That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo ~ November Book Club Online

[ginny]

That Old Cape Magic          by Richard  Russo

From Bookmarks magazine:
Following Bridge of Sighs—a national best seller hailed by The Boston Globe as “an astounding achievement” and “a masterpiece”—Richard Russo gives us the story of a marriage, and of all the other ties that bind, from parents and in-laws to children and the promises of youth.
 The storytelling is flawless throughout, moments of great comedy and even hilarity alternating with others of rueful understanding and heart-stopping sadness, and its ending is at once surprising, uplifting and unlike anything this Pulitzer Prize winner has ever written.


From The Washington Post
Every year, Jack Griffin's parents would drive from the Midwest, where they were both unhappy-to-miserable college professors, to spend two weeks in a rented cottage somewhere on the beautiful island of Cape Cod, Mass., and as they crossed the Sagamore Bridge they would, as if on cue, begin to sing "That Old Cape Magic," their altered version of "That Old Black Magic."

Questions for Chapters 1 - 3

1. What were your first thoughts as you began reading this book?
Is it different in some way from what you might have expected - less sunny, despite the glorious ambiance - more serious?

2. After reading the first three chapters (52 pages), what is your impression of Griffin, the narrator?
He does acknowledge his "petulance" in the very first paragraph of Chapter One  but seems reluctant to apologize to Joy, his wife. 

3. Do you think the appearance of Griffin's mother in the first chapter, "A Finer Place", is essential  by way  of an explanation (if one were neded)  for Griffin's behavior?

4. Were you amused or appalled reading Griffin's revelations of his parents' professional and personal lives?

Discussion Leader: Traude 

[ginny]

What interesting posts here and points of view.

I had been on SeniorNet about 11 years before, I think it was during the Edith Whaton discussion, I learned that in the mid west there IS some resentment about the snobbishness of the East. I had never heard of it, but I'm from the East Coast. This book really slams it, over and over, doesn't it?

But I think Salan is right and snobbishness has no geographical divide.

Traude asks if we are in the US, a classless society? I think we're a money made society. Anybody who reads the  Astor book: Regrets, Mrs. Astor, learns who the  Astor 100 were  and how they got there.

Speaking of being an ambassador, the book also reveals that Richard Nixon set the price of an ambassadorship at $250,000. That seems clear. The old robber barons because of their money formed the upper crust in this country ...before taxes.

Alas Jack Griffin and his wife (like Jane I can barely think of her as Mary or human) are way out of that and how did they expect to be there in the first place on a substantial yet middle class professor's salary?  I keep coming back to what they seek, Traude thought maybe happiness, I am wondering why they thought it would come from a prestigious appointment to a NE university? Why the NE? Countrymm has explained about the prestigious East Coast universities, but there are others.   Reminds me of Frost and "he will not go beyond his fathers saying..." The characters are stuck. Can they break out? Apparently not in his parents' case,  too late for dad. Not too late for mom, is she tryiing? or not?

I like this quote:

4.  I think a man of substance is one who can rise above his circumstances and quit blaming someone else for his problems.

So who is of substance here, really? I can't figure out who the mother blames for her problems, but it's clear her problems seem to ruin everybody's lives.

All these characters seem to lack the ability to make something bright, or right, tho they keep tryiing in strange ways, the parents with the Cape, Jack with his childhood friendship and then his screen writing (what's so bad about that?), Joy despite her name puts a damper on his efforts to be bright, he's a Man of Constant  Sorrows, but he wants....at least to me, when this opens....out.

I think the reader keeps reading to find out if he does. He's having his own Mid Life Crisis. Or is he?

[Babi]

 I think it was just the single syllable names, (Jane,June,Joy) that
bothered me. It made them sound like clones, for some reason. I would not have been bothered by a Judith, Joy, Jenny for example. It must be a personal quirk.
  Thanks for that insight into a Massachusetts bred family, COUNTRYMM.
That helps considerably. I can understand the Griffins a bit better now.

  I, too, was one of two children with a large, congenial extended family
who really enjoyed getting together. Which of course makes the Griffin
mater and pater all the more horrendous to me.

Just like his mother's,  who kept tabs on the father long after they were divorced,  continuing  a virtual embrace that suffocated them both?

Traude
That reminds me of this ref. to Jack’s mother …”But there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about  it, which she determined, according to Griffin’s father, by trying really, really hard.” I did find that line funny, just like the episode of the packed suitcase.
 

[ginny]

As far as the depressing aspect of the book, I think, just like in the Rabbit books, Russo here is writing about Everyman Turning 60 in 2009. It may not be the Everyman we know, but nobody can deny they are out there, like Rabbit Angstrom, THE single most depressing book I ever read. Rabbitt and its successor both won Pulitzers,so somebody else out there recognizes the disaffected man, in Rabbit's case, much younger.

  Our hero here and his family embody Updikes:   "The heart prefers to move against the grain of circumstance; perversity is the soul's very life." (from Assorted Prose, 1965)

[bellamarie]

straudetwo

...."When reading a book it has never occurred to me to take the characters or their actions and compare them to my own life.  Why get all worked up, especially if there are significant dissimilarities?
And why, Bellamarie, would one refuse to visit the site described in a book, simply because a couple of characters (notably Griffin's parents) acts reprehensibly?

