PODCAST-IF I EVER DIE

My father often started his sentences with the phrase, “If I ever die…”            I never corrected him. I didn’t say, “Don’t you mean, when you die? You understand that dying is inevitable, right?”Instead, I wondered how he thought his life might play out. Did he believe he’d be carried off to heaven in a fiery chariot like Elijah in the Bible? Probably not.My father’s pronouncement didn’t seem to be influenced by any theological theories. The man simply disregarded his mortality, which resulted in his making risky choices, choices that evidenced questionable judgment.A man of irrational optimism and mesmerizing confidence, my father possessed great skills of persuasion. In his eighties, he convinced seven fellow octogenarians to help him detach then carry a wrought iron porch from our home to the back of our one-acre lot. He wanted to create a clubhouse for his horseshoe buddies.So, during a raging thunderstorm, as lightning crisscrossed the sky, these old guys with shoulder, knee, and heart problems, staggered down the yard with the intact porch. All I could think about was how many ambulances we’d need to call and the lawsuits the stunt would engender.            Another time, my father visited me in Virginia the week before he was scheduled for cardiac bypass surgery. Our neighbor invited us to go to a horse stable to pick up manure for her garden. We were to follow her truck, then help her shovel. She wanted the freshest manure, so she steered into a steaming mountain of droppings. Her pick-up sank several inches. As she spun her wheels, horse poo splattered in all directions. Despite my protests, Dad stepped into the equine doody, leaned his shoulder against the two-ton truck and pushed hard, to no avail. Fearing my father’s heart would fail, I flagged down a farmer who used a tractor to haul the pick-up out of the pit.            When my father was ninety-one, I flew to Florida for a visit. I hadn’t been a passenger in his car for a while. As he drove down a highway in Ocala, Dad looked at an overhead sign. “What do you think that says?” The tone of his query indicated that he believed there could be more than one correct answer.            I gasped. The letters were about the same size as that HOLLYWOOD sign in California. I told my father he needed to give up driving. After three attempts, my mom finally hid the keys in a place my father couldn’t find. So, my dad used his golf cart to get around, a cart with faulty brakes and a broken headlight. After a couple mishaps, my mother hid those keys. One night, my father hot wired the cart, then headed for a neighborhood pinochle game. Soon after, my cousins made the golf cart disappear.            At ninety-two, my father’s health declined rapidly. He asked to come to Virginia, where I live. He felt too ill to fly. So, my intrepid cousins decided to drive my parents to Charlottesville. We wondered if we might find ourselves in a Little Miss Sunshine situation—the movie where on a family road trip, the feisty grandpa quietly passes to the Great Beyond in the back seat of a van. We discussed what to do if my dad died on the way. We all agreed—they’d just keep driving. Sick as he was, right before they left, my father tried to convince my cousins to bring him to one last neighborhood pinochle game.            Upon arrival in Charlottesville, my father entered hospice care and passed away two weeks later. Even though, he’d been ill for months and I watched him become weak and disoriented, I felt shocked when he died. He had spent his life taking risks and beating the odds.  At a subconscious level, I’d bought into his, “IF I ever die…” perspective.To this day, I still expect a phone call from him, telling me about his latest ridiculous exploit. I do feel relieved that I no longer have to worry about him endangering himself or some innocent bystander. But the truth is, I miss him.

