I picked up a copy of NUVO at Georgetown Market several
weeks ago and leafed through it looking for fall festivals and special events
around town. “Oh, wow!” I yelled to no one in particular. “Joyce Carol Oates is
going to speak at Butler!” The free event was part of Butler University’s
Visiting Writers series—all you had to do was bring a donation of rice or pasta
for Second Helpings.
I’m always nervous about making it to something I’ve been looking
forward to. What if it’s raining too hard or the car breaks down on the way? Out
come the bus schedules and a plan for such a contingency. What if I spill soup on
my blouse? In that unlikely event, there are sweatshirts in the backseat of the
car.
We made it to Clowes Hall with no emergencies and found
terrific seats in the twelfth row smack in front of the lectern. People filed
into the main hall—lots of students, older people. I surmised many of the
latter were also involved in academia. The two men behind us heatedly discussed
the shortage of teachers in Indiana and what to do about it.
Professor of English Jason Goldsmith introduced English
Literature major and budding writer Maddi Rasor, who had the honor of
introducing Ms. Oates, the author of 40-some novels and almost as many short
story collections, not to mention novels under a couple of different names,
numerous plays, essays and memoirs, and children’s and YA fiction. (I am
thrilled Oates still writes short stories, my favorite reading.) Monday night
she read from her latest memoir, The Lost
Landscape: A Writer’s Coming of Age.
Oates is whipcord thin, taller than I expected, and spoke off
the cuff very comfortably. She thanked Ms. Rasor for her gracious introduction
and remarked it was “an achievement to be here,” joking about her longevity (she’s
77) and considering she is “always mildly anxious when traveling.” (I furiously
scribbled down her impromptu comments—we were not allowed to record or
photograph the presentation—and will reproduce them here as faithfully as
possible.)
She confirmed she is the “innocent, shy-looking girl on the
cover” of The Lost Landscape and
noted that when editor Daniel Halpern invited her to write a memoir she was
“self-conscious about writing about coming-of-age,” so she “basically just
wrote a memoir.” She had a lot to say about memoirs: why do you remember “that
weird thing, among all the other weird things that you’ve done” and noted “it’s
hard to get into the memory of our actual child-self… Memory is discontinuous…”
She wanted to write a book that would “address itself to the landscape of
childhood… that is so much a part of our spiritual being.”
She grew up in a narrow area north of Buffalo and noted New
York state is “this enormous place, in many ways a Midwestern state.” She
called the book “a lament, a valentine to a vanishing way of life in small-town
America.” Her father’s farm was “not very prosperous.” Her grandfather carried
a jug of hard cider around, starting at breakfast, and made his own cigarettes.
Oates then read from the “Happy Chicken 1942-1944” chapter
of her memoir, but first made a few comments. Her pet hen, Happy, was “handsome—like
Donald Trump” and she made him an honorary boy: “Sexism begins right in the
barnyard… there’s a patriarchal system right there in nature.”
The first characters—heroes—she drew were chickens and cats
on hind legs standing like people at a cocktail party, not that she knew at the
time what such a thing was. Happy would allow her to kiss him; “kissing the top
of a cat’s head is not unlike kissing
the top of a chicken’s head.” There was only one rooster in the coop—“the other
males were of no use. Sorry.”
Oates told us she’s written two kinds of memoirs. The first
is A Widow’s Story (2011). After her
first husband died in February 2008 she kept a journal, “like a diary,” where
“each day is the historical present, a record of those days.” It is “present
tense, very accurate.” The second type of memoir “is recollected. You know the
beginning and end of the story. It’s written many years later—it tends to be
something in the past—it’s much more dreamlike.” The latter is the kind we’re
likely to have read, she said, and remarked that “Mary Karr tried a lot of
things before she hit on the right voice” (for The Liar’s Club, her 1995 best-selling memoir). Oates said, “We all
have a story, a vivid memory of isolated things” and the memoirist must “create
a probable context for isolated incidents.”
As she read from “Happy Chicken,” I closed my eyes—John told
me he did, too—and the words carried us back to her hardscrabble yet wonderful childhood.
She planned to read more but ran out of time after an hour. I would have been
OK with spending the night there, listening.
She then invited questions from the audience. A young man
asked, “What happened to Connie (the young heroine of “Where Are You Going,
Where Have You Been?” forced to accompany a smooth-talking sociopath)?” and
Oates confirmed “she is going to die… she’s a sacrificial figure.” (The
enigmatic charmer has threatened to kill Connie’s family if she doesn’t come
with him.) “She starts off egotistical and at the end is ready to accept her
death.”
