Oftentimes, an author's first book is the best.
Two new books by two debut authors prove
this to be true. Both are edited by Amy Einhorn, the
editor who has introduced such wonderful writers
as Kathryn Stockett (The Help) and Harry Dolan
(Bad Things Happen), and both focus on families.
You Know When the Men are Gone, by Siobhan
Fallon (Amy Einhorn Books)
In seven loosely connected stories, Fallon
microscopically examines the lives of the women left
behind at Fort Hood when their husbands deploy.
While these women are not "real," their stories are
very real and reflect what life is like on a military base
when the men leave, and the women and children
are left to fend for themselves. You also know when
the men are home, and the stories about when the
men return are equally compelling.
The base is a place where everyone knows too much about everyone else's lives — not only what they're thinking and feeling, but what they're doing minute by minute. The walls are thin, and the noise of children crying and water running seems intimate.
You also know when the men are gone. No more boots stomping above, no more football games turned up too high, and best of all, no more front doors slamming before dawn as they trudge out for their early formation, sneakers on metal stairs, cars starting, shouts to the windows above to throw down their gloves on cold desert mornings. Babies still cry, telephones ring, Saturday morning cartoons screech, but without the men, there is a sense of muted silence, a sense of muted life (page 1).
There is Natalya, a woman from somewhere else, who finds herself overwhelmed by the children and the house and no one to help. She desperately needs a break and wants to walk away, unable to bear the waiting any longer. There are women married to the men like Moge who would rather be in Iraq than home. After so much time away, being gone has become his new normal. There are husbands suspicious of their wives and wives worried about their husbands' behavior. And of course there are the men who return wounded to women who must also adjust and those who don't return at all, leaving their wives alone.
The fact that Fallon manages to draw the reader into the lives of these women, and the fact that she does this within the confines of short stories is testimony to her talent as a writer. That she can make you care about these women so intensely in stories that are less than 40 pages long demonstrates her uncanny ability to identify the core of basic emotions and fears and bring them clearly into focus.
The Weird Sisters, by Eleanor Brown (Amy Einhorn
Books)
Brown's debut novel introduces us to the
three Andreas sisters, daughters of an English
professor who has taught them to communicate
in Shakespearean dialogue. Not surprisingly, the
three are named after characters in Shakespeare's
plays, and each mirrors the traits of their namesake.
The eldest has stayed home in the small Ohio
college town where they were raised. When their
father beckons the other two to return home with
the ominous line, "Come, let us go; and pray to
all the gods/For our beloved mother in her pains,"
they know their mother has cancer, and that they
are needed. The women face the demons of
their childhood and their current lives as they fit
themselves back into the family and the town.
We came home because we were failures. We wouldn't admit that, of course, not at first, not to ourselves, and certainly not to anyone else. We said we came home because our mother was ill, because we needed a break, a momentary pause before setting off for the Next Big Thing. But the truth was, we had failed, and rather than let anyone else know, we crafted careful excuses and alibis, and wrapped them around ourselves like a cloak to keep out the cold truth. The first stage: denial (page 1).
The Weird Sisters is narrated by all three sisters at once, referring to themselves as "we" and talking about "our" father, for example. The three sisters speak in the shared language of the bard and present their stories from a shared perspective. This unique point of view provides an intimacy, and reinforces the unity of the sisters.
Brown is a good writer who manages to keep the Shakespearean quotes relevant and the "three in one" narrator appropriate. The characters are worth knowing, and the stories of their lives keep you turning the pages.
Both Fallon and Brown are authors worth reading and following. They introduce us to women and families that deserve attention, and they do it with skill.