PODCAST-DADDIO MOVIE REVIEW

Daddio is shot in the interior of a yellow taxicab on its way from JFK Airport to an apartment in Manhattan, a trip that normally takes forty minutes, with traffic. However, on this late night, the trip stretches to one hour and forty minutes because of a car accident. Not only does the movie take place in the cab, but most of the shots are of Clark (Sean Penn) and his passenger whom he calls Girlie, (Dakota Johnson).  A few times, Clark turns to address Girlie, however, for the most part, viewers see their faces side-by-side, both looking forward.            You might think this is the set up for a boring movie. Not so. I never felt claustrophobic or bored. The chemistry between the two performers was mesmerizing because of their great acting skills, and because of the talented Christy Hall who is both the writer and director of the movie.Against all odds, narrative tension is high throughout the film. Hall builds tension in three ways: by the micro expressions and gestures of the two actors, by building anxiety as to whether Clark presents an imminent danger to Girlie, and by the dialogue Hall has written, which starts out with mundane exchanges but slowly intensifies into more intimate revelations. Hall shot the scenes in chronological order, which is unusual. The film unfolds in a way that feels like real time, with no flashbacks, no inclusion of other settings--nothing except for what we see and hear right before us in that tiny cab. Initially, Clark and Girlie share gripes about cell phone use, credit cards, and self-driving cars. But soon, crusty and foulmouthed Clark is making crude comments about past wives and is asking Girlie intrusive questions. Listening to him made the dials on my creep-o-meter start spinning. What are Clark’s intentions toward Girlie?At one point, Clark states Girlie seems like a person who can take care of herself. In fact, she says so herself. She doesn’t wilt when he makes his crass remarks. Girlie names them for what they are, responding with appropriate disgust. Interestingly, she doesn’t retreat from engaging with him. Their conversation morphs into a truth or dare game, each person taking turns one upping each other with true stories. The revelations become surprising and intense, dispelling any assumptions viewers might have held about Clark or Girlie.Christy Hall’s impressive writing and directing is on full display in this film. Her prose is sharp and economical, each word of the dialogue hits its mark. Both characters shift regarding vulnerability and world view. The tone of the dialogue modifies to reflect that shift, which makes the character changes both credible and deeply moving.In the hands of an inept director, this movie would have been unbearably dull. Fortunately, Hall conveys volumes with nuanced facial expressions, hand motions, (like Clark incessantly drumming on the steering wheel), and perfectly timed texts from Girlie’s yucky boyfriend. Even the occasional shots of the exterior of the car, especially the car crash scene, complements what’s happening inside the cab.This movie contains rough language and some gross texts from Girlie’s reprobate boyfriend. So, it’s probably not the best choice for family movie night.I had hoped for a different ending. However, what I had envisioned wouldn’t have been as true and deeply satisfying as the ending that Hall wrote.  All in all, this movie turned out to be 140 minutes well spent.###Check out more reviews:  His Three Daughters, The Perfect Couple, Presumed Innocent. 

0:00

/

0:00

DADDIO MOVIE REVIEW

(Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum's fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places.

