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What I'm Reading

 Facebook is like a car crash; I can't look away. Most recently, the people of my town have started fighting about "flag disposal."


A veteran spotted a flag in a dumpster, and he then posted a rather condescending lecture about the proper care of flags. A liberal firebrand saw the post and wrote, "I can't believe we're wringing our hands about cloth when this country dumps people, actual people, in the trash....Where is the sense of perspective?" .....I thought both halves of this fight were obnoxious. It was like witnessing an argument between my two children; empathy was not a possibility.

Richard Russo is the king of small-town storytelling. His 2007 work, "Bridge of Sighs," concerns a town, Thomaston, that is pretty clearly a version of Russo's own ancestral Gloversville, in upstate NY. One road divides the middle class from the lower middle class; the road is actually called "Division." If you're "Western," living two minutes from Division, and you order a beer in the East area, the bartender will signal his displeasure by asking, "How are things out west?"

Russo invents a little bodega, so that people from all over Thomaston can "mix" in interesting ways. A woman who is deteriorating, in a socioeconomic sense, opts to move into the ugly flat above the shop. Our young narrator observes this woman, who says, "My ex is a sack of shit, but I'll go back to him. You watch. I'm hopeless." When the narrator expresses his confusion about this behavior, his mom says, "People will choose anything over being alone. And you already know that. Don't be like your father; don't pretend that you're ignorant of facts that you're most certainly aware of--facts you have mastered, in your heart."

The narrator is a dreamy kid who reads books--which means that he is a student of human nature. In one memorable passage, he observes a customer asking to borrow a bottle opener. The customer then attempts to slip the opener into his pocket--before realizing that it's tied to the wall. The narrator later sees an unspeakably nasty look on this customer's face--and he gets the chills. Then he realizes there is a reflection on the window, and the man in question is staring at himself; the look of pure hatred is something he reserves for moments when he believes he is alone, staring at a mirror.

My impression is that Russo's powers have diminished since "Bridge of Sighs"; it's the last novel of his to earn many very strong reviews. (His memoir, "Elsewhere," is wonderful.) But I might try Russo's early-career phenomenon, "Nobody's Fool," somewhere down the road. It's a comfort to read his work.
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