Roundblog 2: Moving Mourning--Ayelet Waldman's Red Hook Road

SHELLEY:

I like having plans; they give me structure, and make me feel organized and productive. They sort of create a special comfort zone where life is somewhat predictable, allowing me to feel like I have some control over my existence and how my life is led. I especially love fun plans; they create a bit of excitement and brighten the future, giving me something to look forward to. When plans are thwarted or changed, though, I get a bit thrown off. In fact, I become frustrated and disappointed. Whatever I have envisioned falls through, which upsets me to varying degrees, depending on how much value I had placed in the disrupted plan. Although I’m pretty flexible when one plan is replaced by a better one, I struggle when big plans—life changing ones--don't work out.

In Red Hook Road, Ayelet Waldman explores the nature of human reaction when one's plans--one's vision for her life--are ambushed, pierced, and slowly restructured. I think it's safe to say that most people don't have the loss of a loved one in their life plans, especially a loss that is sudden and unexpected. The characters living in Red Hook, Maine, though, must live on, must function, in the aftermath of a disaster--a devestating disaster involving the death of a young married couple who are survived by parents, siblings, and friends. And although the novel suffers from some weaknesses, I think it is most relatable and most engaging when it patiently delves into the multiple ways different people recover and adjust to shattered plans of happiness, expectations, and achievement. This recovery and adjustment, in the case of Red Hook Road, is synonymous with the grieving process. People are obviously different, so clearly, they will end up grieving differently; Matt, for instance, grieves by throwing himself into passionately repairing his brother's boat, while Mr. Kimmelbrod finds refuge in his violin. Such reactions to disaster and thwarted plans were most meaningful to me as a reader; they emphasized that there is no one right way to heal when big plans are altered or squashed, but that healing is definitely possible, and can even allow the experience of happiness again.

What do you think, Melville?

MELVILLE:

I liked what Shelley is saying about plans -- I really think that Waldman focuses on this idea of rebuilding a life. Yes, tragedy happens to everyone (some great, some small) but I was really drawn to her reaction to that age-old question -- how do we deal with death?

I picked this book because it seemed right up my alley in terms of focusing on a place -- Maine and the still ever-inclement weather it has even in the midst of what elsewhere is a bright, sunny summer. It is a brilliant choice for a place to talk about death -- for, in the flash of an instant, a storm may brew, a car can crash, or the sun will come out of the clouds and illuminate the rain-soaked characters. I think what most struck me about the novel was Waldman's attention to details. She saturates the book with details, the sorts of things that clearly stand out in one's mind when dealing with grief, when anything mundane associated with the deceased is suddenly infused with profound meaning. At times the novel almost read like a catalog of a life - describing everything from the necklace Becca made in summer camp years ago to analyzing whether John's dimple was actually on his left or right cheek are the sort of details that bring the deceased back from being remembered as perfect to the messy, imperfect people who were so dearly loved by friends. However, as much as I appreciated Waldman's eye for the grieving process, I found myself overwhelmed. Her attempt to capture grief in all the twists and turns of one's thoughts became almost too clever and too neat to fully replicate the sheer madness that mourning can become.

I think in the end, however, her attempt to detail the need to pick up the pieces even years later really sheds life on her characters' somewhat-extreme reserve in expressing deeply-rooted emotions. Their own sense of restricting who is really an 'authentic' Red Hook resident echoes that same sense of who is 'allowed' to keep grieving for such extended periods of time. If nothing else, Waldman makes a compelling argument that in Maine the natives certainly know how to hold on to a memory or a feeling, just as their homes hold on to the rocky shore instead of plunging into the deep, cold ocean.

As I am about twenty pages away from finishing the novel, I would hope that she does not give a cheery outlook on the end, for like in real grieving, the process takes a few seasons to find rest. Eventually, one may notice the wild Maine lupines growing on the outskirts of one's periphery, but it is certainly takes time to find Spring again.

Your thoughts, Wollstonecraft?

WOLLSTONECRAFT:

I agree with my co-bloggers that the book is at its best in the second section as it explores the many differences amongst people (even within their families) and their complex ways they experience grief. It explores the confusion and pain of the human condition and our incapacity to deal with sudden loss. How often do our lives bring us something we are unprepared for and how often are we at a loss as to how we get over that pain? The book’s characters are raw and flawed—you do not end up “rooting” for any character nor do you completely want to know them because what they experience, what they feel exists; it is a part of life we do not want to think about: what would you do if your daughter or sister died? How long would you grieve? How would you move on? Their pain is explored in detail and without reserve, making the reader confront images of their own grief—though I couldn’t really “identify” with any characters, I’m sure they are in some ways universal.