PODCAST-IRRESPONSIBLY GROWN POTATOES

0:00

/

0:00

Irresponsibly Grown Potatoes

Recently, as I walked through the produce section of a grocery store, I passed a sign that said, “Responsibly Grown Potatoes.” Naturally, I began to imagine “Irresponsibly Grown Potatoes.”Would they be grown by a chain-smoking farmer, one who flicks his carcinogenic ashes on the crop?Or, maybe they’d be raised by a tipsy fellow who stashes a hip flask in his farmer jeans. Every day, he’d stagger around the fields dousing the nascent plants with a little hooch.Worse yet, that same man might drink and drive. All at once, my brain was flooded with disturbing images of cows, chickens and goats fleeing for their lives from the Irresponsible Farmer rampaging on his tractor.These thoughts rattled me, so I let my mind drift. What about irresponsibly grown children? What would those parents look like? Had we ever been irresponsible parents?Oh yeah…that time when Ian was eight.Our youngest child, Ian, was born seven years after his older brothers. And by the time Ian was eight, we’d been child wrangling for eighteen years. We felt worn down and mildly confused. Ian happened to be an easy-going, quiet child. So, we relaxed our parenting style.One Saturday morning, my husband, Bruce, and I met at Ian’s basketball game. We arrived in two cars, then gathered up Ian and headed, separately, to an electronics store to shop for a television. Bored, I went home after five minutes of shopping. Bruce, on the other hand, spent the next two hours checking out TVs in that store and other places.When Bruce returned home, I didn’t see him walk in. A few minutes later, a friend phoned asking if Ian wanted to go to a production of Peter and the Wolf. I asked Bruce where Ian was. He looked at me blankly. “I thought you had him.”Remember, Ian is eight, old enough to know his name, address and phone number, old enough to ask for help when left or lost. It’s been over two hours since we’ve seen him. We began dialing stores. At the first, a man answered. “Nope, no small boy here.” We received the same response at the second, third and fourth store.By this point, I stood in the driveway, hysterical. Then I heard a still small sexist voice in my panicking brain, “Wait. A man answered at that first store. That guy responded so fast, he probably didn’t even look.”So I called back that first place and asked for a woman, any woman. After I described our situation, she checked a side lounge of the store where she found Ian snoozing on a couch in front of a television that was looping The Pirates of the Caribbean.When we asked Ian if he’d been worried, he said no because he knew that “Dad was a very slow shopper.”Back to those potatoes. I’m not sure how Irresponsibly Grown Potatoes turn out. To be honest, I’m all for eating healthy food and protecting the environment. So, thank you to farmers who care enough to grow potatoes responsibly.I’m also for responsibly grown children, but sometimes raising a child is more of an art than a science. And, years later, as we now have discovered, a somewhat irresponsibly raised child can turn out just fine.

(Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum's fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS. 

APPLE PODCAST

SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-WHEN TO CARE AND WHEN NOT TO

Photo Courtesy of Omar Salom

0:00

/

0:00

When to Care and When Not To

(This essay originally appeared in Brevity.)My vocation is writing, but my avocation is painting, mostly portraits. I belong to a Facebook group dedicated to showing the work of artists who are trying to create loose watercolor paintings. Members range from people whose pieces could be displayed at a prestigious museum to beginners who are asking for comments and helpful tips on their first attempts.A self-avowed beginner posted several portraits online. Using vivid colors and bold strokes, her paintings portrayed purple bruises, blood flowing, and anguished expressions. Each portrait revealed the artist’s compassion for the difficult lives of her subjects, but not in a gratuitous way.Her work evoked a strong, affirming response from group members, except one person. That member found the work disturbing and said so in an unkind way. She demanded the woman’s entries be banned from the forum.The novice artist felt crushed and expressed her distress online. She received many responses, including mine, which was something like, “Don’t accept harsh criticism from anyone you wouldn’t normally choose to go to for advice, someone who doesn’t necessarily care about you or understand your work.” I wish I’d included, don’t let her comments break your creative heart.My advice received lots of “likes,” clearly striking a chord among group members. It harkened back to a lesson I’d learned the hard way, when, early in my writing life, an esteemed author had delivered a withering and global assessment of my work—before rejecting me from her writing workshop.My first two years of writing, I had enjoyed beginner’s luck. Without much effort, I placed several essays and three short stories. One story won first prize in a statewide contest. Those small successes cheered me, but at my core, I felt like an imposter. Despite my self-doubt, I gathered the courage to apply to a ten-session fiction workshop led by the well-known author. She had a stellar publishing history that included novels, short story collections, and individual stories landing in impressive places, like The New Yorker. As requested, I submitted a writing sample, a short story that just had been published by a literary journal at a local university.The workshop was limited to five participants. Given my lack of experience, I expected to be rejected. What I didn’t expect was a phone call from the writer saying that not only was I not accepted, but also that I didn’t grasp the basics of short story writing. She delivered her pronouncement in a neutral tone, then hung up.I cried for a couple days, so devastated by her assessment that I vowed to give up writing entirely. A week later, the writer phoned again. Cool as ever, she invited me to join the workshop. I found the call so stunning that I cannot remember the reason she gave for changing her mind.I was terrified but said yes anyway. Turned out, I enjoyed the weekly sessions and my fellow attendees, who were warm and welcoming. They gave kind and beneficial insights on my work and on one another’s work. Our teacher facilitated the workshop well and gave good guidance.At the last session, she took me aside and said, “You have the most publishable writing that’s come through this workshop in a while.” She gave no further explanation.I accepted her words as a compliment. But later, I wondered if she meant them as a passive-aggressive dig, that my work had commercial but not literary appeal. (For the record, I am happy producing work that has both commercial and literary appeal.) I decided I didn’t care. My life’s calling is to write. I couldn’t stop myself from writing if I tried--evident by the random thoughts jotted on old envelopes, on the backs of grocery receipts, and in the margins of crumpled newspapers strewn in my car, in my gym locker,

