海角大神

This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance is Jonathan Evison鈥檚 fourth novel, and its dedication, 鈥淔or Mom,鈥� goes a long way toward capturing its essence. Harriet Chance, n茅e Nathan, is a mom in spades, probably not Evison鈥檚 mom but an American classic of yesteryear: Born in 1936, Harriet grows into the very model of the 鈥渟econd sex,鈥� her condition aggravated by a hypercritical mother and a later, secret trouble. We get to know her at age 78, now looking back on her life from the very moment of birth through years of repression and passivity.

After high school, Harriet worked in a law office, embracing the title 鈥淢s.,鈥� just beginning to make its way into enlightened parlance. She dreamed of advancement, even of becoming a lawyer herself, but it all came to naught when she fell pregnant and had to get married; for those were the days. Bernard, her husband 鈥� a janitor when she meets him, later a plant manager at a bearings manufacturer 鈥� was an ex-Marine, 鈥渁 man who [knew] a thing or two about duty. About commitment and sacrifice, plumbing and electricity.鈥� He was also uncommunicative and unappreciative of Harriet. It was he who made the 鈥渕utual鈥� decisions, and his idea of a good time was driving to the landfill on Sundays with his young son, to sit in the car eating 鈥淏urgerMeister fries, marveling at the perfectly good things people throw away.鈥� Powerless, unfulfilled, desperate, Harriet began to tipple her way through the tedious days as mother and domestic factotum. This we learn gradually.

Now a recent widow, she is confronting the problem that while her husband is dead, he鈥檚 still around. He鈥檚 a ghost but as down-to-earth as he ever was: eating corned beef, leaving the WD-40 out for the squeaking dishwasher door, and, soon enough, protesting against the abuse of ball bearings. It turns out that he had won a cruise for two to Alaska in a raffle two years ago, the offer about to expire, and Harriet ends up going on her own, taking Bernard鈥檚 ashes with her in a yoghurt container with a plan to scatter them in Glacier Bay. But she鈥檚 not on her own for long: Bernard鈥檚 shade shows up. He鈥檚 got something to tell Harriet, even though it鈥檚 against postmortem regulations; in fact, Bernard鈥檚 re-entry into human affairs is jeopardizing his afterlife 鈥� the rules, we learn, are pretty strict. And then Harriet鈥檚 estranged daughter, Caroline, appears on the scene, explaining that she and her brother felt Harriet couldn鈥檛 manage the trip alone.

Having got these plot devices wound up and ticking, and having engaged in a number of comic set pieces 鈥� drunken birthday-cake baking, old person holding up a checkout line with the coupon maneuver, getting Bernard鈥檚 ashes through security, sloshed and unruly behavior in the ship鈥檚 piano lounge 鈥� the novel darkens. We learn of Bernard鈥檚 descent into Alzheimer鈥檚 and Harriet鈥檚 grueling, soul-crushing tribulations as his caregiver. These passages are both sad and mordantly funny: Bernard is angry and incontinent, and his 鈥渃onversation鈥� is reduced to such repeated observations as: 鈥淪peed will kill a bearing faster than an increased load.鈥� 鈥淵ou wanna prevent rust? Vinegar.鈥� Secrets are spilled, Bernard鈥檚 and also Harriet鈥檚, all shedding light on what was really going on in the past and, eventually, the reason Harriet鈥檚 life has been so muted, her potential so unrealized. Harriet鈥檚 private sorrows, the trauma of her past, her inability to love her daughter adequately 鈥� all are explored in their crippling ramifications.

In keeping with the book鈥檚 title, most of the story is told in a voice-over manner 鈥� but this voice is also that of the rational investigator, perhaps even Harriet鈥檚 own analytic self, suppressed for decades, now coming to the fore at this late date. Why did she allow certain things to happen to her, most especially an event that further stifled her promise? The narrating, off-camera voice doesn鈥檛 mince words. The reasons are three: 鈥淥ne, an almost instinctive obedience to authority, which you abhor in yourself, though you have no power to stop it. Two, some dark impetus beyond reason, some grotesque thing that鈥檚 been living under a rock your whole life (let鈥檚 call it repression). And lastly, there鈥檚 the truth, plain and shabby as a hobo鈥檚 trousers, that you believe yourself to be worthless, though you don鈥檛 fully know it yet, at least you haven鈥檛 formally acknowledged it.鈥�

Harriet鈥檚 regrets are not so much for her unrewarding marriage and lack of career as they are for her own obliviousness and failures as a mother. Trapped by and in motherhood thanks to the times and her personal history, she sees, looking back, that hers was a mom鈥檚 life, but one she had failed at 鈥� or so she believes. While the author鈥檚 compassion toward poor Harriet is clear and his gift for comedy is evident, the book shares an approach that I find in recent novels with women at their centers: The explanation for these women鈥檚 unhappiness, self loathing, passivity, or inability to achieve more than they did is not that life is tough and being a human being is a problematic business, but that they have suffered some exceptional trauma or unwholesome upbringing which has shaped their whole being. The consequences of such events in any particular life are of course enduring, but the prevalence of this vein of storytelling leaves us curiously impoverished. It is as if there can鈥檛 be such a thing as female failure without an alibi, and that strikes me as special pleading, if not condescension.