Airing that Family Linen

This is a fun read and one that I know will have layer upon layer of story, each layer building upon the one beneath it. It’s like Hemingway’s iceberg effect. What we see on the surface is nothing compared to what lies beneath.

The book is set up in sections that are like chapters, with each ‘chapter’ being told by a different character and in a different form. Sybill’s story is told in third person, as if someone is looking in on her life and her thoughts. Her sisters’ and brother’s stories are told the same way. However, there are two characters whose stories are told in first person: those are the characters of Sean, son of Myrtle and grandson of Elizabeth, and Fay, Elizabeth’s mentally challenged sister. By telling the story in this way, the author is able to present the story as a whole. The reader sees all the different angles and can form their own opinions about the characters and their lives and views. We see Sybill from her own point of view as well as seeing her through the eyes of her siblings, nephews and aunts. We see each of the family members in this way and we end up with a well rounded representation of a pretty messed up family.

I wonder about the reasoning for the changes in voice throughout the story. Why are some told in third person while the others are told in first? I think it is to show the attitudes of the characters. Sybill, Myrtle, Candy, Arthur, and Lacy have lives that are out of control. Sybill is, as I said, a control freak. Myrtle is as well, to a certain extent. For her, appearances are everything. She lives in the nicest house in town and has a decent marriage to a well respected dermatologist. She has also just turned 40 and is embarrassed about letting anyone know because she doesn’t think she looks her age.

“Because it’s true that if you don’t look your age, which Myrtle doesn’t, you don’t want it broadcast around. And she has worked hard on herself. People simply cannot believe that she has a daughter twenty-two years old, or Theresa who is eighteen, or Sean, fourteen” (pg 50).

Sybill is the old maid. She must be in control of every aspect of her life and for this reason, I think, she has never taken a mate. Once you introduce someone else into your life, you lose that complete control. Myrtle must continue to maintain what she believes is perfection, even though her life is far from perfect. Arthur is an alcoholic who has never managed to hold a job nor is he able to hold his family together. Lacy is the youngest and newly divorced. She is unhappy and has no control over the things happening in her life. Candy, while she seems the happiest of the siblings, lives in two rooms over her beauty shop and has been having an affair with her brother-in-law for 20 years. But she has no control and feels trapped in the life she has, “Kids around here get married so fast, they can’t see beyond the back seat of a car. They can’t see the trap. Well, it doesn’t look like a trap, then. Candy couldn’t see it either, nobody can. And you can’t tell them” (pg. 115). The thing that seems to tie these characters together is the feeling that they are all simply watching their lives go by them, that they are simply going through the motions and not really living. For that reason, perhaps, their stories are told in the third person, as if they themselves feel that they are the ‘third person’.

Fay and Sean on the other hand, tell their stories in the first person. Sean is an angry fourteen year old who, while having little actual control over his life, doesn’t seem to realize it yet. He does what he wants to do. He is testing his boundaries and the limits of his parents’ control. He can anger them or pacify them, depending upon his mood.

“Where’s breakfast?” I say. Mom starts crying harder, and dad says, “Son, can’t you fix yourself some cereal at least? Is that too much to ask?” “Just fuck it,” I tell them all. “See you later,” and I leave. “Son, get back in here,“ Dad is yelling. “I’ll be back in a little while,” I yell back. (pg. 141)

Sean is more in control of his surroundings than any of the other characters so far. He is living his life, not just making the motions and therefore, his voice is first person. I’m not so sure I can explain Fay in the same way. Her story is also told in first person, but being mentally challenged, she is like a child in many ways. Perhaps the voice has more to do with the way the characters view themselves and the world around them, than the idea of control. I am still working that out in my mind.

As far as a pattern in the chapter set-up, I don’t see one yet, but I think that has to do with that iceberg. On the surface the pattern is not obvious, but once you go a bit deeper it may become so. This family is certainly a dysfunctional one, and it scared me more than a little to see similarities between myself and the characters of Sybill and Lacy. It could be my age, which is close to the ages of those characters. It could be that I am a divorced woman, like Lacy, and living the life of a single woman with no male attachments, much like Sybill’s. I found myself identifying with these women, at least in a small way (More so with Lacy then Sybill, thankfully!)

The rest of the book will be digested in the coming week and I am looking forward to digging into it to uncover the layers that I am sure are lying there, atop one another and waiting to be peeled back and understood.