PODCAST-GHOSTLIGHT-MOVIE REVIEW

On the recommendation of my friend, I watched the Sundance, indie film, Ghostlight. Released in the summer of 2024, this movie hasn’t enjoyed a lot of buzz, which is unfortunate because it’s a gem.            I’m not going to say much about the plot because it unfolds in a nuanced way. I don’t want to reveal anything that would spoil the process. The film is an excellent depiction of a family processing a difficult loss. However, it’s not a downer. One of the characters, the dad, gets lured into a community theater production of Romeo and Juliet, a plot point that introduces plenty of comic relief into the movie.            The screenwriting feels raw and authentic. The plot unfolds slowly, but in a thoroughly engaging way. The director creates an emotional landscape around the three family members that is deeply moving.            The community theater piece of the story provides an excellent vehicle for working through difficult issues in a meaningful way. The themes in Romeo and Juliet happen to coincide with much of what the family is enduring.            After I watched the film, I learned two interesting facts. The actors who play the construction worker (father), the elementary school teacher, (mother) and the rebellious teenage daughter, are in fact related. Keith Kupferer and and Katherine Mallen Kupferer are parents to Tara Mallen. In addition, writer and director, Kelly O’Sullivan is married to co-director Alex Thompson.            I wept through the ending, in a good way. Rotten Tomatoes gave this movie a 99% critic score. And, I’ll have to say, I agree. 

0:00

/

0:00

Ghostlight Movie Review

(Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum's fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS. 

APPLE PODCAST

SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-MY LIFE IN CARS

My father gave me my first car, a 1965 Ford Fairlane. Although I had my driver’s license, I didn’t know out how to back up, park, or merge. To be honest, I couldn’t even start the car.  I’d always flood the engine.How did I get a license? The day of the exam, I aced the written section, but failed the road part. I couldn’t parallel park; nor could I negotiate a K-turn. For some reason, the examiner said, “Oh hell,” and passed me anyway.That first winter, the floor beneath the Fairlane passenger seat had rusted out so badly, you could see the road under your feet. One day, the front of the steering wheel fell into my lap. The final straw was when the top of the gas pedal snapped off while I was driving.Next, I inherited a Pontiac Tempest, which spent most of its time broken down. A plumber offered to take the car in trade for a wringer washing machine--a very bad deal.  You have to feed your clothing through an actual wringer, a task that requires attentiveness, manual dexterity, and durable garments. I routinely wound up with mashed fingers and mangled clothes.Moreover, I didn’t know that the washer needed a ground wire. On a particularly shocking morning, I placed one hand on the washer and my other on the utility sink, thereby completing an electrical circuit.  I experienced a remarkable jolt and that’s why I have curly hair to this day.I don’t know what possessed me to buy my next car, a Dodge Colt Hatchback, bright yellow with a black racing stripe. This car had a stick shift. I could barely drive an automatic car. What made me think I could manage a manual?I couldn’t. My kind roommate volunteered to teach me, a decision she deeply regretted. One memory stands out. She screamed, “The clutch. Hit the clutch! Get into FIRST!”  as we slowly slipped backwards down a hill, heading straight for the Quinebaug River.Several years later, I’d moved to Hanover, New Hampshire where the punishing winter weather had corroded the Dodge Colt. The Motor Vehicle people insisted that I repair the spots. Being cash-free, I decided to do the bodywork myself. These were pre-Google days, when a person just had to guess how to do things.I borrowed a rotary sander, bought Bondo then chose yellow spray paint.   Turned out, my zealous sanding created huge craters that the Bondo couldn’t fill.  The “yellow” paint I bought appeared puke green when applied, causing the car to resemble a giant bumble bee in camo.Two minutes after we married, Bruce listed the Dodge Colt in the local want ads. A few days later, a man arrived with the requisite cash.  He hadn’t driven 50 feet before the muffler fell off. For the next year, we saw the car all over town, stuffed with the man’s possessions. We believe he was living in it, but we didn’t ask. We were just relieved it was still working.Now I own a Toyota Highlander, perhaps my last car. I assumed we’d buy a smaller vehicle after the kids left. However, sometimes, all eight seats of the Highlander are filled with four generations of Prums. Usually, one of my children takes the wheel, which is just fine by me since they all are reasonably good at parking, backing up and most importantly, starting the car.