You may have misunderstood me when I said I pause in visiting the Cape if it is as this book and others have stated to be a snobbish place of the rich and elite.  I have always longed to go to the Cape with anticipation of it being a beautiful place where people are friendly and welcoming.  The Brownings in Ch. 4 sure are the type of people I would like to encounter when visiting any place.  Warm, friendly and inviting.  I can't imagine anyone reading a book and not finding themselves somewhat identifying with one of the characters or knowing someone that comes close to the characteristics of a character.  I am a wrtier and I take life experiences from not only my own personal life, but others I have known and yes even from books and movies I have found to be interesting when creating a story.  I am sensing by hearing from those who have previously read Russo, he may like wise be drawing from what he knows best, his own personal life experiences.  

pedln...Yes, when you are on the other end it does rankle......  I LOVE it, "Go park your car."  lol

Straudetwo....I too detest the "F" word.  My sisters use profanity in their everyday speaking and it has and always will seem unnecesary.

I have more questions as to the actions of these characters.  If Joy's life was normal and happy, why does she seem to give in to Grifin's choices?  Your honeymoon is such a special time of your beginning of  married life, how could she agree wiith Truro when she clearly would have liked someplace else? Ok, on to the next chapters with hope of lighter less depressing reading.  

[jane]

Your honeymoon is such a special time of your beginning of  married life, how could she agree wiith Truro when she clearly would have liked someplace else?

If they each wanted to go to a different spot, then one of them is going to have to give in. Joy did.  Jack has admitted he's persuasive with language and as a young wife, Joy may have been susceptible to that.

I, too,  identify with a book or characters when I have something to relate the characters or plot to.  It is, I believe, one of the reasons I don't like fantasy or science fiction. I can't relate to those "environments/characters" and so they have no appeal to me.

I also think we all tend to behave/relate, at least in the early years of our lives, based up how we were raised, our own backgrounds, the people we've known as we grew up, the situations we've faced.   As our experiences grow, we grow in attitude and outlook.  Jack, to me, was raised in what I find such a bizarre world that it's a wonder he is, to me, as "normal" as he appears to be.  Until he met Joy, he appears to have been emotionally deprived.

The Brownings appear to be the only "normal" family Jack ever encountered. Apparently the yearly moves his parents made, their absolute total egocentric personalities must have meant he had no friendships/pals when he was growing up in Indiana and what a sad life for a child to endure.

jane

[PatH]

The decision to spend the honeymoon at Truro is important.  It was the couple's first power struggle.  Maine was powerfully symbolic to Joy, and Truro Was powerfully symbolic to Griffin.  He gets his way, then thinks he's made a mistake, symbolically opting for his parents' dysfunction rather than Joy's loving family style.

Griffin seems to be good at getting his way then regretting it.

[PatH]

Someone asked if the Cape was a character in the book.  I'd say definitely yes, though I'm not sure yet whether good or evil.  I've read other books in which places are characters of sorts; Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca" and E. M. Forster's "Howard's End" come to mind.  In "Howard's End", I came to the conclusion that the house was the strongest character in the book.

[bellamarie]

PatH..I so agree with you that a place or thing in stories can be a character as well as a person. As far as the decision to honeymoon in Truro rather than Maine being a power struggle, I am not sure I got the feeling there was much struggle in the decision.  It appears so far to me, that Joy seems to go along even though it's not what she wants.  Like the fact Griffin drives to the Cape by himself, rather she ask he wait for her to go together, then later she makes the point of how silly it was they drove separately.  Griffin is spoiled and wants his own way, just like his parents, regardless if in getting what he wants ends up making him unhappy.  Guess its like the saying, "Be careful what you wish for."  

He seems so unemotional, and unattached to his so called friend, parents, wife and daughter.  And why would the daughter anticipate hearing they would divorce all through her childhood?  I've always felt that unhappy people, never are glad when they see others happy.  I feel Griffin is egocentric, the same as his parents.  They loathed children...well,  I loathed people like them.  

[straudetwo]

"The first struggle", exactly, PatH.   Surely there were other occasions where Griffin insisted,
or finagled, and won.  Yes, that first struggle is iportant; it was the opening salvo!
In the flashbacks we are given hints, we can read between the lines, for example when Griffin questioned why they would have to spend all holidays with Joy's parents. We can ihear him grumbling.  Did he want all of Joy's attention for himself ? Was he envious that she had such a good relationship with the parents and siblings?  He admitted to being petulant on the very first page of the story, and from what he shows us we can infer a great deal more. I believe he was "queribundus", a complainer, like his mother.

The first years seem to have been happy. Not all assignments were lucrative, but they made a good living, though not enough to afford to buy a house in LA. They didn't save toward any such goal.
They enjoyed their busy social life. They moved frequently -, to be closer to the ocean or closer to work, or for  more amenities.  They popped iover to Mexico when they felt like it. All in all, as Griffin realized eventually, it was the same nomadic existence his parents had led.

They were  childless and pushing thirty. What Joy wanted was a house, a home, a nest;  all nurturing women's first instinct.  Griffin had promised that she would have her "dream house" (= the great Truro accord"), that he would eventually begin "real" writing, and be the writer she and he thought he could be.   Promises, promises ...

During a writers' strike Griffin did compose a novella of sorts, which became Chapter 4 in this book, "but it just wasn't very good".  Nothing changed, except that they had Laura, and they loved her. Raised in the heady atmosphere of the film world, Laura was a sensitive child who worried that they might divorce, like the parents of several classmates of hers had.  After every disagreement, Joy and Griffin had to reassure Laura  anew  that all was well, they loved each other,  they were a family.

So why then, some twenty years later, is Griffin  driving from Boston to the Cape alone?
He has been teaching film writing in Connecticut. The semester is over.  Why isn't Joy with him?

