The Winter Father – Andre Dubus

Andre Dubus August 11, 1936 - February 24, 1999

I have to say, after six stories into this collection, I am very happy with the selections Calisher has made. This volume is much more pleasing to read than the previous.

This feeling comes through stronger after reading “The Winter Father”.

I don’t think I have read a story that has brought forth so many emotions in me before.

The strength of this writer is incredible.

This story hit way too close to home for me.

There were scenes in this story that made me feel as if Dubus was following me though my life during the early months of my parents divorce.

It’s a spooky coincidence of timing as well. My parents split up and my father headed north to Philly in the autumn of 1980. Dubus was probably writing this in 1980.

So, I’m going to fully take advantage of this blog now and use it for what I intended.

Release and education.

1980

My father headed up to Philly in the autumn of 1980 – He settled in a quiet suburb.

In Chestnut Hill, he rented in a small one room apartment – with a basement – which he converted into a small living area for my sister and I on our visits.

I remember the first visit to his new home vividly. Unlike in the story, where the father was able to drive and pick the brother and sister up, all within the same general geographic region, my parents lived farther apart.

My mother sister and I remained in Norfolk and dad moved to Philly. For the first trip, my parents felt that a short fast visit made by plane would be easiest on us all.

I was eight and my sister was five. We flew alone.

My mother was allowed to walk us onto the plane and sit with us, minutes before take off. Just as in the story, onlookers (other passengers and the stewardesses) were aware of what was going on and that we were the children of divorcees.

We cried a little, and in my mind, somehow, I knew that I had to be a bit stronger for my sister. I choked back tears.

We would land about 50 minutes later in Philly, we were the first off the plane, and our father was at the entrance to the gate to greeting us.

We spent the weekend making and eating food (just as in the story), went to movies (just as in the story) discussing our feelings about the divorce (just as in the story), eating in restaurants where waitresses also knew the situation (just as in the story) and strangely enough, (but on a different visit – we did a lot of sledding) – just as in the story.

When the weekend was over, (I think it was a holiday weekend – something like 4 or 5 days) – dad took us back to the airport and walked us onto the plane. Leaving him was much more emotional.

There was much more crying from both my sister and I – I cried a lot. A “hurt your heart” cry.

Just as in the story, Dad was the “good guy” for the time we spent with him. He didn’t have to discipline us verbally the way married parents did...or our mother did because we lived with her – he took us to fun places, and showed us new and interesting things. He did no wrong that weekend.

I don’t remember the flight home, or mom greeting us at the gate (I’m sure she did). I don’t remember her asking us about our time with Dad, but I’m sure she did.

I do remember going into my room and just staring out the window for a long time – just thinking.

I did a lot of that growing up. Just looking out of the window – in a trance – thinking.

It seems like an odd behavior for a child.

Perhaps not.

The 1980s

So, as the years went by, from age 8 to 18, my dad would make trips up and down Virginia’s Eastern Shore on Rt. 13 to pick my sister and I up, and then to return us home after our visit.

It was about a 5 hour trip for him, and he would leave early in the morning from Philly, and would sleep in his Datsun in front of our house until we woke and I would sneak out to greet him.

He probably only had a couple hours sleep but he was always happy to see us.

He would use our bathroom, drink something, maybe eat something, and we’d be on our way back north.

I became familiar with certain old houses, trees, bends in the road...corn fields along Rt. 13.

The trips north were always exciting, and the trips back down south as you rightly assume were depressing.

On the return trips, we’d hit the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and usually start crying. At that point we’d only have about an hour left with dad.

Quick back and forth’s about “feelings” and “thoughts” would be exchanged.

-Conversations through the windshield- just as Dubus wrote.

Later that night, after the drop off, I’d be back at home again staring out my window.

2004

My father still lives in the Philadelphia region.

He and I decided to meet in Salisbury Maryland, at a hotel to “sort a few things out”.

Salisbury is the half way point for both of us on Rt. 13.

It was a cold February.