0:00

/

0:00

My Life in Cars-Podcast Version

(Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum's fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS. 

APPLE PODCAST

SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-WE ARE ALL IN IT TOGETHER

Photo Courtesy of Ryan Ledbetter-Unsplash

0:00

/

0:00

We Are All In It Together

One morning, as I drove down a narrow country lane in Charlottesville, I spotted an African-American child, about eleven, perched on a small pink bike. He sat in the middle of the road, precisely at the center of a blind curve.I thought, If a driver speeds around that curve, the child will be killed. I need to tell him to get out of the way.Over the years, racial tensions in our town have been high. A millisecond later, that fact informed my second thought: Wait! He’s black. I’m white. Maybe he’ll think I’m harassing him.But then, my third: Doesn’t matter. He’s in danger.I pulled over to the right, off on my side of the road, and said, “Move! You’re going to get hit!”The child smiled then dashed onto a lawn on the left, away from my side of the road. Instantly, a car charged around that curve, then zoomed past us.I drove off, thinking, “That was close. I probably saved a life today.”The next day, as I headed past that same stretch, I re-played the incident, this time from the other driver’s vantage point. If I were coming around that curve fast and had a tree on my right, a child in the middle of the road, and a car facing me off to my left, I’d have swerved left to avoid the child. I’d have crashed head-on into the vehicle on the other side—the car with me sitting in it. In retrospect, the life I may have saved was my own.The incident got me thinking. Straight out of college, I served as a Peace Corps/VISTA volunteer. My job was to “deinstitutionalize” teenage wards of the state. These kids were not able to be adopted and had spent their first seventeen years bouncing around: foster homes, mental health facilities, detention centers. When they turned eighteen, they would be placed on the curb by the state. My job was to equip them with the life skills they’d missed the previous seventeen years. Informed by ignorance and idealism, I attempted the task.By the end of my stint, I realized my job was impossible. So, I sent around a proposal, asking for donations to fund a halfway house, run by me, a twenty-three-year old. No one gave me money. The kids wound up on the street.They didn’t stand a chance. A couple died within a year or two. A few wound up in jail. I don’t remember what happened to the other kids. Nothing good.Back then, the state I lived in did not invest much into their wards. Yes, a few people in power cared about the teens, but some did not, enacting policies that reflected that lack of regard. We failed them. Some came to great harm, and some caused great harm. We in the community, one way or another, paid for our collective negligence.We are all connected. What I do affects you. What you do affects me. That August morning, I chose to stop and warn a child. Most likely, my stopping shielded me from great harm.Working to improve the lives of others will cost us in time, money and personal comfort. Yet those actions enrich our own lives and ultimately will create a better world for all of us to share.

(Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum's fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS. 

