 2011.

Joyce Carol Oates – Is Laughter Contagious?

 

What a feeling it is. Gently resting on my lap, the opening a book, the paper cover and inner pages under my dry fingers. I rub the pages feeling and listening to the noise they make. A sort of groaning. A swooshing sound as I flatten the pages with my hand to look closer at the ink on the pages. Real ink. Real paper. I move the sticky note that I’m using a bookmark to reveal the title of the story that I read so many months ago and that I’m finally getting around to writing about. I take comfort in reading that it’s by Oates – perhaps she can propel me back into this project as I’ve been corrupted by digital devices. Phones, laptops, tablets, TV. Giving my brain what it unconsciously calls out for—inflicting damage that will only surface over time. 

I’m sad that I have fallen so deeply into the pit of digital distraction – and isn’t it funny how I find myself typing out these characters to be posted on precisely the medium that I concern myself with. Perhaps I can find a happy point of coexistence. Discipline myself enough to exist in the real world and enter into this digital world to conduct this bit of record-keeping.

That’s what this exercise is about. It does serve a greater purpose. Someday, my children will find it…and in doing so, they’ll find a little bit more about me.

It’s now the second week of 2023, and I’ve found the mental space to begin writing here again.

How I love to encounter an Oates story in anthologies from the late 80s and early 90s. She does such an excellent job transporting the reader.

The world I encountered through this particular story was one that I found very familiar.

Back in my early 20s, I encountered middle-aged women, mothers, wives, that fit the description of Mrs. D, a wife and mother in the 90s - perfectly.

I saw them mid-day with their children at a country club pool – passing those last few hours of the day before their husbands came home. Swimsuit covers flowing, hats shade faces, and sunglasses shield puffy eyes. Gliding through the hot, hazy summer days of south Jersey. Bestseller in hand, flipping pages on the lounger, scolding kids between chapters.

I wondered if they were happy. I could sense that there was some effort to mask the strain of their lives.

I was only in my early 20s…what did I know of their lives?

I had it all figured out.

Not- really though.

Written in the 90s, read by me in the 2020s, I can easily see the strain (through their contagious laughter) burdening suburban homemakers today traveling across time from beside a pool in south Jersey.