Because Joy has been working in the dean's office at the same university, and one more meeting to attend. (Interesting, isn't it? Could this have been a sort of emancipation?  She who did not go to graduate school but had always worked cheerfully?)
Grumpy Griffin was already annoyed that Kelsey's wedding on Cape Cod had  "royally screwed up" his  plans to spend some vacation time in New York.  He was further unhappy about having to wait an extra day for Joy to join him. It did not escape her notice.

So she suggested that he drive on  to Boston alone and spend a "boys' night" there; she'd follow the next day in her car.  He said he would.  Remembering this now on his drive to the Cape he thought he might have changed his ind if Joy had asked him to reconsider and wait for her there. She made no such effort.

Why was he offended?  Wasn't he the clod?

Yes, this book is easy to read on the face of it, but flashbacks and contemporary reporting do mesh and sometimes overlap so that a detail here or there does not fully register. And then I need to recheck thr sequence of events.

Ginny, I too have a problem thinking of this hypercritical monster as "Mary".  (All names are deliberately chosen, I think.)  She inflicted much greater harm on the son than the father did (weak, ineffectual, vain, impractical and unobservant).  Jack's temperament is more like this mother's than his father. But how has his father's death on the Massachusetts Turnpike really affected the son?   That when his insomnia began.  Whyhas Griffin been carrying his father's ashes around in his car for alost a year?

What did the mother want? My guess is:  attention, academic renown, admiration. I don't think she was searching for happiness, but she may have associated a version of happiness or contentedness with the annual visits to Cape Cod. An ambitious plan, no permanence.  Perhaps they didn't try hard enough Whatever it is she wanted, she went about it the wrong way, I believe. A tiny bit of humility would have done wonders.

The ultimate irony has got to be the title of the book That Old Cape Magic, and her mocking change of the one word in the popular song. There was no magic for them on the Cape.  There are no fairies.  They never understood. Each trip began with high hopes and boisterous singing. On the trip back, thee was silence and the feeling of dejection.

I love to look at real estate guides (and building plans too). Local editions are a little thin hese day.  What is absurd IMHO is the couple's obsession: the contrivances they go through to make sure that one doesn't  get to read it before the other does. How infantile!  This was more like an ongoing competition between combatants  for the upper hand than  like a marriage.

When we relate to a book and to characters, of course we make connections. So much the better.  I personally  am more interested in analyzing this book but find little to compare with my own life, which has been very different.
Now I'm anxious to carefully explore whether and how the son is going to extricate himself from the mess his life has become.  After all, there is always hope.
Your participation and comments are greatly appreciated.

[serenesheila]

When parents are emotionally uinavailable, if there are loving, caring relatives, or others, in a child's life, it helps.  In my case, I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandparents.  They literally saved me, emotionally.  In reading Chapter 4, I think that is what the Browning family did for Jack.  I found myself wishing that they would take him home with them.

I also understand how only children, often cannot understand family dynamics, when with large families.  I never experienced family banter.  Even with my own four childten.  

I felt increased sadness when Jack begged his parents to put down deposits, for the following summer, and they refused.  How sad, that they were not willing to do that for their only child.  Jack found something with Peter, that he had never before experienced.  Closeness and understanding.  Someone who really listened to him.  What gifts, in two, short weeks.

Then, when his parents refused the last night's invitation ftom the Btownings, more hurt.  How hurtful it must have been to then, havie his parents change their plans for their last night, from a good restaurant, to one that none of them  enjoyed.

Sad. too, that Jack knew his parents would refuse the Browning's invitation.  Even though he was seldom included in his parent's plans, he lied that his family had reservations at a fancy restaurant.  Then, even that didn't happen for him.

Sheila  

[Babi]

'Griffin seems to be good at getting his way then regretting it.'

Oh, PAT, that is an excellent observation. Now that you state it, I
can see it so plainly.

 I remember having a discussion about a locale as a 'character' back on
SeniorNet. I still don't see it, myself. To me a character is
quintessentially a person/personality. I will include animals in that
latter category, but not a landscape! A place can hold memories and
arouse feelings, but it's not a personality.

"Why was he offended?  Wasn't he the clod?"

Oh, absolutely, TRAUDE. And aren't we human beings adept at shifting the blame to ease our own consciences?

  What it must be like to be the child of a couple who do not like kids  and find their own a serious inconvenience,  to be kept out of the way as much as possible.  Their childcare is described in Jack’s attempt to write to write “The Summer of the Brownings”.  We meet Jack’s friend Tommy, who reads the story and refers to the fictional couple  as “those asshole parents”.  I can't remember...how did Griffin react to
that assessment. Did he react at all?

[Gumtree]

Jane: I knew you were a girl after my own heart - I don't care for fantasy or sci-fi either. I don't need to relate to the characters in a novel and really prefer to read books in which the characterisations are totally unfamiliar to me and situations which are totally outside my own experience. Such reading has broadened my outlook enormously over many years. But having said that, I always think that the fantasy and sci-fi writers who have something to say could just as readily say it without inventing scenarios that stretch too far beyond any kind of reality.

PatH Your comment about Howard's End being the strongest character in the book is absolutely spot-on. I thought it was brilliant of Forster to so name the book. And yes, places can be all pervading in a novel -  either drawing characters in or repelling them as the case may be, influencing the events, showing many moods just as people do - a place can be as palpable as a person. In this novel though, I think Cape Cod is an idea, perhaps the impossible dream both for Griffin and for his parents. It promises so much but apparently  never delivers.