APPLE PODCAST

SPOTIFY PODCAST

THE KEY TO FINDING INSPIRATION--CONVERSATION WITH SUE CUNNINGHAM

ON LIVING POETRY

Recently, poet and therapist, Susan Cunningham, interviewed me on her podcast, Living Poetry. We talked about how to find inspiration by paying attention, everywhere and all the time!In addition to sharing lots of good laughs, we touched on these topics:*Redeeming the pain of grief by channeling the energy of the emotion into creative endeavors. *Realizing that failing to forgive can block creativity.*Using dark humor to lighten the tone when writing about difficult topics.*Knowing when to stop revising and release your creation into the world.*At other times, letting a project simmer, allowing life experiences to inform your perspective. Waiting can provide the missing piece to your creation.*Imagining celestial vault where a person’s creations exist in perpetuity, meaning that they also exist before we create them, a concept that can take the pressure off us as we write.You can listen to the interview at LIVING POETRY, on Apple or Spotify.During our conversation, we refer to my stories. Head to the fiction section of my website to read HELP, IN DARKNESS AS IN LIGHT, GRAVITY, OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL MOLD, SPIDER, and THE DAY THE VIRGIN MARY APPEARED ON MY CAFETERIA WALL.Thank you for visiting. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to my blog and follow my podcast. If you really want to brighten my day, please give the podcast a five-star review. Thank you.

0:00

/

0:00

Living Poetry

Here is Abyss, the watercolor painting I mentioned in the interview.

(Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum's fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS. 

APPLE PODCAST

SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-HIS THREE DAUGHTERS-MOVIE REVIEW

Looking for a good movie? Check out His Three Daughters. Just after its release, the film received a 99% approval score. I am one of the 99%. I watched it on a Monday, then again, a day later. That’s how much I liked it.            Expertly written and directed by Azazel Jacobs, the film has a small, but outstanding cast. The oldest sister, Katie, played by Carrie Coons, is rigid and fierce—and that’s on her good days. The middle sister, Rachel, (Natasha Lyonne) is brash, tenderhearted, and can’t get through a sentence without including obscenities, even when she’s being affectionate. The youngest sister, Christina, (Elizabeth Olsen) is a lot younger than her siblings. She is an anxiously cheerful peacemaker. Her intention is to bring the family together but is unwilling or unable to honest about her own feelings.            The three estranged sisters gather at their father’s NYC apartment as he lay dying.  Rachel shares the apartment with him and is the one who’s been taking care of him for a while. Katie resides in Brooklyn with her husband, son, and a teenage daughter, with whom she fights constantly. Christina lives on the West coast in a large house with her husband and three-year-old daughter.At the beginning of the film, one of the characters observes that movies never portray death and dying accurately. Jacobs wrote the screenplay, including that line.  He must have decided that the movie he made would be an exception. And, it was. Based on my limited experience, this film was true to life. The screenplay managed to portray a credible combination of raw, painful scenes and dark humor that provided comic relief.            The movie opens to Katie sitting in a straight-backed chair against a blank wall. In a clipped voice smoldering with fury, she speaks straight at the camera, dictating her expectations regarding the experience that lies ahead.  She decrees how her sisters should relate to each other and the protocol they all must follow as their father dies.Katie works hard to convince herself that she can take control of an uncontrollable event. She obsesses over obtaining a do not resuscitate order, ostensibly to ensure that her father does not experience undue suffering. Yet, even after the DNR is in place, her rage and anxiety don’t diminish. Tragically, Katie is unaware of how her rigid, passive-aggressive behavior repels everyone.            Katie and Christina don’t seem to keep in touch with Rachel, the one who’s borne the brunt of their father’s care. Despite Katie’s comments about wanting to get along, it’s a hot minute before she attacks Rachel for smoking pot in the apartment. Her words drip with contempt. Rachel doesn’t defend herself. Instead, from then on, she smokes on a bench, in the cold, outside her apartment.            The sisters categorize and judge each other As a viewer, you will be inclined to do so, too. However, the beauty of this movie is in its exposition, how as we learn more, we see the characters in a new light.            Each woman copes differently with their father’s dying. Katie makes irate calls about the DNR, scrubs floors, forces food on everyone, talks about the hospice staff in a snarky way, but doesn’t spend time interacting with her father. Rachel avoids her father’s room completely. Her grief consumes and paralyzes her. At one point, she stands in the doorway of her father’s room and shouts in the statistics of a basketball game she’s bet on. The father is either deeply asleep or unconscious. Christina spends the most time in her father’s room, reading to him or singing Grateful Dead songs. Both Rachel and Katie ridicule Christina for being a Deadhead.            This movie nailed the tension between not wanting your loved one to die and at the same time, desperately wanting the horrible limbo state between life and death to end. Although Katie demands that a DNR be in place,

