Jewelweed, by David Rhodes (Milkweed Editions, May 2013)
“Home.”
For us Midwesterners, this word conjures a very specific set of images. When we hear the word “home,” most of us will think of early morning snowfalls, summer nights at the cabin, dense forests of pine trees, and expansive, flat prairies. We often think of the people we grew up with—the eclectic cast of characters that inhabited our small towns in the North Woods and our safe, tight-knit suburbs. Even Minneapolis—as large as it may seem to us Midwesterners—has its own community with its own familiar characters. For us, growing up in Minnesota means that we have gotten to know everyone; that we are deeply involved in both our communities and in the lives of their inhabitants… for better or for worse.
Perhaps that’s why I felt so instantly connected to David Rhodes’ new novel, Jewelweed. The novel is set in Words, Wisconsin—a small town that has managed (in true Midwestern fashion) to foster a close community of oddball individuals.
One of these oddballs — Blake Bookchester — has just returned home from serving time for a conviction. He returns to Words, Wisconsin with a newfound passion for philosophers like Spinoza, and now finds himself grasping madly for the woman he loves. Connected to Bookchester is Winifred (Winnie) Helm, a revered who is slowly beginning to realize that, perhaps, ministry isn’t her strongest calling. Also tumbling around in Rhodes’ plot are August and Ivan, Winnie’s rambunctious son and his best friend. These two find their own adventure when they befriend a hermit and roam the woods in search of the mysterious “Wild Boy.” Finally, Ivan’s mother ties the ends of the tangled web of characters— she is Danielle Workhouse, Blake Bookchester’s true love. Not only has Rhodes created a mess of people with individual struggles and adventures… but he has also managed to intertwine their lives in a way that makes his audience feel just as these characters do: there is no escape.
Jewelweed is Rhodes’ second novel set in Words, Wisconsin. First came his 2008 novel Driftless, which was incredibly well received, in part because of his setting choice. Rhodes used this small town to draw readers into his world in Driftless, and has managed to keep them hooked through his newest addition in what I and many readers hope will become a series.
The most beautiful part about Rhodes’ setting choice, however, is not simply that he is able to create such an intricate and intimate world. Rather, Rhodes has managed to carry his characters’ quirky, outrageous stories into a much greater story—one that transcends the adventures of the individual and hints at the wider, more universal story of the community itself. Although Rhodes is meticulous in crafting his characters’ plot-lines, he is also deliberate about approaching and unveiling these characters’ common and true desires: connection. To themselves, their past, and ultimately, the community around them.
On the surface, Jewelweed details the stories of Words, Wisconsin’s eccentric characters. Rhodes brings his audience into the lives of a heady, philosophical ex-prisoner; to an uncertain preacher; and to two precocious, misfit boys. These characters, among others, compose a truly unforgettable cast. However, it doesn’t take long for the reader to become sucked into the subtleties of these characters: their unified connection to (and inability to let go of) the past, their uncertain feelings about the future, and their own imperfections as they relate to their community. Rhodes approaches these themes so carefully that I almost didn’t realize what I was being sucked into. In fact, the painful humanity of these characters surprised me. One reader described the characters as follows, and I find her description to be incredibly accurate:
“When you read a novel like this where you dearly wish to move in with the characters, they have already moved in with you” —Sheryl Cotleur, Copperfield’s Books (Sebastopol, CA).
Rhodes’ characters certainly “moved in” with me—they commandeered my love and empathy before I could pull myself away.
Perhaps another contributor to this feeling of utter attachment is Rhodes’ incredible ability to manipulate prose. In fact, the prose itself is reminiscent of the author’s characters. Each sentence seems simple at first—however, it isn’t until the reader has finished the paragraph that s/he recognizes the true beauty of Rhodes’ writing. Take, for example, the following paragraph:
“ He lost track of how long he had been sitting there, but as the sun fell farther west and the air softened, he thought he could hear a new sound. The sound continues, and when he turned toward it he saw the old man walking out of the cornfield at the bottom of the hill and begin climbing. His movements were slow and halting… His shadow followed him step for step. A cloth bag hung from his shoulder, and Nate considered going down to help him, but something convinced him to remain sitting.”
