In Envy Country by Joan Frank March 3, 2010

On Wednesday, March 3, I not-so-reluctantly tore myself away from studying for my British literature midterm and headed off to the Hammes Bookstore to attend my very first fiction reading. It had been an uncharacteristically sunny day in Notre Dame, Indiana, which made the chill of the evening walk more irksome. I had no idea what to expect, but I was ready to be knocked off my feet by some powerful prose. I knew the reader’s name was Joan Frank and I had seen her picture in the email I received from the English department about the reading. Therefore, I knew she looked like this:

Beyond that, I knew nothing. And I liked it that way. There was an awkward waiting period during which I sat awkwardly waiting for something to happen and wishing I had bribed one of my friends to come with me to keep me entertained. Finally, around 7:35, she came out and sat behind a table displaying her new book, In Envy Country:

Let the introductions begin. Professor O’Rourke talked about the award Frank had won to get her book published. He went on and on in an quirky, rambling way. He was often self-deprecating and a little awkward, because he admitted to having forgotten about Joan Frank’s existence between their original publication of her work and their decision to publish her new collection of short stories. Nonetheless, I found myself intrigued by his bluntness, his awkwardness, and the odd way he seemed to be simultaneously prepared and flustered.

At last, it was time for the star of the evening to take her place at the podium. She seemed pretty likeable and unassuming. She thanked everyone for the honor and thanked the audience for coming during midterms week when there are so many other demands on our time. I particularly appreciated that because I was running on less than half the recommended amount of sleep as a result of said demands.

The selection she read was a lot shorter than I expected. I figured that because it was a book of short stories rather than a novel, she would read an entire short story. She did not. Instead, she read what was essentially a very long exposition to one of her stories, “Sandy Candy.” After the reading she talked about how there are two different ways to set up a story: either they have a lot of buildup before they get to the main action, or they open exploding in the middle. She said that many publishers have told her that she needs to get to the point of her stories much sooner instead of having this super-long exposition. She believes in the format of her stories, however, so she always waits for someone else to feel the same way instead of editing them. I admire her artistic integrity, and I’m usually one to prefer character depth to constant plot action. Still, sometimes the descriptions at the beginning became a little heavy-handed and excessive. I love figurative language and description, but I also don’t think every single thing mentioned needs to have an extensive metaphor, witty side-note, or some other kind of additional description. Sometimes simplicity and pithiness are what make stories truly beautiful.

Though I often found her descriptions to be too much, there were also a lot of times when I thought her language was really original and interesting. She had a great metaphor about Reno at the beginning, and it left me vividly picturing my experiences in Reno in my mind and trying to connect those images to the image of what she was describing.

Her comparison of punching the erase button on the answering machine to killing roaches and her simile “skin like jerked beef” were effective as well. Her descriptions of someone’s breath as “ashy and yeasty, of the smell of a bar as being “like moldy bread and stomach acid,” and of the white tank tops as “glowing lavender under the blacklights” were great because they are so accurate and yet those are descriptions I myself would have a hard time finding the right words for. That’s how I felt a lot of the time at her reading, like I was impressed that she found words for things for which I never could figure out the right words. That’s often how I feel about some of my favorite writers and works, so that’s a really good sign for me. She made me want to keep reading as she described the “raw jungle presaging of a secret ceremony.” I wanted to know what the “sandy candy” really was, if it was the strip club kind of scene Lorna thinks it might be, or if it was something much more diabolical and grotesque.

In a way, the story made me think of “Vampires in the Lemon Grove” and “The Ceiling” because of the way in which it mentioned the marital problems of the two main characters, Lorna and Brad, suggesting that the unspoken conflict may grow later in the story. Lorna is a homebody who prefers reading to socializing, while Brad loves people and parties and often drags Lorna to them. The way Lorna keeps trying to force herself to live the lifestyle Brad enjoys was something that interested me, and I found myself wanting to know more about Lorna and her background, feelings, etc. I wanted to know why she ended up with Brad at all, if they are so different from one another. I hope the story goes on to address some of these issues. I guess I’m just a fan of ambiguity and subtlety, but I would have really preferred for her to be a little less explicit about the marital problems, since she said flat out that their natures were “antithetical” and their relationship was “not a marriage but a clearinghouse.” I suppose this is an issue of personal preference, but it detracted from my appreciation of the issues a bit nonetheless.

After the reading, she talked about how people need to distrust cleverness for its own sake because we owe fiction the vulnerability of risktaking. She said writers should be willing to make a mess because that’s the only way to make something real. I could not agree more, and it reminded me a little of “Shitty First Drafts” because both suggest that a story doesn’t have to be perfect right away. You have to let it all out and then refine it once it’s out. I thought it was an interesting perspective that she said writers write to find out what they’re trying to find out. It sounds like it doesn’t make any sense, but if you think about it, it actually does. It’s kind of the same way with writing nonfiction, such as research papers. You don’t start the project knowing everything; you do the research and by learning from that, you develop your thesis and your argument and you figure out what you were trying to find out and only then can you seek to actually find it out. I like that she clarified that it’s not really a mystical experience, but I don’t necessarily think the process involves going in quite as blindly as she claims, at least not for me. I guess it comes down to why you’re writing and what purpose you want your story to serve, like Orwell said in “Why I Write.”

Like him, my motivations are often political, in the wide sense in which he uses the term. I go in wanting to share a certain idea about, viewpoint on, or solution for a certain societal issue, then get a basic idea of how to translate that into a story. I certainly don’t have everything planned out at the beginning, because through writing the story my ideas about it change and I learn more about my characters, my story and myself, which changes things as well. Still, I think it’s important to have an idea of what you’re trying to say and where you’re going with it if you want your story to deal with a specific issue in a specific way. Since I don’t really know what her stories are about, even “Sandy Candy,” I don’t know her purpose for writing them, so I can’t judge her methods, not that I would really want to either way. I think we just have different styles of writing, and that’s fine, as she herself said.

Overall, I really enjoyed this reading. It was definitely a good start to what will probably be a lifelong hobby of mine. Joan Frank was gracious and personable, and her story was definitely intriguing, even if it wasn’t always my exact cup of tea. It was interesting going to see someone with whom I was completely unfamiliar read her work. I look forward to seeing authors I already know and love in the future as well.