Jules: Well, here
we are in our last week this month of guest-writing in ForeWord's "Shelf
Space" column, and we've enjoyed every week. At our literary blog, Seven
Impossible Things Before Breakfast (or "7-Imp"), Eisha and I
sometimes like to do what we call co-reviewing. Less like a review and more
like a book discussion over cyber-coffee, our co-reviews are pretty much a
back-and-forth about a particular title. We've even recently started inviting
other bloggers to come join us for guest "tri-reviews."
Here's a co-review of the new novel by Haven Kimmel, an
author whose books -- each and every one -- we adore with a devotion that
probably verges on stalker-ish. Heh. Friendly caveat: There are plot spoilers
below. You have been warned.
In The Used World (Free Press, 9780743247788),
Haven Kimmel's final novel in what she has called The Hopwood Trilogy --
a loose trilogy with Kimmel's previous novels, The Solace of Leaving Early
and Something Rising (Light and Swift), published in 2002 and 2004,
respectively, and all set in small-town Indiana -- we enter Hazel Hunnicutt's
Used World Emporium, an antique store that is "the station at the end of
the line for objects that sometimes appeared tricked into visiting there."
Hazel is tough, but she's also hiding big secrets from her past that, in the
end, the reader discovers are linked to her two employees at the Emporium: Claudia
Modjeski and Rebekah Shook. Claudia -- freakishly tall, over age forty, often
mistaken for a man, and terrifically lonely -- still grieves over the death of
her mother. Rebekah, who still lives with her strict Pentacostal father, is
pregnant with the child of a failed songwriter/musician who has left her. After
Hazel manipulates Claudia into adopting the sickly, newborn child of a
meth-addict and Rebekah's father kicks her out, Hazel convinces Rebekah to move
in with Claudia. The two women and the baby form a makeshift family. Along the
way, Kimmel flashes into the pasts of most of the major characters, revealing
layer upon layer of their complicated lives of loneliness and devotion and
desperation and faith. In the end, though, it's infused with hope, and Kimmel
-- as she has done previously in the trilogy -- provides enlightening
commentary about the Christian faith through minister Amos Townsend.
So, Eisha, what did you think of the novel? It almost pains
me to say this, 'cause I adore the writing of Haven Kimmel with a blinding
intensity, but I think you might actually be the bigger fan, in that you have
read every dang book she's written and I'm still a bit behind. So, did the
novel meet your expectations, particularly as the final book in the so-called Hopwood Trilogy?
Eisha: In a word: yes. All I really expected was to be wowed by her writing, and I
certainly was, just like I always am by every single book this woman writes.
From the very first paragraph, I was captivated:
“Claudia Modjeski stood before a full-length mirror in the
bedroom she'd inherited from her mother, pointing the gun in her right hand --
a Colt .44 Single Action Army with a nickel finish and a walnut grip -- at her
reflected image. The mirror showed nothing above Claudia's shoulders, because
the designation 'full-length' turned out to be as arbitrary as 'one-size.' It
may have fit plenty, but it didn't fit her.”
I also fell completely in love with
the three main characters: Claudia, Rebekah and Hazel. The, well . . . trinity they
form is practically a work of art in itself: each one is so distinct and
fully-developed, yet the three are so well-balanced within the story. I thought
it was quite an accomplishment.
How about you? Did it meet your
expectations?
Jules: Oh
lordamercy yes. Is it not like a big gift to be taken into one of Haven's
worlds? I hate finishing one of her books. And didn't you say you immediately
started re-reading after finishing it the first time?
I also remember you saying when we first started the novel that you were so
happy to simply be in the presence of Amos Townsend again, the town's minister
("trying to minister to a congregation that would prefer simple affirmations to
his esoteric brand of theology," as the publisher puts it so well for The Solace of Leaving Early). I missed
him, too, and probably did actual leaps around the house after I got the book in
my hands and knew I'd be reading more of his thoughts and sermons. The Booklist review wrote, "Kimmel's take on
spirituality is intriguing, though her more detailed passages about religion
slow an otherwise swift plot" to which I want to object heartily. I need to read Amos' words; I think he's
one of the top-ten most extraordinary characters in contemporary literature;
and, contrary to what that reviewer thinks, I find that his words amplify the
plot, bring new insights to the actions and heartbreak of the characters (and,
particularly in this novel, his words are a perfect counter-balance to the
close-minded, orthodox, and controlling words of Vernon, Rebekah's father).
