On my recent trip to Boston, I decided that I didn’t want to mess with a carry-on bag. I had to check a bag anyhow, so I decided I’d just go ahead and get my money’s worth for that $25 baggage-check fee.
So I bought an inexpenisve medium-sized purse with lots of nice pockets for over-organizing the things I did carry. In the flap pocket, some change and a credit card for easy access, in the zipper pocket behind that, my photo i.d. and prinouts of all my boarding passes. Behind that, my cell phone and my little camera, with chargers. In the big zipper pocket, my wallet, my folding toothbrush etc.
And in the pocket in the very back, a copy of Normandi Ellis’s new book of short stories from Wind Publications, Going West.
I figured Normandi’s stories could stand up to the distractions of airports and the discomforts of airplanes.
I was not disappointed.
Going West contains a dozen beautifully written stories that treat some of life’s most thorny problems with gentleness and quirky humor.
Which is not to say that anything is sugar-coated.
The seven “Papa stories” that make up the core of the collection looks at aging parents through the eyes of an often bewildered daughter who is doing her best to learn how to love her sometimes obstinate parents and, as a single mother, to take care of her impressionable daughter. Charlotte Rose is the very definition of the between generation.
Mama is a bit of a free spirit. Or at least she wants to be. In “Acting Lessons,” she is preparing for her stage debut — in “Sweet Bird of Youht,” and decides to change her name to Belle Fitzgerald:
“Mama,” I protested. “You didn’t put your name on [the poster].
“Yes, I did. That’s my stage name. I never liked my real name. I never liked that woman at all. I’m Belle Fitzgerald now.”
And in “Spiritualism” she makes contact with her dead husband through the static on late-night tv and forms a liaison with a Reverend Spoon whose “eyes seemed amazed as two June bugs smashed on his glasses.”
One of the things Mama seems to long to be free of is Papa. She resents his disability, she resents his basement filled with paintings and the records of his anti-poverty work in Eastern Kentucky.
Papa has had a stroke and is experiencing increasing dementia — which I’d say is more likely to be ischemic dementia than Alzheimer’s proper. As a good daughter, Charlotte tries to help him preserve his dignity, and yet she is constantly caught in embarrassing situations, as when Papa wants to sell his gold crown so he can give her the money, but loses it in a diner, forcing Charlotte to have to search through a day’s worth of restaurant trash to retrieve it.
Papa dreams of going west to see the deserts of the Southwest. The family joke is that to get there, they’d have to go through Texas.
“Going through Texas” is what we call any long, boring spell in life. One day after things fell apart and I’d come back home, I referred to my marriage as going through Texas. Papa luaghed then, to. Of course, neither of us has ever been to Texas, although my ex-husband once lived there. Papa calls him “Lard-Ass,” even though he’s the skinniest man alive.
The story “Going West” contains Papa’s moment of despair:
“Are you tired?” I ask.
“Yes, I’m tired. I’m so tired. I could just about die. I’m tired of being old and useless and stupid. I can’t remember anything and I hurt all over. I’m so tired, I can’t stand it any more.”
Now I’m the one who is crying.
“I know,” I whisper. “And I’m so sorry.”
. . .
He looks at me a long moment, then says, “Actually, I’ve always wanted to see the blue bells of Texas.”
So is redemption found in these stories; in small moments of tenderness and the realization that there might be some joy after all in going through Texas.
With apologies to Judy & Vic Wagenschein, my long-time Texas friends.
I need also to point out that Normandi is my friend and Wind is my publisher, so I am very much a compromised reviewer.