PODCAST-WITHOUT YOU HERE-BOOK REVIEW

Strange, though, how joy rides on the back of sorrow. You have to feel both to feel either. And no amount of best intentions can keep you from hurting what you love.These sentences are an example of the beautiful, soul-nourishing prose one can expect to find in Jody Hobbs Hesler’s debut novel, Without You Here. Her descriptions are fresh and interesting. Check out this, for example:  Silence continues to pump up the stairs like smoke. For me, the mark of a good book is the number of sentences you underline while reading. I found plenty in this novel.The story is about twenty-seven-year-old Noreen whose beloved aunt, Nonie died by suicide at the same age. The two are similar in personality and appearance, a fact that keeps Noreen and her family on high alert, all parties worried about Noreen’s mental health and behavior. Noreen has difficulty navigating relationships with family, friends, and most of all, her husband George. Filled with self-doubt. Noreen rarely mounts a defense when accused and often blames herself for the bad actions of others.Nonie loved Noreen unconditionally. This meant a lot to Noreen, who received little affirmation in life.  When Noreen’s elementary school teacher described her as a quirky loner who reads too much, her own mother didn’t defend her. But Nonie thought Noreen was perfect as is. Saturday mornings, Nonie brought her niece special gifts and sugary cereal. But, more importantly, she brought spontaneity and joy into the child’s life.Nonie’s death devastated Noreen. Even though she was only a small child at the time, Noreen found a way to blame herself for the suicide.The novel is not told in chronological order, which can be a risky choice for a writer. However, Hesler met the challenge. The story flowed well, had excellent pacing, and plenty of narrative tension. Hesler’s words fully engaged me right from the first page. I read the book in a just few sittings.Each chapter has a title that orients the reader in time. The reference point for each section is the chapter called August 1980 During, which is the month Nonie died by suicide. Chapter titles have descriptors like, Weeks Before, Six Weeks After, or Nineteen Years Later. This might sound confusing, but it’s not. As you begin reading, the order makes sense.Despite bouncing around in time, the flow works well. Hesler places chapters adjacent to each other by virtue of their emotional content. Hesler’s close attention to the emotional landscape of her scenes allows her to create natural connections between chapters even though the events taking place in them are separated by decades. For example, we’ll see chapter written about Noreen’s childhood which is followed by a chapter set when Noreen is an adult. The side-by-side chapters complement each other by revealing much about the innerworkings of Noreen’s character during different stages of her life. Hesler uses this approach for all her main characters, which gives the reader deep empathy for them.Hesler’s acknowledgement page is evidence of her extensive research on suicide. She writes her story with respecet, authority, and confidence, paying close attention to both Nonie’s struggle and family dynamics. I imagine her empathic and nuanced treatment of this complex topic will be a comfort to those who have lost a loved one to suicide.Told in an order that makes emotional sense, the sum of these story parts adds up to a satisfying ending—an impressive achievement.If you are interested in other book recommendations, check out my reviews of The Caretaker, Wrong Place, Wrong Time, and The Sentence.

0:00

/

0:00

Without You Here

(Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum's fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post,