When I was a young adult, I was committed to reading nonfiction. Probably because I never finished university, I was on a quest for self-education and could haughtily sneer to myself, "I don't have time to read novels when there's so much in the world to learn." I should also add that before university, I read mostly pulp: Stephen King, Anne Rice, Piers Anthony (on the badgering advice of a close friend/superfan). Then, a most astonishing thing happened: not long after becoming a mother, and picking up any book at hand while breastfeeding, I read Margaret Laurence's The Fire-Dwellers. This was 17+ years ago and I can still remember how gobsmacked I was by the main character: a frumpy, dissatisfied housewife who couldn't remember getting old. There's a scene (and I NEED to reread this book now that I'm thinking about it) where Stacey is in her wood-panelled recroom, alone in the middle of the day, drinking Tom Collinses, and she kicks off her shoes and plays some old records and moves around, dancing like a young girl once more-- only more free than she had ever been in her life. I was reading this scene, still young myself, but I can remember the tears springing to my eyes as I recognized myself in Stacey: we had absolutely no circumstances in common, but I could see the truth of the scene and it felt real and beautiful and universal and I had an epiphany of yes! This is the point of good literature and of course the most important things in life can be learned from it.
From then until now, I have sought out these epiphanies, these pearls of truth, and naturally they're hard to come by, but Open is full of such moments. I recently read an article by Dave Bidini in which he said that the author of this book, Lisa Moore, once called him a lazy reader. Not being a particular fan of his, I had a moment of schadenfreude at the reproach, but after finishing and loving this book of short stories, I wonder if Ms. Moore would also call me a lazy reader. Absolutely without a sense of literary criticism, I approach books viscerally, and they either resonate with me or they don’t. And this one did. Full of basically unhappy and dissatisfied women, which I am not, I could recognize the truth of their lives. From a young girl of twelve hunching forward in her bathing suit so her budding breasts weren't obvious, to a forty-something in an open marriage realizing that she didn't want to lose her husband to another woman, I don't need to have lived through these exact situations in order to know that the way they are described here is exactly how they would feel to me. The stories are mostly written with memories springing up in the middle of present consciousness and I loved the experience of this style of writing-- so true to the way that we all experience real life. The language is poetic and descriptive and each story is a perfect pearl.
Getting back to Stephen King, I remember reading Gerald's Game, written from the point of view of a woman, and thinking, "I just don't buy any of this". King is a master storyteller, but I don't think anyone would argue that he is a master of literature, and though that sounds in my head like my new version of a haughty sneer, I simply mean that he's not trying to reveal the universalities of human experience through the particulars of his characters, and I did not for a minute believe that this man had gotten into the head of his woman protagonist. By contrast, in Open, Lisa Moore hit me again and again with beautiful, honest, and gobsmacking moments that reflect what being a woman is. Lazy reader I may be, but my reading life has been enriched by the experience.