Bellamarie I agree that on the surface Joy goes along with Griffin - as in the honeymoon destination - but I really think, at least to some extent, she is the one in the driving seat. I think Joy is the one who wants to settle down and have the children -well, Laura anyway. She's able to get Griffin to convince himself that he'd be better off working in academe rather than continuing in the movie writing business in LA. I can't work out just why they (and Griffin's parents too), are unable to save for their future home - especially as Jack seems to be making plenty of money with Tommy and the scripts. What holds them back from some basic financial planning? 


 

[ALF43]

Having just returned this afternoon from a 3 day trip with friends, I can not possibly comment on each one of your posts but allow me to say that I have enjoyed reading them much more so than the reading of this oppresive novel.

How can Russo write of so many abrasive, hurtful people in these first few chapters?
 I do not even know where to begin.  I keep shaking my head and saying "you've got to be kidding!"
 I cannot tolerate those parents.  Sorry, but Jane is right, they do not even deserve that title giving absolutely no devotion, fondness or supportive role to their son.  
No wonder the guy is a clod.  Who could ever survive that churning, festering hostility and remain a "nice guy?"
  Yes, Ginny,  that is definetly passive-aggressive behavior in its highest form.
These people are a walking advertisement for celibacy or even birth control.  
History repeats itself and even our protaganist is aware that he cannot entirely escape his genetic makeup.  I am hoping that as he begins to realize how much like his parents he truly is, he will take pause and perhaps alter his noxious behavior.

Why has he carried his father's urn in the trunk of his car for nearly a year ?  There's something macabre about this, I believe, and unfunny.

So far I have not experienced anything funny- funny, comical or humorous NO.
Funny as in odd and peculiar I will agree there is plenty of that.

[ALF43]

I believe he is not ready to let his father "go."  He has unresolved isssues and knows that somehow his father is part of the answers he's looking for. 
He remains as grim and haggard now as his father was in life.  He's had insomnia since first hearing of his father's death.  Why has this stressed him out so much?
 
They are all so insipid and vapid, aren't they?

I shall return.  I love it that we have so many varied opinions here.  I'd like to muster up some sympathy for him but find his ordeal at camp the only thing that I can respond to with sensitivity.

[straudetwo]

Sheila,  
the term  "emotionally unavailable" is perfect in all it encompasses.  
Clearly, Jack hasn't come to terms with certain bitter memories - or else we wouldn't have these revelations.  I know such memories linger.
 
I've told my son and daughter that I would always be willing to listen to anything they wanted or needed to talk about. The willingness is quintessential.

Let's look at the chapter about the summer with the Brownings.  After an initial uncertainty, Jack's parents allowed Jack to go to the beach early in the morning. They wanted to linger over breakfast and were in no hurry to go to the beach.  They were relieved to send him off,   keeping strictly to themselves reading books they wouldn't admit to their colleagues they'd ever heard off.  Hahaha

What exactly happened on the Griffins' last day?See pages 60-61.

The Brownings had invited him for supper.  He wanted desperately to accept the invitation. What made Jack  tell Peter instead that "he and his parents were going out for a fancy dinner at the Blue Martini?
It was very expensive, he said, but his parents had promised him he could order whatever he wanted, no matter the cost, so he'd have to say no to the hamburgers.  The look of disappointment on his friend's face provided a kind of bitter satisfaction."
It was also a lie.

Jack's parents were surprised and annoyed when he told them. They had planned to go out, but only the two of them.  "Why?" asked his mother. "Why must you be like this?" That's when his mother repeatedly referred to "Steven" and Jack shouted "His name is Peter!"

His father canceled the reservation at the Blue Martini.  They went to a family seafood place where they ate at a weathered picnic table, their dinners served on paper boats.

"I loathe friend seafood",  his mother said, pushing her scallops away.
"This is not what I had in mind either," his father said.

"We could have gone to the Blue Martini anyway," his mother said.
"Yeah, but what would be the point?"

Why did Jack inflict this hurt on himself?

Babi, yes,  Jack acts like an ill-tempered, dithering, unsympathetic malcontent and, oh so self-righteous! Every word has the sharpness of a razor.  

Alf,  the parents are despicable, unbelievable, I think we all agree.  And how can be possibly try to like the son?

** Isn't it curious that he tells his story in the third person using his last name?
** Call me suspicious,  but let's not forget that  he is the narrator.  We see the characters as he describes and quotes them to us.  
** Can we rely  on him?  
Are Joy's parents as dull and one-dimensional as he makes them seem?  

** Is this story too easy and perhaps deceptively simple?  Is there more yet to be revealed?
** Some of you don't seem to care for  the character of Joy.  

Hasn't she been an anchor for him all these years?
She planned and supervised the restoration of their dream house in Connecticut; she dealt with the contractors when they redecorated one room at a time.  That would reqire a more steely determination  than in Griffin has shown so far, wouldn't you say?  

The more I reread the more convinced I am that large swatches of this story are autobiographical.  But never mind that.  True, the story and the subject matter is perhaps unknown territory for us,  but I believe there are families like this, living side by side for years,  just going through the motions, but miles apart emotionally,  at cross purposes, as it were. Yes, there is a great deal of sadness in this book.
But in my own circle of friends and acquaintances there have been unanticipated estrangements and separations - so that sadness has touched me.

Alf, some scenes are comic and it's easy to see that they could be translated to the big screen word for word!! Which reminds me:  I've heard talk of a movie  of tis story, and Susan Sarandon's name has been mentioned. I kid ou not.  
Will try and check it out.

More comments tomorrow.  