However, at times, they are almost so perfectly flawed that it seems the characters are contrived or false in some way. Something about the book’s construction—as Melville began to point out—seems to fall apart as the characters are so perfectly detailed the real complexity of them is lost and they become flat clichés of how such a person would react to loss. The father turns to violence (boxing), the brother tries to live the life of his dead brother, the working class mom who is rough around the edges tries to hide her pain, etc. By the end of the book there is nothing more of that chaos that comes with grief; the ending is so perfectly neat as all the characters have their epiphanies almost at the exact same moment—and all these epiphanies were predictable. Even the twist in the end seems contrived. However, under the layer of that artificiality I think there is a truth; it is very hard to put grief into words, and that there is some predictability to how we deal with grief. It is human nature to believe it will all work out in the end, to think “everything happens for a reason”; we want it to be neat because it’s too hard to think life sometimes just sucks for no reason at all. The one thing we want for the characters is for them to learn how to live again because we would hope that if we had to deal with that loss, we could live again too. I will say, it’s hard for a cynic to finish some of the cloying details…

That said, the author’s imagery is very beautiful and she has an observant eye; I want to visit Maine and eat at a lobster bake. There is also a very pretty passage likening marriage to a sail boat, which is too long to post here. But, as a Californian used to people coming and going, in and out of the state, it is hard to understand the obsession the Red Hook people have with ancestry and who belongs...It seems a very trivial worry next to a family grieving over a death, which I don't know if that's what the author wanted you to feel.

Loving Life and Exploring Death in America

Several years ago, a remark attributed to Osama bin Laden (yes, THAT bin Laden) has stayed with me, something to the effect of “We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the difference between us two.” Take this for what you will, but I know there is a lot of truth to this statement, at least the part about the U.S. loving life. Compared to a lot of other countries and cultures, many Americans have a lot of reasons to love life, in the sense that being an American or living in America generally affords many opportunities. Obviously, crime, hate, poverty, and other negativities afflict this country, but the degree of this hardship pales in comparison to troubles existent in other nations: we are not a war-ravaged country, or wholly destitute; our legal system is set up to avoid governmental corruption, and our media is so fierce, any wrongdoing or sketchiness will be accounted for. Though injustices are inevitable, programs are set up in this country so that justice can for the most part reign; basically, our constitution gives us basic rights that many other countries don’t have, and we have the freedom to speak up about anything without the fear of persecution, and even death.

Anyway, I think you get my drift. America is not a third world country run by a corrupt government, drug lords, or by no government at all. Our culture, then, highly values life because our lives are capable of being enjoyable; at the very least, the possibility of a pleasant, worldly existence makes the idea of living in America promising. The American Dream, right? So, on one level, enjoying a worldly life in America may end up sounding materialistic and superficial, but the consumerism in this country makes this undoubtedly true, to some extent, at least. Regardless, a lot of people in America can live relatively peaceful lives, making life more appealing than death. I think it’s safe to assert, then, that most Americans don’t LOVE death; some might be fascinated with it, but for the most part, death is something to be avoided (by medications, treatments, etc.), youth is highly valued (I think this is obvious), and dying is ultimately a negative, scary thing we don’t really want to get into or think about. Although I don’t think other less fortunate nations love death, either, I think they are more familiar with it because their everyday lives tend to be surrounded by it. They are less removed from death, so (sadly?) they understand it to be a part of life; it ends up not being as terrible. Maybe (warning: generalization forthcoming) death even becomes a release, a sort of freedom from the atrocities they are continuously faced with, or maybe just their upbringing and religious views make death less scary. I’m not sure, but I know young people in America don’t really grow up with the elderly in their homes (which, in many cultures, was a common occurrence back in the day); they are usually outside of the home in assisted living homes, retirement communities, etc., so they are separate from a child or teenager’s daily life. This is significant because individuals then become unfamiliar with the normal process of dying; instead, death is something frightening and horrific that they can only experience through television crime shows, medical shows, the news, horror movies, etc. So, when death does affect us, when death does enter our daily lives, when someone we love and care for does die (especially when their passing is sudden and seemingly too early), we are left in a troubled, confused state. The grieving process and subsequent continued existence for the living become the ultimate unknown, a sort of nightmare. We, being American, are geared for everything vibrant, everything that produces something, for progress; we are not, for the most part, prepared to handle the realities of death. At the very least, the realities of death for the living in the 21st century aren’t usual or preferred topics of conversation.

Ayelet Waldman, though, explores the grieving process in her latest novel and our August book club selection Red Hook Road, delving into how unexpected deaths affect the personal lives of the living, how they affect families and marriage, and how humans recoup so that their existence isn’t wholly destroyed by the loss of loved ones. She takes on this uncomfortable and painful topic for the benefit, I think, of her readers. Stay tuned for our weekend post, which will further reflect upon the aforementioned topics and other intriguing issues Waldman goes into in Red Hook Road.