There were some signs that his memory was starting to slip a bit, and we (M and I) realized that if there was going to be any sort of meaningful discussion that it would have to be done soon.

We hadn’t confronted him yet about his memory...and he didn’t see it in himself yet.

After dinner in Ocean City, we returned back to the hotel (a Days Inn I believe) around 11.

Several bottles of Scotch were pulled from his trunk as I think we both knew that we need some defense against what was about to hit us emotionally as well as something to loosen up his responses and something to allow me to be bolder in my interrogation of him.

So, for about 3 hours, I laid into him about the divorce.

Why did it happen?

What were they thinking?

How did he feel?

How did mom feel?

Why?

why?

why?

We both cried.

It was necessary though – and I had a lot of questions answered.

We parted early Sunday morning – a bit hung-over from all the emotions – the Scotch didn’t dent either of us – we were seasoned drinkers then.

We agreed that meetings like this needed to happen more often. We quickly decided that we would meet again in several months for another father/son weekend.

We never did.

2009-

My father’s mind today isn’t what it was back in 2004.

He has trouble remembering events or conversations that occurred 10 minutes ago.

I mistakenly fell under the assumption that the “divorce” discussions were over.

My father has decided that since he is retired, he needs to do some cleaning. Last year on a trip up to visit him; he passed along a large box containing all of my sister’s and my artwork from our childhood.

He did a good thing as a father and kept it all.

He now felt that it would be best if he gave it to us for safekeeping.

Contained in that box of artwork were letters from my sister and I to our father after the divorce.

There were also letters from my mother to him after the divorce.

I don’t think I made it though 2 letters.

Today, those letters are hidden in our apartment. I asked M to hide them from me.

She asked if she could read them and I allowed her to.

After she read them, she cried and held me. She asked how we were able to turn out “normal”.

She was at a loss for words, for all of the raw emotion put forth in those letters by two young children who missed their father – and by a mother/wife that was in mourning for her failed marriage.

I have no idea if those letters were placed in that box intentionally or not. I don’t know if I’ll ever read those letters.

3 weeks ago-

Rt. 13 isn’t what it was back in the 1980s. I still recognize bends in the road, certain trees, broken down houses.

A majority of the trip is spent in silence. M enjoys sleeping on long car trips and the silence is welcome as I stare out of the windshield having conversations with myself.

The conversations is about my future as a husband and maybe someday, as a father.

I promise to myself never to do what my parents did. I promise to myself never to leave my wife – and never to leave my children.

I whisper those promises to M as she sleeps and I choke back tears on Rt. 13 as we travel north.

I’ll never be a Winter Father.

The Moth and the Primrose - Vincent G. Dethier

Vincent G. Dethier - 15 February 1915 – 8 September 1993

What a story. I think this is another that will sit in my memory for awhile.

Recently, I should say within the past 3 years or so, I’ve been drawn to the interconnectedness of “everything”. I’ve wondered if there are really connective forces beyond what we readily perceive. The trickle down effects that develop from the action of a presence or force. Secondary effects of decisions that we make consciously or unconsciously.

Those couple of questions and more were addressed in this little short story. And they were done with laser like accuracy and precision.

Dethier was a scientist and he also possessed the gift as a talented fiction writer. He is the perfect example of a writer writing about what they know and love.

I know that seems like an obvious observation but it is a piece of advice that I have run across several times when I read interviews with writers about writing.

On a little side note, there I had an odd little connection with Dethier. Well, I don’t know if it is a connection – just something that brought me a little closer to him.

"Write about what you know and love"

Dethier worked at the Aberdeen proving grounds after WWII. Chemical Corps. I don’t think I would be too far off in making the assumption that he may have had a hand in the development of some of the nastiest chemical weapons we have in our arsenal today – but that’s really not my concern now.

Just to the North of the proving grounds is a river. You will also see a little town called Port Deposit. I spent time along the river just north of that town - on an island. I would be sitting along the river and I would hear the explosions over at the proving grounds. They were pretty frequent during the 80’s...ah yes, the Cold War.

