There were many things about Elizabeth Ferguson that the people of Bayview disliked. They thought her tall, too thin, too aloof. Her neck was too long and her breasts were too big. The men, who could have lived with the size of her breasts, found her unwilling to flirt and labeled her cold. The women were jealous of how well her clothes hung on her, and that she managed to look elegant in outfits that would have made them look like the bag ladies of late autumn. She said little in town unless spoken to, in which case she had the gall to be civil and clever. They distrusted her because her husband and parents were dead and because she called herself Elizabeth instead of Lisa or Betsy or Liz. In a town where the sole taxi driver delivered pints at breakfast to a dozen people, a town where alcohol was the cornerstone of all civic and social endeavor, they did not like that she could drink so much at the bar without becoming sloppy or degenerate. They found it alarming when, in the market or the bookstore and for no apparent reason, she burst out laughing; she might have just remembered the eccentric horse in the Saki story who has what its owner called “the swerving sickness,” but the people of Bayview could not guess this and took these abrupt outbursts to indicate that she was slowly going mad. They resented that Andrew Ferguson had left her a comfortable trust, and they blamed her for his death; however she had managed to cause him to crash, while drunk, 3,000 miles away, they knew she had done so for the money. And what they especially didn’t like was that, a week after he died, a man had left the Ferguson house at seven in the morning. Old Mrs. Haas, in the breakfast nook of her Victorian across the street, had watched through binoculars as the man left and had had to suppress her gleeful outrage until nine, when she began making phone calls.
-Anne Lamott, like Rachel Cusk, seems to have shifted away from the old-fashioned novel in recent years. Cusk has moved toward something plotless and experimental, and so she is celebrated. Lamott has started writing, more and more unabashedly, in a “self-help” style, and so people read her in secret and then they don’t mention to others that they have read her new material. I can only imagine how difficult it is to write a sturdy three-act, or five-act, novel--something that feels alive and that also seems elegant and well-structured. But I wish that Lamott still did it. I have this wish because Lamott is *good* at this particular challenge, and so few people are gifted in this area. Very, very few people.
-“Rosie” is Lamott’s second novel, and its charm is obvious even in the first sentence. The point of the opening paragraph is that people don’t need a reason for their hate; hate is exhilarating and intoxicating, and it can latch on to just about anything. You can hate a person for having too-large breasts, or for being “civil and clever.” The theme of the paragraph is summarized in two words: “gleeful outrage.” The pleasure of being aggrieved. Lamott sees this human trait clearly, and she can describe it with a sense of humor. She has a worldview--and so, right away, she is distinguished from maybe ninety-percent of her writerly contemporaries. She observes something silly in human behavior, something we maybe haven’t noticed before, and then she pins her specimens to the page. And we share in her fun.
-This paragraph is a wonder of gentle irony and detail: “however she had managed to cause him to crash, while drunk, 3,000 miles away,” “a town where the sole taxi driver delivered pints at breakfast to a dozen people,” “in the breakfast nook of the Victorian across the street...” And we can sympathize with these spiteful townspeople, as much as we might dislike this fact. Who *wouldn’t* feel a bit irritated by the person who seems to have everything going for her, the exquisite manners, the money, the figure, the style? Lamott says a novel should take a person from a good to a bad place and back again, and it’s clear, right away, that seemingly serene Ms. Ferguson is due for her comeuppance. Should we be nobler than we are? Sure, but Lamott sees us plainly and loves us anyway. At least she does when she is writing well. And so she is good literary company. (One of my favorite stories of hers is in “Bird by Bird,” when she can’t bear the gloating of a successful friend. The friend calls, and gloats obliviously, and Lamott can’t say “Great!” but she *can* say “Gright!” And she does: “Gright! Gright! Gright!” The absurdity, pain, and tension in this story feel very real; they seem to be Lamott exposing her own ridiculousness to us; and so the passage is priceless therapy.)
-“This planet and I are not well-suited to each other,” says Lamott, and I think of her ornery spirit when I have to be a social human being or enter a new public setting. So Lamott is fine reading for the start of a new job (and that’s tomorrow). Teachers, enjoy the school year. Or: get through the school year, and have some guilt-free fun with Anne Lamott during your evenings...
P.S. I especially like that Ms. Haas spies the apparent transgression very early in the morning, then has to suppress her urge to place phone calls until nine AM, when such calls are socially acceptable. The sweet agony of waiting! God is in the details. (And a lesser writer would have simply had Ms. Haas make the observation and pick up the phone, and thus would have missed out on this smart extra bit of filigree in the human comedy!)
-Anne Lamott, like Rachel Cusk, seems to have shifted away from the old-fashioned novel in recent years. Cusk has moved toward something plotless and experimental, and so she is celebrated. Lamott has started writing, more and more unabashedly, in a “self-help” style, and so people read her in secret and then they don’t mention to others that they have read her new material. I can only imagine how difficult it is to write a sturdy three-act, or five-act, novel--something that feels alive and that also seems elegant and well-structured. But I wish that Lamott still did it. I have this wish because Lamott is *good* at this particular challenge, and so few people are gifted in this area. Very, very few people.
-“Rosie” is Lamott’s second novel, and its charm is obvious even in the first sentence. The point of the opening paragraph is that people don’t need a reason for their hate; hate is exhilarating and intoxicating, and it can latch on to just about anything. You can hate a person for having too-large breasts, or for being “civil and clever.” The theme of the paragraph is summarized in two words: “gleeful outrage.” The pleasure of being aggrieved. Lamott sees this human trait clearly, and she can describe it with a sense of humor. She has a worldview--and so, right away, she is distinguished from maybe ninety-percent of her writerly contemporaries. She observes something silly in human behavior, something we maybe haven’t noticed before, and then she pins her specimens to the page. And we share in her fun.
-This paragraph is a wonder of gentle irony and detail: “however she had managed to cause him to crash, while drunk, 3,000 miles away,” “a town where the sole taxi driver delivered pints at breakfast to a dozen people,” “in the breakfast nook of the Victorian across the street...” And we can sympathize with these spiteful townspeople, as much as we might dislike this fact. Who *wouldn’t* feel a bit irritated by the person who seems to have everything going for her, the exquisite manners, the money, the figure, the style? Lamott says a novel should take a person from a good to a bad place and back again, and it’s clear, right away, that seemingly serene Ms. Ferguson is due for her comeuppance. Should we be nobler than we are? Sure, but Lamott sees us plainly and loves us anyway. At least she does when she is writing well. And so she is good literary company. (One of my favorite stories of hers is in “Bird by Bird,” when she can’t bear the gloating of a successful friend. The friend calls, and gloats obliviously, and Lamott can’t say “Great!” but she *can* say “Gright!” And she does: “Gright! Gright! Gright!” The absurdity, pain, and tension in this story feel very real; they seem to be Lamott exposing her own ridiculousness to us; and so the passage is priceless therapy.)
-“This planet and I are not well-suited to each other,” says Lamott, and I think of her ornery spirit when I have to be a social human being or enter a new public setting. So Lamott is fine reading for the start of a new job (and that’s tomorrow). Teachers, enjoy the school year. Or: get through the school year, and have some guilt-free fun with Anne Lamott during your evenings...
P.S. I especially like that Ms. Haas spies the apparent transgression very early in the morning, then has to suppress her urge to place phone calls until nine AM, when such calls are socially acceptable. The sweet agony of waiting! God is in the details. (And a lesser writer would have simply had Ms. Haas make the observation and pick up the phone, and thus would have missed out on this smart extra bit of filigree in the human comedy!)
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