(I almost typed "Atticus" instead of
"Amos"; am I crazy for seeing some Atticus Finch in him?).
It's like this: I'd go to church if Amos could be my
minister. I always read and then re-read and then re-read one more time all of
his sermons.
Now, I know I've already quoted from one review, but I'm
about to quote from another one (you know I'm a review geek, so it's no
surprise). I really love this from Donna Rifkind, writing for The Washington Post:
"How to
rediscover faith in this used and broken world, during a vacuous holiday
season, in a junk shop tricked out to look like home, among the old eggbeaters
and heavy black telephones of the dead? Kimmel manages to suggest that hope is
possible here, urging her trio of unhappy pilgrims, along with two
unanticipated babies, into a peculiar but convincingly loving family. She
accomplishes this not by tidying up all the book's odds and ends, as other
writers might, but by leaving them loose. The questions her characters ask --
'Where is the past, exactly?' wonders Hazel -- are always more vital than the
answers. In an interview with Powells.com in 2004, Kimmel mentioned why she
spent 2 1/2 years studying religion in a Quaker seminary in the early 1990s. 'I
realized that if . . . I wanted to be a writer at all, I would have to commit
myself to asking the largest questions of life I knew how to ask, and it seemed
to me that those were questions about time and death and change.'"
I love that. I love Kimmel's Rilke-esque devotion to trying
to love the questions themselves. And I love the loose ends. It would just be wrong if it were all tidied up, don't
you think?
Eisha: Oh, absolutely. The excerpts from Amos's
(Yes! Amos/Atticus! I see it!) sermons are all about the questions, and I love him, or I guess Haven, for it. They are
definitely an integral part of this novel, and as for the reviewer who
complained that they slow down the plot -- well, who reads Haven Kimmel for the
plot?
You're so right -- the characters
line up like a spectrum of organized religion, with Vernon's harsh, hypocritical, judgmental fire-and-brimstone
version on one side; and Amos's intellectual, earnest, no-easy-answers on the
other. You could even say that Claudia's memories of her parents' gentle,
unquestioning faith falls somewhere in the middle. And Rebekah, struggling to
define herself when the religion that defined her for the first twenty-five
years of her life is stripped away, kind of transcends the spectrum -- she just
basically is faith and hope and goodness,
and the dogma was really just getting in her way.
But then there's Hazel -- psychic,
astrologist Hazel. And funnily enough, she does
have some of the answers, and uses that knowledge in righting some of the
wrongs of the past and lining up all the players for the happy-ish ending. Were
you as surprised as I was at this inclusion of decidedly non-Christian
spirituality and the supernatural?
Jules: Yeah,
regarding those various faiths on the spectrum you mention, I loved this (about
Claudia): "From Nativity to Crucifixion, Christianity was a club into
which Claudia had been born; she hadn't needed to apply or beg entry."
As for the supernatural, nah, it didn't surprise me. It
certainly is another point on the spectrum (though I suppose that doesn't get
categorized/labelled as "organized religion"; it's almost like
Hazel's beliefs were a counter-balance to that entire spectrum). But, sure, I
suppose it's the first time in one of Haven's novels we've read about such
beliefs, huh? I thought it was (mostly – see below!) gripping, reading about
Hazel's past and putting all the pieces together.
But what I loved the most was the growth in Claudia's
character (particularly, her honest conversations about her sexuality with Amos
toward the close of the book). I love love LOVED this excerpt and it also
momentarily snapped my heart in two:
“What infuriated her
was simply that she had, out of the blue and surely against the wishes of all
the Millies everywhere, been given what everyone else expected as a birthright.
The world belonged to other people; it belonged to the Death's-heads in their
SUVs, to frat boys, to the fat women in the gas stations who stared at Claudia
as if she carried a plague. It belonged to evangelicals and morbidly
narcissistic politicians. No one had ever said to her . . . no one had told her
that the brand-new, perfect, everyday world was hers, was Claudia's as much as
it was anyone's.”
And, while I'm flipping through the book finding great Haven
lines, here's the best of all: "Rebekah never would have guessed -- it
didn't occur to her until she was fully grown -- that not everyone shared her
belief that God had spared humanity its relentless fate in a single way: by
making a good portion of every day hilarious."
