Happy Monday, Story366!
Earlier, we received word from Springfield Public Schools that students should not return from spring break for at least two weeks. So until April 6, at the very least, I will have the boys. We were planning on this, anyway, but it’s good to know that we don’t have to go all rogue and pull our boys out on our own, face any kind of scrutiny, any kind of harassment. Now, we’re wondering if they’ll be able to pull off any online learning—especially if we don’t get going for eight weeks, as the CDC recommends—or if they’ll simply let it ride and advance the students to the next grade for the fall. Or not let them move on. But, this is a world of ever-changing facts, so I’m sure we’ll have an answer—though probably not the answer—before we know it.
I spent a lot of my time today ordering books to review for Story366. I mentioned the other day that I could make it for two months using the books on my to-read stack, and that’s great. But that would make me bend the rules a bit, cover a second collection by several authors, and I’m not sure I’m ready to do that yet, not with so many new books out there, so many presses I haven’t delved into. So, I wrote a bunch of presses this afternoon and several have already responded, telling me they’d send me whatever they had. I’m absolutely thrilled. I literally can’t wait to get to one of these books every day, to discover a new author, to read their stories. Every day, I love this project more and more.
To note, I also started having the books sent to my house instead of campus, as who knows how long the campus mail service will even be delivering to the various buildings. I’m pretty sure the USPS will keep delivering, at least longer than the campus mail. Right?
For today’s post, I read from Deb Olin Unferth‘s 2017 collection, Wait Till You See Me Dance, out from Graywolf Press. I’ve know Unferth’s work for a while, as she’s prominently contributed to lit journals for quite some time now. I’ve always liked the stories I’ve read by her, and am glad I’m finally getting to one of her collections (there’s also Minor Robberies, which I’m jonesing for now, too).
Unferth writes a lot of shorts, which is what Minor Robberies appears to be, what fills up a good hunk of Wait Till You See Me Dance. That’s what I’d read by her before today, which is a good thing, as she’s particularly good at them. Wait Till You See Me Dance is cut up into four sections, the second and fourth sections made up entirely of shorts, with a short here or there thrown into sections one and three as well. I read all of the shorts in this book today and enjoyed that experience, taking them in one after another, getting a feel for Unferth’s voice, her themes, and her style. Her work has a deadpan absurdity to it, lots of singled-minded characters bent on accomplishing a pointed mission, on falling through the cracks of society, on disrupting our expectations of how characters should act and why they do. In that regard, she’s got some Donald Barthelme in her, but has tuned her language and syntax so precisely, I couldn’t help but think of Diane Williams and Lydia Davis. Most of the time, I finished these shorts with a smile on my face, though a few times, I must have appeared perplexed, wondering what was going on and how Unferth had thought of writing it.
I also decided to read some of Unferth’s more traditionally lengthed stories, as I don’t think I had before. In addition to the title story, I read “Mr. Simmons Takes a Prisoner” and “Bride.” The former is about Mr. Simmons, a man whose daughters have grown up and moved away, so he takes on a prisoner in what appears to be a Big Brother program, only for prisoners. Through this program, he meets Sally Baum, a woman incarcerated for drug possession. Mr. Simmons doesn’t really quite get the arrangement, asking inappropriate questions, but stays loyal to his commitment, bringing her cigarettes and books, even paying for a correspondence course in math. When Sally is unexpectedly released, he loses it, doing anything he can to track her down in the real world.
“Bride” is a fantastic story about a guy who returns (from where, we’re not sure) to marry the woman he loves, only to find out she’s married to someone else and has a kid. He doesn’t accept this, asking to meet, pretending like she’ll still marry him, though there’s no indication she’s remotely interested. Later in the story, we get the backstory, which is even better, on how the two met, another occasion where she was a bride and he got in her way.
Both of these stories demonstrate that stubborn single-mindedness I mentioned earlier, a character so drive by one goal, he doesn’t seem to understand that it’s not about him, that the world doesn’t cater to the determined. It’s a fascinating way to depict a character, let alone a protagonist.
I’m focusing on the title story today, “Wait Till You See Me Dance,” a comparitively longer piece that allows Unferth to stretch her legs a bit. This is the story of Mary, though that’s not her real name—everyone calls her Mary because one of the office assistants tells her she reminds her of Mary Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life, though not the happy, young beauty that George fell into the pool with, but the old maid librarian George meets when he and Clarence are off learning life lessons:
Even Mary’s (I’ll use that name, as we don’t have another) boss calls her Mary, even when he’s berating her for doing a terrible job.
Mary is an adjunct English instructor at a small, desititute college, mostly put in charge of the 099 section every non-competitive school has: English for people who can’t enter into remedial English. Mary prepares illiterate and foreign students to write an essay at the end of the term, to be graded by someone else, to determine whether they’ll be admitted to the college or if they will be sent packing. Failure rate is 30 percent, which takes the pressure off of Mary, lets her not care. It’s not like she cares much, anyway, as she explains what I just explained in rather callously, obviously traumatized by years of teaching 099 as an adjunct (I’m with you, sister). Mary is clearly not invested, full of sighing sarcasm.
Two weeks into the term, Mary’s boss calls her in and asks if she has room in any of her classes. When she says no, she notices a smallish, shy guy sitting in the corner, unassuming like an abused animal; her boss wants her to admit this guy to her class, orders her to, right in front of him. This is typical of Mary’s job, so she complies, no real choice in the matter.
Later, after Mary determines the kid absolutely cannot write and will fail the essay exam—and tells him so—she happens to hear some music coming out of a classroom, a piano mixed with violin. Lo and behold, this new kid, who’s going to fail her class, is playing both instruments, simultaneously, and knocking it out of the park on each. Mary recognizes his genius, and after wondering how he ended up at her shitty school, vows to help him pass English. Even if she has to cheat for him.
I’ve totally skipped over another huge part of this story, by the way. Mary has dealings with that office assistant, the one who dubbed her Mary because she looks like spinster Donna Reed. This office assistant also wants Mary to go with her to an Indian Dance, which, we find out, is basically a Native American pow wow. The office assistant isn’t Native, but she’s been dancing for years (this is where the story’s and book’s title comes from, btw) and even makes her own costumes, offers to make Mary one of her own. Mary, not elbows-deep in friends or things to do, accepts.
Later in the story, after most everything happens with the piano/violin genius, Mary and the office assistant drive out to the pow wow. Turns out, the dance is hours and hours away, Mary stuck with this woman, set to do this thing she can’t do and doesn’t want to, either. In full Native regalia.
I don’t want to reveal anything else here, as the story’s climax happens around this point, Mary facing a character dilemma on her journey with the office assistant. The event is pretty shocking, raising the stakes and the tension in the story to a much higher level than they’d been before. It also merges the two storylines, the office assistant and the piano/violin genius. There’s even an existential twist, à la some Sartre or Camus story, adding a cherry on top of the whole mess. I loved this piece, Unferth’s absurdity stretched out for sure, making me wonder what would happen if she took any of her shorts and turned them into twenty-page stories. This, I’m guessing.
Wait Till You See Me Dance by Deb Olin Unferth is a collection full of superior writing and equally superior imagination. The stories seem to be effortless, Unferth’s own brand of fiction so suited for the short short, but wouldn’t you know it, as it translates no matter what length she’s working with. This is another high recommendation, a book you should read if you like to read books.
Story366 