Next at the microphone was a woman who asked if Oates was
concerned that “elements of story are lost in translation” to film. The young
lady explained she took part in Hannah Fidell’s short film The Gathering Squall, based on the speaker’s short story. Oates
assured her “the art of film is independent.” Elements “will be appropriated
for the story.” She commented, “Filmmakers are so original and interesting” and
asked questions about the film and wants to see it. (I have no doubt she was
sincere. In line later, I overheard Maddi, the young lady who introduced Oates,
telling friends “she’s really very shy” in person and would rather hear about
you than talk about herself.)
Next up was a young lady who asked about stories based on actual
events. Oates replied, “When most men are engaged in the work [of writing such
a piece], they want it to be exemplary of the event itself” and cited “Where
Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” and “Landfill” as examples of her own work
where she writes “about the event, not the real people.” She is reminded of her
childhood again: the chicken is pecking on your leg? She’s told, “Oh, it’s just
a rooster.” Her grandmother answers her inquiries this way: “You’re foolish and
naïve to ask these questions.” Oates noted, “We’re ethereal beings in a natural
world. Out of that comes a lot of tragedy.”
As for structure? “You have to find a way of containing a
story.” She admitted, “I spend a lot of time trying to figure out a way to tell a story.” She has 400 pages
of notes for stories that are waiting for her to find the key. (John and I
exchanged a look at this.) Through Happy Chicken, she created a “triangulated
perspective” that allowed her to include past/present/future,
child/parent/grandparent, young girl/teen/adult.
I was interested in her comments about finding the right way
to tell a story—sure, this is a great idea for a plot, I tell myself, but
what’s the best way to present it (thinking of my file cabinet bulging with
folders)? Oates manages to find it. A few examples: “Do With Me What You Will”
is all-dialogue. “Cousins” is told via letters. “The High School Sweetheart” is
a murder confession in the form of an acceptance speech. None of these
narrative takes are gimmicks—story comes first.
The next speaker asked about Blonde, Oates’ novel based on Marilyn Monroe. Why Marilyn Monroe?
“Norma Jean Baker reminded me of my mother and a girl I knew,” she said. “I got
the idea of a tragedy—an American girl turned into Marilyn Monroe who makes
millions for other people.” Monroe certainly was not rich, or at least there
was no ready cash, at the time of her death—Oates told us Monroe’s ex-husband
Joe DiMaggio stepped up and paid her funeral expenses. “It’s the dark side of a
glamorous blonde figure. She was an exploited person who tried so hard to be
loved.”
The last questioner asked, “Do you still follow boxing?”
Oates, who wrote On Boxing in 1987,
said, “I don’t follow it as much as in the 80s. I was interested in the history
of boxing. My father took me to Golden Glove events, where I was witness to experiences
I had no name for. Boxing, for all its flaws, allows some… heroism and
artistry. It is symbolic of the human spirit.” Mike Tyson, she said, “is a
tragedy and a farce. Why does one have strength and heart and rise to a level,
and not another?”
Professor Goldsmith then wrapped up the evening and we filed
out to the impromptu bookstore displaying her many volumes. I finally chose
2014’s Lovely, Dark, Deep collection
of short stories and we found places at the end of a long line for an
autograph. Before we left the house I had grabbed Marriages and Infidelities at the last minute for her to sign, too,
if possible.
Ms. Oates duly signed my book and looked up at me. “Are you
a writer?” she asked. I nodded and said, “Of sorts.” She turned to Prof.
Goldsmith and said, “You can tell when someone is a writer. There’s a look,
don’t you think?” He agreed. As we turned to go Prof. Goldsmith saw Marriages and Infidelities (which I’ve
always thought of as Marriages and Other
Infidelities, for some reason) in my hand and said, “Would you like that
signed, too?” “Oh, sure!” I said. “I’ve had this for forty years, I just
grabbed it off the nightstand.” She signed that one, too, remarking that the
front cover showing a gorgeous couple in a clinch was outdated. Then we left
her to return to Princeton and her new kitten and we returned home to find a
cat up a tree.
Is forty years too long to be reading a book? Probably, if
that author is as prolific as Oates. Susan Neville’s Invention of Flight has also been on my nightstand almost that
long, because she hasn’t published that much. When a writer is really good, you
have to parcel his work out, like Mansfield. You can read her in one gulp and reread
her whenever you like. But there’s nothing like your first discovery of a story.
As much as you want to read it, you’re afraid to because you might read it too
fast and miss something. I’ve promised myself to go slow with Lovely, Dark, Deep.