Rebekah certainly had a lot of growth, too, needless to say.
And I know I'm supposed to lead off with another question
for you, but oh Eisha, there is just so
much Haven-glory here that I am having trouble focusing. Here are two big 'ol
themes I loved, and then I suppose you could tell me, if you're so inclined,
what -- of all the goodness -- stood out for you the most:
I loved the juxtaposition (I promise I don't just feel like
I have to throw the word
"juxtaposition" into a lengthy book discussion; I really mean it) . .
. as I was saying, I loved the juxtaposition between the Used World,
"filled with the castoffs of countless lives," and the cluttered,
disposable Wal-Martian world of the contemporary suburban life (such as, the
night Rebekah is in the mall, trying to figure out where to sleep after having
been kicked out of her home: "The lighting was aggressive, and everyone
looked older than they were, and defeated").
And, secondly, I loved the
women-doing-it-for-themselves-snap-snap empowerment in the book and all the, well,
father-commentary, such as when we get the first description of Hazel's
mother's clinic ("a world without men . . . {Hazel} knew for certain that
women free of fathers speak one way and they make a world that tastes of summer
every day, and when the men come home after winning the war -- or even if they
don't come -- the shutters close, the lipstick goes on, and it is winter,
again"); when Claudia is getting rude stares for being so mannish
("when the toothless women in sweatshirts, their bodies and hair reeking
of cigarette smoke and fast food, stared at her cruelly or even went so far as
to make a comment, she no longer thought, They
hate me. Now she tried to remind herself that if we don't feel the weight
of the human condition, we must not be fully human. She thought instead, They hate themselves. They hate being alive.
They hate their Fathers"); and the moment in which Rebekah is
remembering her mother, wanting to perhaps leave a note to tuck in a drawer,
should her father ever get re-married:
“The note could say:
My mother sprinkled cinnamon in her vegetable soup. She cooked rice in chicken
broth, not water. She touched everything as if it were fragile. She listened
when you talked and she didn't judge and she had an easy laugh, for a woman in
her time and place. Resting her head on the table, Rebekah cried and cried.”
Sorry I'm all over the place, Eisha. You know how it is with
Our Haven. Did those themes strike you, too, in one way or another?
Eisha: No apologies necessary, J. You're spot-on --
I'd say the whole female-empowerment theme is definitely key, as is the
complicated father-wife-daughter (hey, another trinity!) relationship. And the
"juxtaposition" you mention between the Used World Emporium and the
Wal-Mart/strip-mall culture is also huge. The contrast between the past and the
present is brought up again and again, usually with the present looking rather
shoddy in comparison. True, with the female empowerment theme, you do see
progress in the role of women: the fact that an abortion is a legal (however
distastefully offered) option for Rebekah, for example, rather than something
she would have had to have done at Hazel's mother's secret clinic in the 1960s,
could be seen as progress in a good way. The fact that Claudia does have options
regarding her sexuality -- although she's hampered by the small town
environment in which she lives -- that weren't available to Hazel is another
example. But more often, the architecture and culture of the town, and
particularly its residents, are held up to the spectacle of the past and found
wanting. This theme of decline and decay is pretty well summed up in this
passage from Claudia, reminiscing about her mother as she visits her sister:
“How could it be that everything had changed so much so
quickly? There was no such world as had Ludie in it. She was the last mother to
put up vegetables every year; the last fat mother who didn't dye her hair or
wear pants to church; the last to sing the old hymns and maintain a flourishing
garden. Claudia couldn't think of one other soul in the world who had a pawpaw
tree in the yard, one that bore fruit, and that was because of Ludie. But
Millie was the New Mother, no doubt about it, driving her SUV and buying
everything in her life (her clothes, her furniture, her food, her pictures in
frames) at the Wal-Mart. Sitting in Millie's country kitchen with her seven
thousand unnecessary pieces of plastic, Claudia sometimes expected to hear a
voice call out for a manager in aisle nine. Ludie had worked all day from the time
she got up until she went to bed. She cooked and cleaned and visited the sick.
In the summer she gardened and hung the washing on the line; in the autumn she
raked leaves and baked; in the winter she shoveled snow and made candy. All
spring she drummed her fingers on the windowsills, waiting for the time to put
in annuals. She was never too sick or too tired for church or to take care of
her own elderly parents. But it was Millie, who did none of those things and
had no other job besides, who treasured time-saving devices like nacho cheese
you could heat up right in the jar.”