[ALF43]

I was raised with an emotionally detached mother and this story annoyed me.  As an adult, I came to understand my mother's underlying problem but as a kid--- well that little girl in me still peeks out when I relive some of those days.  

Traude- you're right- I did see humor scattered throughout.  After all the author took note of my life re. America's skewed values.
 
1.  "whereby critical-care nurses were paid less than suprmarket butchers."  
Oh yes, I've presented that argument numerous times.

2.  Griffen discusses his students and says "their politics were mostly liberal, like their parents."

3.  Jane and June (Joy's sisters) lived nearby and visited their parents frequently, on purpose, if you could imagine that- and their children.
Now, THAT is funny.  He just doesn't get it, the poor guy.  Let's view him as a victim and perhaps we can see past his foibles.

The Summer of the Brownings is heart wrenching.  Here is this little boy who literally falls in love with the family he will never call his own. Does his love at age 12 for the kind Mrs. Browning perhaps have an Oedipel reference?  He certainly will never harbor those feelings for his own "mother."

[Babi]

** Call me suspicious,  but let's not forget that  he is the narrator.  We see the characters as he describes and quotes them to us". 

  I'm glad you made that point, TRAUDE. In Ch. 7,  Mother Griffin gives
her version of the summer of the Brownings and it is quite different from Jacks.  Is she remembering to suit herself, or is it Jack’s memory that is faulty? Has he developed a mindset toward his parents that does not permit him to remember anything good about them?
  Everything he says may be filtered, but it's surely not outright lies.
For example, his mother was a tough teacher.  That can be good; I found that tough teachers usually were the best teachers.  However, she compares the notes (few) sent by her ex-students to the “moronic screeds (often beginning, “Yo, Prof Griff”)  his father's former athletes sometimes sent him”
 From that and other examples, her designation as a “bitch on wheels”  seems to be accurate enough.


 

[ALF43]

What exactly is a screed? 
I had marked it but I could not find it in my Miriam Webster.

[straudetwo]

Thank you for your great answers.  I'll get to them in detal the afternoon. Am about to run out to another appointment. It's   "maintenance/overhaul" time at the dentist, the eye doctor, the dermatologist, etc. etc.

So only very quickly,  Alf, a screed is either a long speech or a poorly focused  piece of writing.
The addition of "moronic" is a further indication that the students' work was below par.

[ALF43]

Thank you Traude for answering that question.  hmmmm- I love new words.  A SCREED is
either a long speech or a poorly focused  piece of writing.  Well perhaps the student's work was below THEIR idea of what "par" constitutes in a piece of writing.  

Imagine- being so careless with a student's paper that you could LOSE it and run about a neighborhood in order to retrieve it.

I do love this:  Some stories, even ones buried deep in memory and subconscious, had a way of burrowing up into the light, of demanding conscious attention, until you had little choice but to write them.  

In his story, while taking long walks on the beach with his friend, "he strayed so far their parents became tiny specks among the dunes before disappearing altogether, leaving them alone and content in the world...."
That is so very sad to me that this kid just wanted to vanish, cease to exist in his own family.
I hope to hell this isn't autobiographical or this guy Russo will be in therapy for the rest of his life.  Who knows, maybe this writing could help purge his soul.

So sad.  Hey!  What's the deal with the Browning's daughter?  The girl whose name Griffen could not remember- only that there was something "not right" about her?  Will we ever find out?  if not, why is the mention of her even pertinent in the story?

[PatH]

Another funny bit, at the end of Griffin's apology to Joy over going down in separate cars:

"I hope you aren't waiting for me to humble myself further, because that's all I've got for you."
"No", she said. "That should do it."

[pedln]

I've read ahead, so am somewhat hesitant about posting, for fear of spilling the beans.  This afternoon my f2f group met to discuss Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard.  There were many comments about the bad parenting in that book, so of course, I had to tell them they had seen nothing, yet.

The Browning chapter, so sad.  The Griffins were so blatently rude, making a point of not noticing the family on the beach, going off in the other direction without saying boo.  Poor Jack, how humiliating for him. 

What made Jack  tell Peter instead that "he and his parents were going out for a fancy dinner at the Blue Martini?

Traude.

This poor kid (and I'm looking at him as a victim, Andy) has  finally found some way to control his destiny or whatever. He's never been able to do that.  But now he can muck up his parents' plans, and at the same time have an effect on his new best friend -- he disappoints him.  Not that he really wants to, but it's the only way he can have a little power.

[salan]

I think the story would have been much different if told from Joy's point of view or even from the way his mother remembered it.  Recently, I have been writing some memoirs and after talking to 2 of my sisters I realized that we looked at certain incidents in an entirely different way.  It really made me stop and think.  How true are our memories?  The same tale told from different points of view---sounds like it might make an interesting book........
Sally

[ginny]

I agree, and that brings up the question who do  you trust in this thing and Traude's reliable narrator question, quite a difference when "mom" chimes  in, but what really happened?

This is a very effective technique of the author's, letting different points of view creep in, just enough to make us wonder, wait here...wait.

Poignant childhood memories of the Brownings, and the last night, are they also true?

Russo here has done a great job with the only child who has nobody to bounce off of but his two disaffected, self centered, and, in the case of the mother,  extremely critical parent examples.  I don't think we should be too hard on Jack here, because in real life the same result happens more than we'd like to think. Russo just has Jack reveal his feelings when another would not, in "real life,"  an only child in this situation would probably stifle and the result of this "parenting" which is a lot more common than you'd think,  comes out in other ways.

Funny how he ended up emulating their choice of profession. But he may want out.

