Between
SOLIDLY ROOTED IN the everyday, the twelve stories of Ryerson University assistant professor (of digital media and design) Laurie Petrouâe(TM)s first book, Between, skillfully explore the complicated inner terrains of its various narrators: an aged man who suspects his independent life is about to end; a young woman adapting to suburban domestic life; an older woman with a bed-ridden husband and a son about to marry.
Each story reads like a private, interior scene that finds characters existing âeoebetweenâe one stage of life and another, each oneâe(TM)s life about to change in a quiet way âe" the end of summer, an expected death, or the simple utterance of a name.
A few stories âe" âeoeWedding Day,âe âeoeWith Love Fromâe and âeoeIn the Homeâe âe" deal with the often difficult dynamics of family life. In the first, Madeline begins to see the reality of her life: as perpetual caregiver to an ill father and now an ill husband. There is her realization that she is unlike her husband and son. And then, there is her observation of her sonâe(TM)s marriage as âeoethe precipice of something newâe , of which she is almost jealous as she no longer stands at any such edge: âeoeI had a sort of sick feeling, something sad and full of longing.âe Petrouâe(TM)s frank portrayal of Mad (as her family calls her), a woman who âeoedidnâe(TM)t take to parenthood like anything takes to water,âe makes the writing feel both enigmatic and honest. Mad has spent her life saving others âe" and the story seems to mourn that hers is a life which never made any noise.
Other stories, such as âeoeDaycare,âe âeoeAfter Bingolloâe(TM)sâe and âeoeButterfly Net,âe feature death as a hovering theme. In âeoeDaycare,âe the ambiguous Ada mediates between her old âeoecity-selfâe and new âeoequaint country selfâe in Niagara where she runs a small childcare business out of her new home. Petrou wonderfully describes Ada trying to remove the âeoepersonal stainâe of those who lived in the house previously and âeoesecure for herself a distance from the neighbours,âe impossible since âeoethey had all peered in anywayâe destroying Adaâe(TM)s efforts to render her home a âeoesecret tomb.âe
This notion of house as tomb becomes more poignant later in the story when a dead tree is cleared out of a neighbourâe(TM)s yard leaving Ada a clear view of a cemetery. It is the treeâe(TM)s demise that sparks in Ada a desire to speak to the children she cares for, to deliver some sort of message. Ada realizes what it is she wants to say, but the reader is left out of the revelation. This secret message, or âeoeunknowableâe knowledge, seems to be the heart of Between; Petrouâe(TM)s characters have a moment of almost existentialist [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism] awareness, and the reader is forced to draw her own conclusions.
âeoeTreasureâe is another terrific piece about a young girl who, after discovering âeoetreasureâe in a buried tin can, skips school to retrieve one of the items she is âeoehot and possessiveâe for: a photograph of a family, and a girl in the background chasing a dog. But, what she ends up retrieving is self-knowledge: âeoeMy cowboy confidence slipping, and I wasnâe(TM)t sure if I wanted it back, or some soft and pretty alternative that itself seemed like an impossible transformation.âe
Despite being a collection of unconnected stories, these pieces feel connected, as though any character could step out of his or her story and enter another; as if these moments that Petrou isolates in the lives of her characters could happen to any one of us, anywhere, at any time. As a result, the stories, and their characters, seem bound to one another âe" by alienation, loneliness, doubt âe" and all that accompanies the shift toward spiritual or emotional growth. Petrouâe(TM)s precise, witty writing balances out these hefty thematic concerns, and often with startling effect. Between is a strong debut from a strong new writer.âe"Adrienne Weiss
