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A Big Storm Knocked it Over
I've been re-reading Laurie Colwin over the last week. I first ran into her work when my agent suggested Happy All the Time, which I liked but didn't love, especially. But I was intrigued enough to go read some more.
Yesterday evening I finished A Big Storm Knocked it Over. I was surprised to find that I liked it more this reading, although I'm not sure why. The thing about Laurie Colwin's work is this: she writes great characters in interesting settings, she puts them in relationships that intrigue me, but generally she's not much for plot. Usually I have no patience for stories that are short on story, but in Colwin's case, somehow things work for me. She's been compared to Austen, which is a bit of a stretch -- Jane loved a good story arc, after all; I'd also compare her to Anne Tyler and in a smaller way, to Elinor Lipman.
A Big Storm Knocked it Over is a story about Jane Louise Parker, a woman in her late thirties who marries for the first time just before the novel opens. She's a book designer for a small publisher; she's got a variety of coworkers who horrify, fascinate, attract and repel her by turns. There's a best friend who is a baker and cake decorator, a troubled relationship with her mother and her step-father and sister. And Teddy, her new husband, who loves her and who -- like many of us -- suffers from depression now and then. Jane Louise is a bundle of nerves: that's the story.
Where's the plot, you're asking. Answer: there really isn't one. This is a novel about the first year of the marriage, where Jane Louise struggles for footing. What does it mean to be married, to love somebody, to trust them to keep loving you? If she ever manages to get pregnant, can they possibly raise happy kids, having had so little happiness in their own childhoods? Or maybe it was the crucible of childhood (and not a very hot crucible, in her case) that made them the people they are, capable of love in the first place? Is it okay that she loves her friend Edie and Edie's partner Mokie better than she loves any of her blood relatives?
There's a lot of back and forth about the small town in the country where her husband grew up, a place she loves and fears, and the contemplation about what it would mean for her, a Jewish girl from the city, to claim such a place for her own.
Now, reading over what I just wrote I know that had I not read this novel already, I would not be terribly interested in picking it up. But I did, and I read it (twice now) and here's my conclusion: I like the main character enough to overlook the lack of a plot. I like her so much that I could imagine sitting with her on the porch and getting her whole life story -- basically what the novel provides -- and wanting more. Asking her questions about things Colwin didn't disclose in the novel, the same way I talk to my women friends over coffee.
So is this a recommendation that you go out and read Laurie Colwin? You'll have to decide for yourself. I will tell you something more about her, which I suspect may send some of you out to look for her books.
I would like to start by linking to an essay by John Edge called Remembering Laurie Colwin, but while John's website is up, the link to the essay isn't working. So here's the basic information: Colwin was a serious food person, a cook and food writer. Her cookbooks are still much in evidence and her articles in Gourmet still quoted. She had a million close friends, and I'm sorry to say I wasn't one of them because she seems to have been the kind of person I get along with well, generous and ready to laugh and family and people oriented, thoughtful and creative. But she died a good long while ago in 1992 at age 48, of a heart attack. She had a young daughter at the time and a husband. A Big Storm Knocked it Over -- her last novel -- was published posthumously.
If I knew nothing else about her, I'd read this novel simply because I feel an affinity to this woman's life and situation, and it feels like the right thing to do. I don't believe in an afterlife in the traditional sense that I was taught about in Catholic school, but I do think that if we are lucky, the good things we have done live on for a little while at least. Somewhere out there Laurie has a daughter, and I hope she's happy and healthy and rejoices in the memory of her loving mother. Laurie also left behind five novels, including this one, which she never saw in print.
Now you're wondering why this second book cover. John Edge was a good friend of Laurie's (and in spite of the fact that I can't get to his essay about Laurie), so here's a shot of his most recent cookbook, which I adore. Not the cookbook -- which I haven't read yet -- but the cover art. Now I'm going to go back to re-reading Laurie's Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object.
Oh and, I wrote about 900 words today.
EDITED TO ADD: Karen commented with information about Laurie's husband and daughter, which led me to Rosa Jurjevics' website and this essay about her mom.
January 18, 2006 11:17 PM
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Comments
Laurie's husband was my editor at Soho Press, Juris Jurjevics (he recently retired after publishing his own first novel this past fall). Their daughter Rosa is a lovely girl, lively and talented, herself a writer and filmmaker and artist.
Posted by: Karen at January 19, 2006 09:47 AM