On their own, each of these sentences seems rather easy. There are no big words, no long strings of adjectives, or complicated metaphors. However, I (and you, I’m sure) would be lying if we said that we weren’t intrigued by that paragraph. The same goes for his dialogue—it is easy and natural. The entire work gives this air of truth and humanity; this kind of truth is rare in much of today’s prose, and is quite stunning to find for yourself. In fact, I can’t decide what drew me in more: Rhodes’ characters, or the way he describes them on the page.
Jewelweed hits home for many readers—and that’s not just because many of us live in a place like Words. No, Jewelweed is more than that. Rhodes’ novel hits home because it approaches an idea to which we can all relate: connection. To ourselves, to our past, and to our communities. Jewelweed uses the idea of connection to help its readers acknowledge an aspect of humanity that we have barely considered for ourselves, therefore drawing a steel-strong connection of its own between itself and its community. Indeed, David Rhodes’s Jewelweed has managed to discuss a remarkable truth—one that left questions in my head long after I closed the book.
I wonder if Rhodes’ Jewelweed would resonate as soundly with an audience outside of the Midwest. Do you find yourself connecting more strongly to novels set in an environment like yours? Or rather, do you find yourself wishing to be transported to another world when you read? I wonder how changing the setting would affect the truth of the novel—or at least, how convincing it is. What do you think?
Siege 13, by Tamas Dobozy (Milkweed Editions, 2013)
If I could, I would recommend reading Tamas Dobozy’s Siege 13 while in transit; somewhere between points A and B. I say this because that’s precisely where I began Dobozy’s collection of short stories — on a twenty-two hour train ride from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Essex, Montana — and I couldn’t have found it more fitting. Rolling hills, empty plains, and that persistent, nagging feeling that we all get while travelling from one place to another: eventually, I will get to point B. Hopefully. Soon.
Siege 13 is built upon that precise feeling — anxiously awaiting a ‘point B’; the end of one event (or phase, or era) that allows another one to begin. Dobozy’s collection consists of thirteen linked stories, all revolving around the Soviet Budapest Offensive at the end of World War II. Whether his stories exist in 1944, during the horrific siege, or in 2007 within a group of Hungarian émigrés in Canada, each is told behind the lens of transition. Dobozy’s subtlely-crafted characters are constantly moving from one place to another — from one home to another, from one country to another… and always from one frame of mind to another. Dobozy plucks his characters from their worlds, dropping them carelessly into a new, foreign reality, almost as though he himself does not know how his characters will react. And then, of course, he watches with us as his story unfolds.
This theme — transition — creates an interesting rhythm throughout Dobozy’s work. His stories ebb and flow within the transitional period he has created, always ending with his characters’ acknowledgement of the world they have been thrown into. By the end of the book, I found myself expecting this resolution at the conclusion of each story. However, somehow, the author still manages to catch the reader off guard. He satisfies the reader with an ending that he has been expecting all along; however, Dobozy doesn’t get there in a traditional fashion. His stories often end abruptly, leaving loose ends and unanswered questions for the reader. However, I didn’t find this discomforting at all. On the contrary, I felt privileged, as though Dobozy was finally giving me (and all readers) the credit we deserve. I left each of his stories with a sense of closure, but was pleasantly surprised at Dobozy’s ability to bring me to his conclusions without leading me there by the hand.
The worlds that Dobozy has created for his characters — the worlds that they are transitioning between — are almost as noteworthy as the transitions themselves. In each of his stories, Dobozy has managed to establish situations that expertly blur the lines between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’; ‘morality’ and ‘immorality’. He does not allow his characters to tiptoe these lines, but he launches them from one side of morality to another, leaving the audience to judge for itself — that is, if his readers can sort out the complications of a world that is (most likely) completely foreign to them as well. The pushy, nagging ethical questions woven throughout Siege 13 drive the collection from just that — a simple collection of short stories — to a work that sticks with the reader long after its conclusion.
