It’s Maundy Thursday, there’s three more free days left after it. But let’s talk about creativity. I feel like a dried-up well in this department lately, although there’s no shortage in the things (banal and foreign alike) to be written about. For one, I’m buying this “books impression” idea from Mich, one that dictates I jot down notes on novels / short stories recently read. The idea’s brilliant, really; what other way to fight a cheating memory but to immortalize ideas in print (or, in this case, in the electronic grapevine)? I return, however, to the problem of lack in focus or, to examine deeper, bad writing. Flex those creative muscles, says the inner adult, but really, how do shake off the fact that your happiness is somehow inversely proportional to your creative energy? Complacency at work, yo.
Anyway I’m on the last Susan Perabo story now (current read’s Who I Am Supposed To Be, courtesy of gorgeous Gracie). I feel like all of the characters are tight with intelligence and compassion, especially the mugged ex-husband who feigns amnesia to win ex-wife back, or the twenty-something married guy who decides he’s had enough of the fickle-minded wife refusing to let go of Princess Diana’s gown. Don’t get me wrong, though; the collection offers a wide spectrum of characters taut in their attempts to forge a connection in an unsteady world. There are the two sixth-graders confronting homicide, the Hollywood actor’s aging father who gets a kick out of stealing things, and the mother who tries really hard to introduce the concept of death to her dog. The death of her own baby, that is.
Perabo is a tenured creative writing professor, and very much so in her faithfulness to the whole concept of narrative structure and technique. I would still prefer someone who’s a little sick in the head, a little less sober (here’s your cue, Miranda July), but Who I Am Supposed To Be transports me back to my university workshop days, and I’ll probably say it’s a good thing if one is to recall all the raw discussions on imagination and the creative process and the byproduct such as these short stories. The deftness is a major factor in Perabo’s work, but it is the wide range of narrative voices that is most attractive in this collection: the believable male voice, the rich amalgam of perspectives from the young and old.
But did I just make another book impression? Props to the PLDT lineman who works diligently on a holiday and made this spur-of-the-moment blog entry possible. I was just trying it out, the DSL connection, when I suddenly remembered Eddie of the title story – his yawning helplessness in the face of adolescent pains – and felt lucky being able to be 22, with the luxury of book impressions and a sweating glass of iced tea and all.
