In my Office, In the Rain

It has been raining all morning and afternoon here in southern Ohio, which makes the lights in my office seem warmer and the conversations in the hall more cheerful. I say seem because I can hear only snatches of phrases—someone just loudly exclaimed “LSD and Layups!”—and this may or may not be part of a pleasant discussion. I also just finished planning for my Wednesday and Friday classes and looking up words on dictionary.com. Dictionary.com is helpful to me because while I have a diverse vocabulary from reading, I do not often use those words in conversation—so when I do, I sometimes horribly mispronounce them. In front of mentors and students alike I have pronounced concupiscent as con-cu-piss-ant, assuage as uh-swah-gh, and onomatopoeia as om-in-uh-top-pee-uh. That last one I made up as I went along and no one had any clue what I was saying. It sounded like jibberish. Dictionary.com correctly pronounces words in a robotic voice. When I look up words like efficacy I keep the volume on my computer down so people in my department don’t start speaking slowly to me. I just looked up sisyphean, and I felt alright about that.

For most of the day, I’ve been thinking about a book (a novella, technically) I finished last night called Voices from the Moon, by Andre Dubus. It’s about a father, Greg, who is marrying his son Larry’s ex-wife, Brenda. Greg also has a twelve year old son, Richie, who wants to be a priest. The plot sounds like it might have been adapted from an episode of Jerry Springer, but Dubus treats each character with so much dignity and respect despite their human failings that as a reader, it’s difficult not to share the sentiments.

It’s a book about family, and the choices people make, and how those choices (intentionally or not) affect the people we love. Richie struggles to be a good catholic despite his fractured family. And while the family is splintered because of Greg’s earlier divorce, and then his decision to marry his son’s ex-wife, Larry still finds himself drawn to his father.

As I write this, I'm struck by the thought that the book is also about human contradiction. Greg finds himself loving Brenda, despite the consequences for his family. Larry loves his father, despite his father marrying his ex-wife. And Richie, despite his desire to be a priest, finds himself drawn to a neighborhood girl, Melissa. Despite, despite, despite. One of the threads of this book is that often people don’t consciously decide their future—it just happens. For instance, Richie may want to be a priest, but if he doesn't stay away from Melissa he’s going to wind up loving her. I personally think he’ll end up becoming a priest, but I’d be interested in talking with someone else who’s read the book and seeing what they think.

This is also an important book because it’s the first time I’ve read more than twenty pages of something before realizing I already read it. I think 27 is too young for that to happen, but in my defense I've read a lot of Andres Dubus short texts and sometimes all these carnal bastards and their precocious children blur together. But I’m glad I read it a second time, it was worth it, and I picked up on things I know I missed on the initial read—for instance, when Richie goes horseback riding, he does so at Ripley Farms—owned by Luke Ripley, the narrator of one of my favorite short stories, “A Father’s Story.”

My name is Luke Ripley, and here is what I call my life: I own a stable of thirty horses… That first line has always stuck with me, and the ending, where Luke argues with God about the passion of a son as opposed to a daughter is a standard of great writing. Sometimes I envy musicians, because it seems like they can summon emotion so much easier than writers. But the end of "A Father's Story" moves me in ways that a song never has or ever could. I find that reassuring.