And it’s not just Dobozy’s ethical ponderings that kept me glued to his stories. His prose is as sly and subtlely-crafted as the stories themselves. Siege 13 presents a wide range of events, all reported by Dobozy with stunning clarity. Whether he is describing — in gritty detail — a horrific massacre along battle lines in Hungary, or portraying the dark, witty humor of a college student in Canada (as he does in “The Beautician”), Dobozy has managed to strike a near-perfect balance of detail and emotion within his stories. It is difficult to write a collection in which the story of a student’s senior thesis is as memorable as the story of the slow, wicked demise of a zookeeper in Budapest… and yet, somehow, Dobozy has mastered the skill. To my surprise, I still find myself wondering about Dobozy’s student and his senior thesis.
Dobozy’s prose also has a sort of lilting, melodic quality to it — one that can coax the reader into a heartbreaking conclusion, without warning him of its approach. The following passage, from “The Beautician” does this quite specifically:
“The truth is, it looked like a strategy, as if by losing himself in these fantastical descriptions he might lose me as well[.]”
This beautiful, smart prose, combined with Dobozy’s incredible story-crafting skills and characters, make Siege 13 an incredibly memorable collection. Tamas Dobozy managed to transport me to his world and allow me to exist within it – to find beauty in tragedy, to find right in wrong (and vice versa), morality in immorality. Most of all, he allowed me to recognize all of these things in transition… in the movement of a people, a country, and a culture from one reality to another. And all this, before my train arrived at the station.
It seems as though we’ve seen a lot of transition-based works lately. In fact, one of our recent reads, Woke Up Lonely (by Fiona Maazel), predicts a more contemporary transition — one from our current society to a futuristic culture and society. Are works like this hitting home for you? It certainly makes me wonder about our fascination with movement and change, and how that affects the way we read literature, and in turn, the way we live our lives.
Woke Up Lonely by Fiona Maazel (Graywolf Press 2013)
As the old saying goes: sometimes, we don’t realize we’re standing in the fire until we begin to feel the burn.
Today’s society, fast-paced and booming with technology, is perhaps so absorbed in keeping up with ourselves that we’ve failed to see the flames; the warning signs showing us how our communities are changing. At least, that’s what Fiona Maazel argues in her novel, Woke Up Lonely. This novel —witty, wild, and utterly original — is the perfect smoke detector for today’s readers. As long as they can keep away from Facebook long enough to read it, of course.
Woke Up Lonely follows Thurlow Dan, the founder of the Helix, an American cult promising to ‘cure’ loneliness. The group attempts to fix this twenty-first century malady through a system of over-sharing — communes, speed dating, mixers, and confession-sessions — and has quickly gained an enormous national following. In the middle of this whirlwind, however, we find Thurlow: lonelier than ever, desperately seeking communication with his ex-wife, Esme, and their daughter Ida. However, as the cult grows more influential, Thurlow finds himself in a dangerous relationship with North Korea — and even further from his relationship with his ex-wife (who, by the way, is a covert CIA agent). Sound crazy? It is. Fiona Maazel’s fiction takes the reader through a fun house of turns and tricks, knocking American society off its axis, and transporting readers to a world that is only slightly crazier than our own.
Or is it? It doesn’t take long before the reader begins to wonder how different the two worlds actually are. Many of Maazel’s themes hit just a little too close to home: perhaps the Helix’s online communes are a bit reminiscent of Facebook; maybe you have a stronger impact online than you do within your own household. Maazel presents these questions beneath a layer of witty humor that, when paired with the author’s topsy-turvy plot, almost completely masks the novel’s dark reality. However, once you realize that your laughs are turning quickly to winces, you become acutely aware of Maazel’s message: even in our fast-paced, constantly-connected society, we are all collectively alone.