Consider Tony Marshall (son of Brooke Astor) and his totally dysfunctional saga and end.


Jack seems to keep going, to me. He is TRYING to do something, he's paying out of his own pocket for his mother's continuing care, and he takes her calls.

They recommend, or so I've been told, in the case of distant or abusive parents, that the grown child address them, even if it has to be in the cemetery, and get out all the past hurts, clear the air so to speak.

Griffin is carrying around his father in the trunk, and his mother on the cell phone. He could dump the ashes in the landfill but he doesn't, as Andrea said, what's the deal here? He could stop taking mom's calls, he certainly doesn't have to help her financially, does she appreciate it?

Does she make a demarcation between her you remember what a book is and her personal relationship with him? How does she see those comments? For his own good? Hers?   Her life must be a hell in that place she lives since she's better than anybody there. I guess she's the "professor," working on her book, she's not dead yet, and the other people....where IS she? Where has she settled for good?

I need to go reread that, and possibly a lot more, as a lot of it, since I took no notes, is blurring, but the one thing standing out for me is his burdened life.


We all seem to see Joy (do we?) as functional, yet she seems to me for all her big loving family background  to be less understanding of his own needs, than she might be: what IS so bad about screenwriting? What's the issue there? That he shuts her out?

What's her attitude toward MOM?

Where are we now in the book?  I don't want to go too far like Pedln but am not sure what chapter we can go up to? Have we moved beyond the Brownings?  I can't give this segment any purchase, it's one summer for how many weeks?  This should not and would not be a major event for most people, why is he and why are we dwelling on it? Because it's there? Why IS it there?

 It's almost like Jack is presenting his evidence for the trial of his parents to US, the reader, wanting to be heard, at last.

Yes it's sad, yes it was an unpleasant incident, so?

This is the last time I discuss a book with no notes and I'll make some this weekend, where are we up to?


Like his parents, like we've said about our teen ambitions in the North East, he needs to grow up. I think that's what this is about.  And when he does grow up emotionally, the issue is where will he stand? And with whom?

Why is he going to the wedding of his daughter's friend, by the way? Would you, with all he's got going on? This is incongruous, to me.

As to why he could not wait for Joy, I see that as the beginning crack in his breaking out of the chrysalis stage (I probably have that backwards), he's going to emerge from the shell (to mix metaphors) into who he is. Will we like him?

Will Joy?

Will his mother?

Will anybody?

Will he care?

Freedom at last, will he like it?

[Babi]

"Recently, I have been writing some memoirs and after talking to 2 of my sisters I realized that we looked at certain incidents in an entirely different way."

 
  SALLY, that is so true. There are incidents I thought were stressful for
my kids, that they hardly remember or took in stride. And vice versa. It's not that anyone's memory is necessarily faulty, it's just the way they perceived it. No wonder eye-witness information can be so flawed.
  Mom is now living in an assisted-living facility, which “were ‘table seventeens’ for the elderly, where virtual strangers were thrust into proximity by neither affection nor blood nor common interest, only by circumstance: age and declining health”.  A grim picture, especially for a person who has always regarded most others as ’those people’, with whom one does not associate by choice.
    Even worse, IMO, is a nursing home where even one’s room must be shared with a stranger and one’s living space consists of  a bed, a bedside table, perhaps a chair, and half a small room. I think there must be few who would actually be content, much less happy, in such a situation. 'Mom' does not know how fortunate she is, but then she never did. People do not change as they grow old, they simply become 'more so'.

[bellamarie]

Oh my, I miss a day or so and look at all the posts!  I don't have the time to go over each of them now, but I promise I will.

I have to say I was so darn fed up with this book I decided to take yesterday and finish it.  I figured it can't get any worse and I certainly was not even hoping or expecting a fairytale ending to this mess.  I won't spoil the ending for those who have not finished the book, but I will say this.....Richard Russo is not an author I would ever choose to read again.  From the prior posts, from those who have read his other books, and from my own conclusion, Russo sounds like he could use anti depressants before, during and after he decides to write.  lol  I sure felt like I could use a Zoloft after reading the first few chapters of this book.

He was just way too far out there in so many areas I just kept wanting to put the book down or throw it across the room.  I have never read a more frustrating book in my life!  I felt he went to extremes that made me go HUH???....I just refuse to beleive this.

I am the second to the youngest of seven children in my family and when my Mom died we all got together going through her personal things and was sharing memories, and then we had the project of remodeling a house in the estate which we lived in for a short time in our childhood in order to sell it and settle the estate.  Oh the different stories and memories we all had were astounding.  Each and every one of us had different takes on things that happened.  Evey person's memory is their own personal experience.  If it made you happy, you see it in a different light, then if it made a sister or brother unhappy.  Griffin not having any siblings gives a one sided view of everything.  It would have been nice to have had the input from others, such as his Mom, Dad, Peter, Joy, Laura, etc. as we read each of Griffin's memories.  As a child there are monsters under your bed, your parents are MEAN as my 4 and 7 yr old grand daughters say daily about their Mom and Dad when they don't get their own way, and Santa really does ride in a sleigh drawn by reindeer to bring their toys on Christmas Eve.  So, how much is real or over dramatized since Griffin is the only source to draw from?

[bellamarie]

What made Jack  tell Peter instead that "he and his parents were going out for a fancy dinner at the Blue Martini?

Traude.

pedln..This poor kid (and I'm looking at him as a victim, Andy) has  finally found some way to control his destiny or whatever. He's never been able to do that.  But now he can muck up his parents' plans, and at the same time have an effect on his new best friend -- he disappoints him.  Not that he really wants to, but it's the only way he can have a little power.

