“Don’t get them wrong about art. They like art. They’re genuinely curious people. To browse their bookcases is to know this about them. Edith Wharton, Hemingway, Michener, Mailer. Writers who tell us the story of ourselves as Americans. Who entertain and enrich our understanding of the world. They are avid readers of American literature. House on Mango Street, Interpreter of Maladies. Asian writers, gay writers, black writers. They allow in the great democratic bounty. They’re not snobs either. Tom Wolfe and detective fiction — Hammett and Chandler.” Their bookcase, Arthur said, was evidence of the usefulness of art, each book a powerful statement in support of its usefulness and, when it came down to it, damn fine reads, each and every one. If there were any evidence required to prove society’s enrichment through literature, one had only to look at the books in the Wrights’ bookcase. They were living proof of the relevance and power and usefulness of literature.
“So? What’s the problem?”
“What’s not there,” Arthur said. “The gaps in their collection speak for themselves.” There was Steinbeck but no Stein. Bellow but no Burrows. No Faulkner, no Pynchon. None of the great American experimenters. Gass or Gaddis, Barth or Barthelme. And with the exception of a single hardbound volume of the complete Frost, no poetry. “What good are they? They are books that tell difficult stories — if they tell stories at all! — that are difficult to follow and that don’t necessarily make you feel better for having read them. The Wrights’ belief about the usefulness of literature makes no room for these books. They are not useful books. They do not confirm our understanding of ourselves and in fact often leave us more confused about ourselves than we were to begin with. They are voices from the margins that are better left to the margins. Society would not be worse off without them.”
“So it’s the limits of their taste that prevent them from liking your book.”
Arthur smiled.
This talk pissed me off. At the time, I didn’t know why, but later when replaying the conversation in my head, I imagined myself shaking Arthur, just taking him by the shoulders and shaking him. Cut the intellectual bullshit! Your family’s in real trouble here! I said, “So what are you going to do?”
“Do?”
“They’re pretty upset.”
“Should I apologize?”
“What would be the harm in it? Even if you don’t see eye to eye, they’re important people in Will’s life, in Penelope’s life.”
“But I’m not sorry.”
“Does it matter? Convince them you are. For the sake of peace.”
“I can’t undo what I wrote, and apologizing won’t make it disappear. An apology is an admission I’ve done something wrong. It would only further justify their anger.”
“You don’t think you’ve done something wrong?”
“The book is good.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I don’t see how anything else matters. We don’t read Hemingway any differently because he was a bully and an absentee father. Do we? The author is human and has human failings and eventually dies. He is irrelevant. Mortal. In the end the book is judged on its own merits. It is judged not against the author but against other books. The author is the husk, out of which the book sprouts.”
“This is an evasion, and you know it. I’m not talking about your book.”
“You think this is some quarter-life crisis.”
“I don’t know what to think, Arthur. Why do you need to make things so complicated? All these years have passed and, as far as I can tell, you haven’t changed a bit. Still squandering your good fortune. Still dumping on the people who champion you. Of all the subjects in the world available to write about, Arthur. Why would anybody choose to fictionalize the incest of his own prepubescent son? It’s self-destructive and, as a statement, opaque. What’s the point? I’m going to have to agree with your in-laws on this one — I get the fear part, voicing a fear in order to dispel it? Fine, so you see a therapist, or you write it down in your supersecret journal. And then burn that journal. You don’t publish it! I don’t understand it, Arthur. I mean, is Frank right? Are you mentally ill? Or is there something you’re not saying, some key to understanding all this?”
“He’s back,” Arthur said. Through the window we watched him as he was greeted by Mrs. Wright at the front door. He paced the room, saying something that only came to us out here as a deep humming. Penelope appeared from Will’s bedroom, and Frank stopped pacing and beckoned the two women to the dining room table. The ember of Arthur’s cigarette reflected on Frank’s chest.
“What’s going on?” I said. We watched through the sliding glass door as Frank unsheathed a stack of papers from the copy-shop bag he’d been holding. Frank looked up, and his eyes met Arthur’s.
“The other shoe,” Arthur said.
I suppose another explanation is required here. Why, after reading Arthur’s book, wouldn’t I have just walked away? Not only not walk away, but accept an invitation to a holiday dinner with his in-laws? And then, after that dinner, continue to subject myself to the family strife? (For to spend time with them — to be in the same room with them — was to know just how deeply in trouble they were.)
Here, I suppose, I will have to confess: I was in love with Penelope Morel.
It started the day after, Friday. On my way home after a busy matinee shift, I found myself passing Balthazar’s. I loitered by the bakery’s menu out front. I was about to leave when Penelope appeared from the back and, recognizing me, waved.
She came out. “Thank God. A man with cigarettes!”
The following day, and every day after for the next seven days, I found excuses to be on Spring Street so that I could pass the bakery and catch a glimpse of her through the swinging door beyond the glass display cases. She’d flash in and out of sight in her starched chef’s whites, red bandanna around her black hair. I’d stand at the front window pretending to look at the menu but really watching the swinging door. Each time it opened, I scanned for her red bandanna. I could have done this for hours. I could have done nothing but this for an entire day. Invariably, she would see me and come out wiping her hands on her apron to give me a hug. We’d sit on the bench outside and smoke and talk.
“I keep going back to that day,” she said. “You were there. He handed me the damn thing. Said read it, tell me what to do with it. I don’t know what I was thinking. I saw the look in his eyes. He really did want me to read it. He wanted me to stop him. And what did I do?”
“It’s not your fault he wrote that book.”
“I told him to go forth and publish. Those were my exact words. I should have read it! I should have thrown it across the room, thrown it at his head, told him to shred it! Shred the damn thing! I should have told him that if he published it, I would divorce him. But I let him go forth, even though I knew there was something wrong. I could sense it. What stopped me? And what stopped me when he did publish it, when I did read it, from immediately kicking him out of the house? I should have told him that he was crazy, that he was too toxic for Will to be around, and filed for divorce.”
“Well? What’s stopping you?” The air was frosty and damp — the forecast called for snow — yet under her apron Penelope had on only a T-shirt, and her clogs exposed her bare heels. She hugged herself against the cold. I unzipped my down jacket and draped it over her, feeling even as I did it the awkwardness of this chivalric gesture. I could feel Penelope’s eyes looking me over, appraising me — maybe wondering what I was up to. She thanked me and pulled the jacket’s flaps around her.