At many points throughout the novel, Maazel takes a break from her smart humor, using the short relief to zone in on her message. Take the following passage, for example, involving Thurlow and Vicki, the woman he routinely hires for — ahem — personal company:
“He thought about… his wife and daughter and the life they had together, pillaged by a lonely guy who screwed up every chance he got. The lights went out. A siren cried.
He buzzed for Vicki. At least Vicki would kiss him hello and put her arms around him and be happier for it. He buzzed for her again and got no answer.”
Powerful statements like this are riddled throughout Maazel’s prose, grabbing the reader’s attention and holding it long after the final page. The author’s exploration of technology and corporation in America becomes the smoky smell we’ve been looking for — an indication of the burn soon to come.
Before reading this novel, I had not personally been drawn to wild, twisting plots like Maazel’s. Until this book, my opinion had been that the more life-like a work is, the better a reader can relate to it. So, when I first picked up Woke Up Lonely, I prepared myself for a run-of-the-mill novel on a futuristic society I couldn’t even imagine, much less relate to. However (and I’m not sure if this was a result of Maazel’s prose or her genius plot-crafting), I found myself wholly connected to both the plot and the characters stuck inside it. I read Maazel’s humor with the sinking feeling that she knew something the rest of us didn’t — somehow, we were doomed to succumb to a society like the one she portrays in Woke Up Lonely. I couldn’t help feeling that perhaps someday, I will do exactly what Maazel predicts we will do: wake up lonely, with no way out.
I certainly don’t mean to be a downer, here. Of course, our society is different than the one Maazel portrays in many ways. However, my point is that the author’s message is hard-hitting and genuine, and much more relatable than I had anticipated it would be. By the end of the first few lines, I found myself completely sucked into Maazel’s world. And, by the end of the book, I found myself relating to loneliness in a way that made me feel (surprisingly) a little less, well, lonely.
Author Heidi Julavits describes Woke Up Lonely as “the novel equivalent of a sonic boom — it builds, explodes, it leaves your ears, mind, and soul ringing for days.” Truthfully, I couldn’t have said it better myself. My soul is still ringing from this novel. And that smoke smell, it sticks around.
Woke Up Lonely is a novel for today’s society. It’s fast, it’s gripping, it’s funny. Ultimately, it carries a message so real and so close, it’s hard for us to acknowledge. Fiona Maazel has, through intelligent prose and an intriguing plot, allowed us to step out of the fire for a moment — to smell the smoke, and to feel the flames singeing the edges of our lives.
Many authors have utilized this trend: sending a message to an audience through an over exaggerated, fictionalized, sensational story. How do you feel about these stories? Are you getting the message, or just hearing the fire alarm?
Gryphon, by Charles Baxter (Vintage Books, 2011)
Ah, springtime. Finals are fast approaching for students everywhere, and in Minnesota, it seems we are all just waiting for a little relief from the stress—not to mention, the long-lasting winter weather has been a heavy burden this year. In the spirit of academia, I decided to take a look at a collection of short stories we have mentioned once before; one which was written by a professor of mine in the English Department at the University of Minnesota. And, in the spirit of springtime, I figured there was nothing better than to read a collection of stories which are all set in (and often add a little humor to) the Midwest. The collection is called Gryphon, and the author is Charles Baxter.
Charles Baxter—much like the legendary gryphon after which his collection is named—thrives in the surreal. Through his writing, he allows his audience to slip behind the curtain of reality; to stand backstage and watch life unfold from a perspective that is not quite fantastical, but not entirely real, either. Whether he is discussing the art of forgetting, as he does in his short story “Horace and Margaret’s Fifty-Second,” or the art of, well, art (see “Royal Blue”), Baxter always manages to approach his subjects from a unique standpoint; one that asks his audience to question the role of personal perception in our own realities. This theme rings true for all twenty-three short stories in his latest collection, including seven debut stories, which have not yet been published or anthologized elsewhere.