Hmmm...this is an interesting take on Griffin's thoughts and actions.  I didn't see him as a victim in this scene.  He single handedly decided to mess up everyone's plans and enjoyed every minute of it.  I saw this as a very selfish act, just like many children act out in this way, when they just decide they want the control and attention.  Just like when he decided to leave and travel by himself instead of wait for Joy to go with him.  He is so full of himself, he denies himself and others of the happiness it would bring them.  Russo is showing us that Griffin as much as he wants people and happiness in his life, sabotages it and causes himself and others pain and misery.  Chasing the elusive dream generally leaves you feeling empty, lost, lonely and hurt.  It's kind of like the saying, "It's right in front of your face, you just need to reach out and take it."  He had this wonderful family who genuinely liked him, a first best buddy, and decides to lie and hurt them for no apparent reason, other than having the satisfaction of knowing he could.  The same behavior he displayed with Joy.  Griffin is very immature, and needs to grow up.  As a child I can understand it, as an adult, its not acceptable.   

[ALF43]

Bellemarie

I saw this as a very selfish act, just like many children act out in this way, when they just decide they want the control and attention.

Exactly!  He is just a child.  He is a child of abusive parents who until he met up with the Brownings had absolutely no sense of what we know as "family."  He's a kid who for the first time in his life became alive with comraderie, friendship and a feeling of "belonging."  
I didn't see it so much as a kid wanting to take control but more so of a kid who falsified his own existance.  
I am certain that he was saying to himself, "My mother is a bitch, my father a lazy, inept, sorry example for a boy to act in accordance with and I will never know the kindness that the Browning family has shown me, ever again."
You bet he acted out and I don't blame him one iota.
 
It was as if for the first time he viewed his young life, conceded and counted himself out, fully  realizing that he was stuck with these vile people that called themselves his parents.
I feel awful for this kid.

[bellamarie]

Alf, I totally agree with you, I feel awful for the way Griffin's  parents treated him.  They are deplorable people, IF we are to believe his memories are true. But....Griffin carried this over into his adult life to the point of hurting others, and the author admits he is aware of his actions. 

I felt from the very beginning the author over did it.  Yes, there are parents who don't want to take the time for their kids once they have them.  But...I also feel Russo made every memory Griffin has of his parents just the worst horrible possible.  Nothing good whatsoever.  Really?  Even the way they live, the disrespect for others properties, the affairs, dishonesty writing the descertation, carelessness of his father's driving, etc. etc. etc. until all of a sudden comes the search for a Christmas tree.  Again, Really??  That's why I say a child's memories of their parents and even their feelings toward them can be over dramatized in their eyes as a child and then sketchy as an adult.  Its all one dimensional....HORRIBLE parents.

For me personally, Russo just took everything over the top to the point I was not finding it trustworthy.  Maybe it was meant to be a comedy and it would explain the parents being the worst of the worst in every part of their lives.  I'm not buying this story nor am I laughing.  I don't think he drew from his own childhood, I think he drew from all the possibilities of dysfunctional families and threw it all into one book.  It's almost like the writers and producers of Jay Leno sitting around collaborating on the show, and every possible thing that could go wrong does, with each person getting more ridiculous as they go along.

I watched a movie with Dustin Hoffman called "Last Chance Harvey."  Parts of this book reminded me alot of parts of that movie.

[ALF43]

Bella-  I think that the secret is for me trying to remember it is just a NOVEL!
It makes it easier to bear.  Heck I'm always "over the top"-- so I do get that.

[jane]

I'm not seeing Jack as either immature or needing to "grow up."  I see an adult who has suffered emotional deprivation, including nurturing, as a child/teen/young adult.  I don't think anybody can survive 20+ years of that sort of life and not be affected as an adult.   There are studies which say that the first [and number varies here from 4 to 7 or 8] years of a child's life are the most important in determining the adult. His were, in my mind, severely warped...not unlike the babies left in cribs with no touching/human contact.  What human contact he had appears to have been negative and critical.

I doubt he had a choice about careers...and being a screen writer would have been "rebellious" from this parents point of view.  These are people who look down on others because they haven't gone to graduate school, for heaven's sake.  How much more shallow can these people be?

My own view is that he continues to take his mother's calls because I suspect Joy thinks he should...and he may be trying, still, to get approval/love from that "mother"...however improbable that is to me.

I thought the book far better written than most of the "stuff" that appears on the Best Seller list and I found the characters believable and credible.  They were not one dimensional, to me.

I suspect he's going to the wedding of his daughter's friend because Laura may be part of the wedding party or that the friend spent time in their home when the girls were younger.  The wedding isn't taking place far from where Jack and Joy live...and they've been invited. Their daughter will be there, and it's a chance for Jack and Joy to combine a bit of a "holiday" with the trip...going back to where they'd honeymooned.  

jane

[bellamarie]

Oh Jane I have to tell you it would take a huge leap of faith for me to believe someone as twisted as the people in this novel.  I know all the statistics, and I myself have lived through more than I care to share, but I have to say Russo is over the top here.  Griffin is truly immature, and selfish and Joy points it out as they are approaching their 30's and 40's its time for him to grow up.  Russo even has Joy's character contradictory.  She comes from a warm, loving, close knit family, yet she allows Griffin's dysfunctional family over shadow hers and deprives her and Laura of being with them for holidays.  She stays in a marriage for all these years seeing and knowing Griffin needs help and does nothing.  These are supposedly intelligent people, yet therapy or medical help is never mentioned to help Griffin deal with his father's death, overbearing mother and abusive childhood.  Like I said, REALLY?  Its like EVERYONE in the entire book accomodates Griffin and his whacko parents.  