I know that it really is a stretch of a connection – but hey, this is my place, I can draw my degrees of separation how I please.

Back to the story.

I have wondered what sort of impact my life will have on this world. In this day and in this country, I think that many more of us are in a fortunate position to actually make a difference. Good or bad depending on your choice and motivations.

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but the decision I made back in 1994 one afternoon, probably made after a couple shots of vodka - not to go to the directed medical exams the Peace Corps required of me which would have advance my application and then sent me to Russia. Rather, I waited...and was sent to Romania in 1998. That decision, made unconsciously I think, landed me here - at this very desk – doing what I do.

That was a small decision that changed my life. Sometimes we overvalue our decisions. The "important" decisions are really not that "important" but we fret over them and assign too much weight to them.

It's the little things like a moth or a primrose that change the directions of our life.

A Working Day – Robert Coover

Robert Coover - February 4, 1932

Here we have another author that seems to have been rightly included in the BASS 1981. I say author rather than story because – well, I’ll get to that in a moment.

Robert Coover and his writing have been widely praised over the years. I fully agree with all the praise that I read online. The short contained within BASS 1981 was in my opinion a fine piece of work. There was just one problem that hovered over my head as I invested more of my time in it.

When will it end?

Isn’t this supposed to be a short story?

It was only after reflection did I realize that the length and repetition which exists serves to convey the feelings of an unending struggle and frustrating repetitious life that the two characters dwell in.

The spankings, the discoveries of “items” under the covers at the foot of the bed, the male member in its normal morning state (upright), (sidenote: I am writing this in hopes of keeping certain members of the internet community away from here – but at he same time conveying a meaning) - the raised welts on the backside- etc. – I was able to digest well enough the first couple of times I read them. It started to become a bit annoying after the forth, fifth even sixth or more times (I lost count) that I read about them.

This technique was effective though.

You see the perfection that the two characters were striving for and the difficulty that they had in finding that perfection is something that I think many of us can relate to.

The discipline that is employed in this story is probably unusual to a majority of us but at times in the pursuit of certain perfection it may see familiar or even lack in severity.

I find that there are many times in my life that I subject myself to mental floggings for my lack of perfection or slips in self discipline. I’ve found recently that most of these focus on my lack of reading and writing. Being too lazy or tired at the end of a day to come home and read a story or write in my journal.

M often has to pull me back from engaging in behavior that is a bit too rigid or structured. I have a hard time in some cases, in some situations, to fall away from my training and I can hear myself shouting orders and demanding results.

Sometimes, I feel that I may sacrifice a level of quality in my projects in order to make a time requirement.

I really do much better over long drawn out endeavors.

I wonder if there truly are people who are able to be fully content in their life – and with the level they have attained and completely at peace with their actions.

This story is a nice reminder that there are days - days that sometimes seem as if they will never end, or are a repetition of a day we just lived – that we just can’t gain control over – no matter how hard we tried.

And that the discipline we inflict on ourselves is harder and much worse than anything anyone would inflict on us.

Winter: 1978 – Ann Beattie

Ann Beattie - September 8, 1947 – alive

This is a tough one. I really have mixed feelings about this short. I really have an unsettled disposition writing abut this author and her work.

You see, Ann Beattie is good. Really good.

Ann Beattie is alive and still produces wonderful writing.

I think that having looked over her bio, watched an interview with her on Youtube, and seen that she even has a Facebook Fan page...I just can’t seem to get into her. I know that I can’t possibly like every writer I come across. But I have a tough time understanding why I am having the feelings I do about her. When she told the interviewer in the Youtube clip that she will be releasing a book of her collected shorts from the New Yorker, I was excited...I immediately thought that I needed that book.

Perhaps that is my subconscious telling me that it is important to know this writer more.

Perhaps that was the message that this story was to give to me.

The exposure to this advanced piece of storytelling was to give me a hint that Beattie is one of the few that I need to invest more time with.

