“No, he is not young enough,” I told her, “but he’s in pretty good shape for a man his age.”
“I suppose you beat him, then,” the student said.
“Yes, I beat him,” I answered.
But after the reading, the same young woman handed me a note. I don’t believe you. Someone hit you, the note said.
This I also like about the Germans: they come to their own conclusions.
Of course, if I write a first-person novel about a woman writer, I am inviting every book reviewer to apply the autobiographical label—to conclude that I am writing about myself. But one must never not write a certain kind of novel out of fear of what the reaction to it will be.
And I can just hear Allan on the subject of my writing two novels in a row about women writers; yet I’ve heard him say that editorial advice should not include recommendations or caveats about what to write or not write about. Doubtless I shall have to remind him of that.
But more important to this new novel: what does the bad boyfriend do, as a result of observing a prostitute with her customer, that is so degrading to the woman novelist? What happens to make her feel so ashamed that it’s enough to make her change her life?
After watching the prostitute with her customer, the boyfriend could be so aroused that the way he makes love to the woman writer makes her feel that he is thinking about someone else. But that’s just another version of bad sex. It must be something more awful, more humiliating than that.
In a way, I like this phase of a novel better than the actual writing of it. In the beginning, there are so many possibilities. With each detail you choose, with every word you commit yourself to, your options close dow
n.
The matter of searching for my mother, or not; the hope that, one day, she will come looking for me. What are the remaining major events in my life? I mean the events that might make my mother come to me. My father’s death; my wedding, if I have one; the birth of my child, if I have one. (If I ever get up the nerve to have children, I would want only one.) Maybe I should announce my forthcoming marriage to Eddie O’Hare. That might get my mother’s attention. I wonder if Eddie would go along with it—after all, he wants to see her, too!
[In a postcard to Eddie O’Hare, which was of the great Cologne cathedral, the splendid Dom—the largest Gothic cathedral in Germany.]
BEING WITH YOU, TALKING WITH YOU . . . IT WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENING IN MY LIFE, SO FAR. I HOPE I SEE YOU AGAIN SOON.
SINCERELY,
RUTH COLE
[In a postcard to Allan, which was of a magnificent castle on the Rhein.]
BE AN EDITOR. CHOOSE BETWEEN THESE TWO TITLES: HER LAST BAD BOYFRIEND OR MY LAST BAD BOYFRIEND . IN EITHER CASE, I LIKE THE IDEA.
LOVE,
RUTH
P.S. BUY ME THIS HOUSE AND I’LL MARRY YOU. I THINK I MIGHT MARRY YOU, ANYWAY!
“I’m a novelist,” I will doubtless say at some point. “I’m just a storyteller.”
Looking over the list of my fellow panelists—other authors, all promoting their books at the book fair—there is an atrocious American male of the Unbearable Intellectual species. And there is another American writer, female, less well known but no less atrocious; she is of the Pornography Violates My Civil Rights school. (If she hasn’t already reviewed Not for Children, she will—and not kindly.)
There is also a young German novelist whose work has been banned in Canada. There was some charge of obscenity—in all probability, not unmerited. It’s hard to forget the specific obscenity charge. A character in the young German’s novel is having sex with chickens; he is caught in a posh hotel with a chicken. A terrible squawking leads the hotel staff to make the discovery—that, and the hotel maid had complained of feathers.
But the German novelist is interesting in comparison to the other panelists.
“I’m a comic novelist,” I will doubtless say at some point; I always do. Half the audience (and more than half of my fellow panelists) will take this to mean that I am not a serious novelist. But comedy is ingrained. A writer doesn’t choose to be comic. You can choose a plot, or not to have one. You can choose your characters. But comedy is not a choice; it just comes out that way.
Another panelist is an Englishwoman who’s written a book about socalled recovered memory—in her case, hers . She woke up one morning and “remembered” that her father had raped her, and her brothers had raped her—and all her uncles. Her grandfather, too! Every morning she wakes up and “remembers” someone else who raped her. She must be exhausted!
Regardless of how heated the debate on the panel is, the young German novelist will have a faraway expression on his face—as if something serenely romantic has just crossed his mind. Probably a chicken.
“I’m just a storyteller,” I will say again (and again). “I’m not good at generalizations.”
Only the chicken-lover will understand me. He will give me a kindly look, maybe mildly desirous. His eyes will tell me: You might look a lot better with some reddish-brown feathers.