I'm glad you also included that
great Rebekah quote, because it applies to the book as a whole, too. Sometimes
the story verges on tragedy, and there are some unconscionable scenes that are
going to stay with me for a long time (like the scene where Claudia and Hazel
find the baby). But peppered throughout are these utterly hilarious bits of
dialogue and description that sometimes had me hooting out loud. Like this one
between Hazel and Claudia, on their way to visit Hazel's sister at the
motorcycle gang/meth lab compound where she stays:
“’Hazel, are you carrying a gun?’
‘Of course I am. I always carry it when I visit Edie,
wherever she's living.’
Claudia pressed her thumbs against her temples.‘Do you have
a permit? A license to carry? A license to conceal it?’
'Well, yes, Claudia, I do. But if I didn't that wouldn't
stop me.’
. . .’What kind of
gun is it?’
Hazel unsnapped the holster. ‘It's a Derringer.’
The gun was no bigger than a deck of cards. Claudia reached
out and took it, admired the mother-of-pearl handle. ‘Forgive me, Hazel, but if
we find ourselves in danger, are you going to ask one of those fat, tattooed
psychopaths to lift his shirt and point to his kidneys? Are you going to say, “This
barrel might feel a little cold, Porky, but I need you to stand still?"’
Hazel took the gun back, narrowed her eyes at Claudia. ‘You're
right. Good thing I have the nine-millimeter in my coat pocket.’”
So, I've got a question for you.
Lest we sound like Haven is paying us for this review . . . is there anything
about this novel that struck you as less-than-perfect? I have a couple.
Firstly, I sometimes felt that
references to Rebekah's backstory got a little repetitive. I do get that to
grow up under those cult-like circumstances, and then to suddenly be cut off
from everyone you've ever known and forced to make your way in an unfamiliar
world, is a big deal. But I didn't necessarily feel that I needed to be told
that as often as I was.
Secondly (and this is tiny, really)
-- how did Vernon know when Rebekah would go into labor? I know, he
threatened in his letter that he knew when she'd be due, but didn't she go into
labor early? Yet he showed up anyway. Maybe he's psychic too?
And one more thing: I'm not sure
how well the whole Claudia/Amos relationship plays out if you haven't already
read The Solace of Leaving Early.
It's not crucial to the plot or anything, but I think to get why Amos is such
an important character it would be helpful.
But I want to be clear: these are
minor quibbles. On the whole, I loved this novel, and I think Haven broke new
ground for herself here. The plot plays a much more significant role in this
novel (as compared to character and theme) than in previous ones, and the tone
covers a wider spectrum of emotion than I think her earlier novels do.
Consistent throughout Haven's writing, though, are solidly realistic characters
that completely steal your heart; a powerful philosophical depth to her themes;
and the pure poetry of her writing. Those elements are in full effect here, as
always.
Jules:
Interesting question about Vernon
showing up early. I didn't even catch that. Good one, Inspector Gadget.
I suppose I would say the less-than-perfect for me, as you
put it, would be that the backstory on Hazel was a bit, well . . . that
aforementioned Washington Post review
also said that the narrative in this novel is "overcrowded" (though
the reviewer goes on to say that "Kimmel pulls off an unexpectedly
affecting novelistic coup . . . That so messy a book forms such a satisfying
whole is a bit of a miracle"). I don’t agree that the dramatic action as a
whole was crowded, but to me, the Hazel backstory got a bit cramped at times.
Also, compared to her other novels, it took a bit more time for me to get
invested in these characters. I don't know why. And I'm not saying I failed to ever invest, 'cause boy howdy and howdy
boy did the opposite happen. I loved them, Haven's "trio of unhappy
pilgrims," as Rifkind put it so well. As I said, I didn't want to close
the book when I reached its end. But with Solace,
for instance, she had me at hello, but it took maybe a chapter or two for me to
really get with this novel's flow.
But this is a minor complaint, like yours are. I mean, this
is Our Haven we're talking about, the best contemporary American author there
is.
Thanks for talking The
Used World with me, E-dawg. 'Twas fun. And, as always forever and ever
amen, I look forward to what Haven Kimmel brings us next.
Posted by: Julie Danielson and Eisha Prather