Winter:1978, was ahead of its time. For this very reason, its inclusion in BASS was perfect.

I feel that the story should land around 1998.

What the hell am I talking about?

I felt, as I was reading this story, that I was watching several scenes from a movie made in the late ‘90s.

A movie starring...lets say...Claire Danes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson, Donald Sutherland – you see the group I’m pulling together.

It would be shot with a handheld camera and been filmed in very earthy colors on cloudy cold days by the writer director and would have won an award at Sundance. Oh- it would also have a soundtrack by several “emerging” artist in the alterna-indie-folk-arty genre.

It would have played at the Naro movie theater here in Norfolk, and would have found a solid position as an “indie” favorite of the now older Grunge generation.

Perhaps what I pulled from this story was an atmosphere.

I was able to feel myself transported back to 1998...(my 1998) and relive for a brief period of time, my life then.

And this was done by an author that wrote the story in the late 70s or early 80s.

So when you read that a story or author transcends time and space – I guess this is what “they” mean.

Small Island Republics – Max Apple

Max Apple - October 22, 1941

In a 1979 interview with Patrick D. Hundley he (Apple) said, "I labor very much at having a style that is accessible."

So, from a story that challenged my mind and opened new regions of awareness to a story that was, yes, quite accessible.

Side note follows –

Along with reading short stories, I have fallen into the habit of reading interviews with authors concerning their craft. The Believer published a wonder set of collected interviews, Glimmer Train press published two volumes on writing, and the Paris Review website has allowed me to burn through reams of paper after downloading PDFs of their interviews. Being a fan of JCO, I read plenty of her interviews, and her published Journal is wonderful – unlocking her genius mind. DFW and his passing caused his fans to place everything they have about him online which in turn opens doors to his thoughts and processes. Youtube clips, MP3s of interviews...all illuminate the author and makes what they write even more special to me.

As mentioned before, part of what I do when I read these stories is is a small bit of research into the author – for the above reasons.

Gass was the last author in the BASS that I really flipped over.

Back to Apple. I think what I enjoy about him – at least in this stage of his writing (late 70s-early 80s) is his general honesty to himself and his writing. There isn’t a lot of showmanship.

In a 1981 essay in the New York Times Book Review, Apple wrote, "I was in my late 20's before I got all the sentences right in a single story. I would still prefer to be the ventriloquist -- to let the words come from a smiling dummy -- but I'm not good enough at buttoning my lip. An awkward, hesitant, clumsy sentence emerges.... I write a second sentence, and then I cross that first one out as if it never existed. This infidelity is rhythm, voice, finally style itself. It is a truth more profound to me than meaning, which is always elusive and perhaps belongs more to the reader."

And then:

Apple told the interviewer for the Michigan Quarterly Review, "In the act of writing a novel or story, I'm dreaming. I'm daydreaming."

Calisher identifies Apple as a Satirist, and “one that should be watched”. Satire was defiantly evident in this story but I considered the satire secondary to the message that I preferred to get from it. And once again, that’s what makes these stories so special. The chance for the reader to interpret them the way they wish. Yes, I think the author sets out with a mission and a story to convey, but it is the reader that brings their own experiences and patterns of electrical mental firings into the meaning of the story (This is one of the many reasons why DFW was so great).

I took Small Island Republics as a story of hope and ambition.

To lock into a goal or an idea and make it yours no matter how lofty or silly others may view it.

It’s necessary in life, and for our mental health, as individuals and as a society to engage in this “crazy” behavior sometimes. We can’t lock ourselves into convention...no matter how comfortable it is.

Pushing boundaries – mental and physical – setting the bar high for ourselves and striving to achieve a set goal – silly, stupid, crazy or insane – making a name for ourselves-just for the benefit of our own stability or instability.

And that is how this story brought me around to my father and his socks. Black, blue or white – nope, not for him. He saw the importance of wearing, as he put it, “funky” socks. It was his way of showing the world that he wasn’t just a professor...there was an individual under that title willing to push the boundaries, take risks and wear red socks.