Many thanks for your posts.
Babi, how true. I'm in total agreement. What counts are actions.
Here are some of Joy's actions, revealed in Chapter 9.
* it was Joy who had talked her angry siblings out of boycotting Harve's and Dot's wedding. (Isn't that a hiarious name for her?)
*Joy calmed the family members when they went ballistic over at the news of her and Griffin's separation.
* Joy was the constant conciliatory influence in their arriage all along.
Griffin was not there for her when she was pregnant. All he could think of were his mother's words "Now she's got her way".
*In January of the year when Griffin's mother was in hospice care, Joy had offered to come to see her. Typically, Griffin had not accept the offer even though he desperately wanted to. That is perverse, I believe.
AND it invites a comparison with what happend on the last evening during the "Summer of the Brownings". Even though he 12-year old Jack wanted nothing more than to have dinner with the Brownings, he invented the lie of dinner with his parents, both seriously discomfited as a result. A deliberate, even perverse fabrication. I do not believe this is 'part of the 'adolescent growing up process', but rather that it is a trait. We see it in this story time and again.
Sally, you've perfectly expressed my take on Tommy and Griffin; I see no need to repeat a single word. My apologies for not getting back earlier to your question of where we are at this point.
We are still talking about Chapter 9, titled Rehearsal, It is a particularly complex chapter with multiple flashbacks. It begins with Griffin's drive to Maine for his daughter's wedding and ends with the almost slapstick events after the reception.
Though pages may differ in printings, I believe, and would certainly hope !, the content of the chapters is the same.
I've been sitting here for some time summarizing what all transpires in this complex and, rereading it, realize it is too long. So I'm editing as I go over it.
The first paragraph of Chapter 9 is a lyrical ode to Maine. where Griffin is headed for Laura's wedding.
Soon there's a flashback informing the reader of the separation, Griffin's move to L.A., and the failure of the cable TV movie venture.
Flashback within flashback[/color]: Call from 'buddy" Gladys informing Griffin of his mother's hospitalization. Flight to Indiana; awkward parting curbside between him and Tommy.
[Contemporary story line: Griffin's arrival at the Hedges resort; talk with Joy; her expressed wish for a civilized party; her gentle offer to help with the bill for Laura's wedding if needed. She knows that his assignments have been few and far between since he and Tommy were fired.
Flashback: mention of Griffin's trips from L.A. to Indiana; major transitions between mother's hospital; rehab; return home with hospice volunteers; finally to the hospice wing of the hospitalwith full nursing.
Flashback: :Sources of income, poor: in January a couple of film-school classes, adjunct status; a quickie dialogue rewrite. On his own. Since Griffin moved out of Tommy's apartment, little contact. Occasional drinks, always an early night.
From the book, "Griffin knew his old friend was at a loss to understand why Griffin didn't just tuck his tail between his legs and go home and beg Joy's forgiveness, as husbands do in his circumstances, if they had any brains.
'You want to end up alone?' he asked one night. 'Is that it?' No. But Griffin was hard-pressed to articulate what it was, exactly.
[/i]
Contemporary story line.
"I don't want any embarrassment for Laura," Joy was saying.
And there was Laura. "Daddy", his daughter said, choking on the word, and Griffin was incapable of the slightest utterance." [/i]
Next father-daughter walked through the dense maze of the Hedges resort. Laura is understandably emotional, and says at one point that she's thought a lot of Grandma lately. Why, Griffin asks.
"Seeing her there last December," Laura answers, "all the tubes and the oxygen. She looked so tiny and wasted away."
Flashback on a particularly bad day for his mother, Griffin found a woman sitting at her narrow bedside her back to the door. She'd never had visitors other than him.
"Joy, he thought, and felt some ice dam in his heart break apart at the possibiity."
It was Laura. She had only one hour, and his mother said she wanted to be alone with her.
Flashback within a flashback. His mother's brief visit when Laura was a few months old and spit up in her.
Her interest -- until it came time for Laura to choose a college. When mother planned the Grand American Colege Tour. And Griffin exploded.
" You have to apologize", Joy said. He did not.
Contemporary. .Laura tells Griffin what she and his mother talked about.
Return to the festivities.
Everyone seemed to be at their best behavior. At first. Greeting Harve and Dot. A menacing greeting of Jason, or is it Jared? (One of them had threatened Griffin with bodily harm months before.)
And, Joy has brought a guest (!) . Brian Fynch, dean of admissions at the college.
Griffin is instantly jealous, suspicious, paranoid, a reader might think. Dubs him Ringo, thinks the man is a putz.
Some guests linger, adults and children, and engage in a volleyball game. There's a budding 7-year old bully; Harve is momentarily unattended, drives off the handicap ramp, loses control and ends up in the yew hedge. Griffin tries to come to his aid and is punched out by Jared or Jason.
No retelling could do justice to the story and the way it is told.
There are two more chapters left: Chapter 10, Pistolary, and Chapter 11, Plumb Some - 54 pages, and a lot more pertinent information. I'll review and discus them last with you, and there will be time for you to add your own reflections.
Many thanks to all of you and your valuable, wonderful posts. It's too late for further comments posts, but tomorrow is another day!