Alf,  Yes, remembering no one could possibly be this dysfunctional other than in a movie or novel does make it bearable, just not believable for me.  I can accept this as a comedy, as I stated before.  I can truly see Russo sitting and coming up with this bizarre behavior and cracking up each time he adds more to this family's dysfunctional behavior.  Like someone mentioned early on, its like a Lampoon's comedy.  Sick and twisted.  

[jane]

 Bellamarie,  you and I will have to respectfully disagree on many aspects of the book's plot and the characters created within.  But, that's what makes a discussion interesting, isn't it?   If everyone agreed on everything, there wouldn't be anything to discuss.

jane

[ginny]

Yes, it is, and I've done nothing but think about this ever since it was written:

I'm not seeing Jack as either immature or needing to "grow up."  I see an adult who has suffered emotional deprivation, including nurturing, as a child/teen/young adult.  I don't think anybody can survive 20+ years of that sort of life and not be affected as an adult.

I keep thinking ....I keep wondering....what IS a "Midlife Crisis?" Is it when the "Sandwich Generation," caught between aging parents and children leaving the nest, have to "find themselves?" Have to come to terms with what life is versus what they hoped/ thought/ dreamed?

How we laugh at the middle aged man with his little tam o shanter and his flashy James Bond  convertible, one last gasp? Is that mature?

If we don't call this struggle to emerge as one's own person, to come to grips with life and death on his own terms "growing up," what do we call  it?

IS this what the book is really about? One man's Midlife Crisis?

I was startled at the immature thought and have spent two days thinking about it. I don't see him as immature either,  but at some point ...how does that verse go:  when I became a man I put off childish things.

What here is childish about Jack?

Nothing?

It may be that his reactions are born of his childhood, and he can't shuck them off. I think he's trying to. But I don't think he's alone. I guess the question for me is IS this a "Midlife Crisis?" CAN he be saved actually or is he doomed for good due to his upbringing, to carry this baggage literally around with him, forever?

AND if this is the case, is he really so different from the guy with the 20 year old trophy wife, the tam o shanter and the sports car?

[ginny]

I don't see Jack as any kind of strange person, Bellamarie. I think we can see who is an only child in this discussion and who is not, hahahaa

What a strange thing itself to come out of a discussion, imagine our future world with so many overseas producing only children. hahaha Oh my.

I think he's being somewhat honest, we're in his head, this is what he thinks, but even from us he's concealing, I think, his real emotions, that's why he can't sleep Andrea since his father died.

Regrets, guilt, and really in his case, not knowing what he could have or should have done, he's got no blueprint due to his upbringing.

Now he's got another chance, with his mother, that's why he takes the calls as intrusive and abusive as they are.

[jane]

Ginny... I don't know what a "midlife crisis" is from personal experience.

 [I've always guessed/ wondered if it occurred with people who'd done whatever was expected of them, without any real decisions made by themselves for themselves.  They suddenly discover, at age 40+ that "mom and dad's dream," or "doing what the others in my class are doing" or marrying this or that person because of lust or because it's what all the frat/sorority girls/classmates are doing turns out to be pretty empty and boring.  Suddenly life is passing them by and they begin to realize their own mortality.]

jane

[Babi]

 JANE, I think your view of Griffin is the most reasonable and accurate.
Sadly for many, turning 18 or 21, doesn't change the imprint of one's
earlier years.
    A major theme throughout the book has been that Jack resents the
intrusion of Joy’s parents into their marriage, while steadfastly keeping
his own parents away.  Yet, his heritage from his parents deeply defines
who he is and is definitely harming their relationship.  Most
particularly in his attitude (his parent’s attitude) toward a family
Joy loves.
  I think, Bella, that Russo doesn't understand Joy's character as well as
he does Jack's. That would explain why we see her as not acting as we would expect. I don't believe Joy would have allowed Jack to keep her away from her family. I agree, Russo is off-key here.

[Gumtree]

Mid Life Crisis I was always too busy to have a mid-life crisis and I guess its too late for me to do that now. All the same I do know people who suddenly went in a different direction or had a hiatus in their personal lives and then resumed the 'even tenor of their lives' though I could never work out quite what caused them to become dissatisfied to the point of rupturing the fabric they had built over years.

 Most of us never achieve the full realisation of our hopes and dreams but we do the best we can. Taking stock and then going on determined to change  is one thing but taking stock and then throwing everything to the winds seems so often to lead folk to a new life which in the end has just as many regrets as the life left behind. I guess the road not taken beckons too strongly for some to resist.

And how true is Babi's point that the heritage from Jack's parents has defined who he is and that it is harming his relationship with Joy. This is indeed a universal truth as to a great extent we are all defined by our past - even those who would discard aspects of their upbringing as Jack is perhaps wishing he could do.

Griffin's family is dysfunctional and Jack's behaviour and attitudes are not always admirable but I feel a great compassion for this man who has been emotionally stunted by his upbringing and who, in adulthood wants to rid himself of any connection to his parents - except that he can't quite bring himself to do so. He always takes the calls from his mother, cares for her by helping to pay for her assisted living facility and can't bring himself to dispose of his father's ashes. This man is crying out and it seems there is no one to hear him - not his mother, not his wife, not his daughter. Poor man.

[jane]

Gumtree...you've hit the nail on the head, as I view these characters/plot. 


jane