Most of the stories in Gryphon are set in the Midwest, which makes me feel right at home in his collection. From Minneapolis, to Detroit, to the fictional Five Oaks, Michigan, Baxter has established a strong, powerful sense of the Midwest throughout his writing. However, he still manages to add a somewhat surreal mood to his stories, making his writing endlessly engaging. Baxter’s stories often focus on disruptions of normality: the events that send the calm routine of Midwest life spiraling into a new realm of life.
Baxter’s title story, “Gryphon,” illustrates this idea quite accurately. “Gryphon” explores the ways in which a quirky fourth-grade substitute teacher alters her students’ perception of reality by giving them a constant jumble of facts, myths, and lies. This teacher—Miss Ferenczi—encourages her students to explore the powers of the imagination, and to think about reality as a fluid and ever-changing concept, rather than a concrete, definitive one. As Charles Baxter himself stated on his website,
[Miss Ferenczi] seems to feel that young people should be exposed to exotic facts and possibility of this sort… Ms. Ferenczi likes to expose the members of the class to these amazing facts (some of which are true, some of which are mythic, and some of which are simply untrue) as a way of expanding their sense of wonder.
—“Gryphon: Often Asked Questions”
charlesbaxter.com
In fact, even Baxter’s use of the gryphon as his title expresses his knack for the surreal. A gryphon, according to Egyptian and Mongolian myth, is a legendary creature with the body of a lion, but the head and wings of an eagle. In Baxter’s words, “…these parts are combined in order to create a new, imaginary thing that does not exist in the world until someone thinks of it.” His constant emphasis on imagination and its power in shaping reality shines through in his work—not only in “Gryphon,” where fictionalization is obvious, but in his other stories as well. “The Winner,” for example, details the experience of a young reporter who follows a reclusive millionaire to the woods of Lake Superior for an interview. The further into the trip the reporter gets, the more he loses touch with his own reality. In this story, as in many, Baxter weaves an eerie, surreal mood into seemingly normal descriptions:
In what appeared to be a sitting room close to the central hallway, he deposited himself onto a coal-black sofa. On the opposite wall another work of art had been installed, an enormous monochromatic study of what appeared to be human teeth reconsidered in a post-Cubist style…Krumholtz, turning his gaze away, looked down at the floor and noticed that he had tracked dirt in from the backyard… He felt tired and hungry. For a moment, he closed his eyes.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw Angus and Ping standing in front of him, staring at him. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
—“The Winner”
As a creative writing student at the University of Minnesota, I can now say that I have completed almost a full semester of class with Charles Baxter (pending my final paper) and have taken many classes from his former students. This concept—a writer’s ability to capture the space between fantasy and reality—has been the topic of many classroom discussions and in-depth literature analyses. What, in fact, gives a writer this ability? Charles Baxter has posed this question many times in the past sixteen weeks I’ve spent in his classroom. We’ve studied the ways in which authors set the mood for a story, and the techniques writers use to build characters and to establish settings. We’ve picked apart paragraphs for sentence structure, and sentences for word choice. However, never has Charles Baxter used his own work as an example (perhaps he’s too modest to present his own work, as we Midwesterners tend to be) and yet, he seems to be one of the best examples of the craft. From my studies, and from my journey through Gryphon, I’ve learned that walking the line between fantasy and reality is truly an art—the ability to help a reader connect to something that is just out of reach is one that very few authors have managed to master. And trust me, we’ve studied many authors over the course of the semester.
Charles Baxter’s clear and concise prose carries the reader seamlessly through each of his stories. His characters are interesting and relatable, and his plots are extremely enticing. Not to mention, he brings his sense of humor from the classroom into his stories.
I’ve learned a lot from Charles Baxter over the past few weeks. Not only has his University course taught me invaluable lessons about the art of writing, but his collection of short stories, Gryphon, has given me incredible insight into the relationships between perspective and reality, and the incredible power of the imagination. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend Baxter’s class to non-university students (though I would love to) I can—and do—recommend this collection of short stories. It’s the perfect, light read to carry you into the summer.
