I’m doing it for both of us, because this is how we must go: muffled, blinkered and blind, empty of knowledge, fearless, deaf to warnings and ignorant of history. You and I, the two of us, moving on, but also going back to where everyone has been before. There, at the very start, is no story at all, but a beginning from which everything will unfold.Reading the Giller Prize longlist is always a treasure hunt: sometimes I'm blown away by writers I've never encountered before (and am always shocked when my favourites don't become finalists for Canada's richest literary award), and sometimes I read books that make me groan and think, “Well, that's an unsatisfying read, but zeitgeisty enough to go through”. The Two of Us marks the second time that I've been prompted to read a collection of Kathy Page's short stories (her Paradise and Elsewhere made the longlist in 2014), and her work represents a third category: those books that might not win awards but that I think everyone should pick up nonetheless. Page's writing is precise and compelling, and when these little tales take dark turns, the situations feel inevitable and genuine; these are the tragedies we stare down every day.
As the title suggests, these stories concentrate on pairs of people (the quote I opened with is an expectant mother talking to her unborn child from the title story), and relationships are often brought into focus by some third character, not necessarily another person. Some of my favourites: in The House on Manor Close, three daughters recount their individual relationships with their parents (“Your mum's crazy, you know”) and the garden that drains all their time and attention; in The Right Thing to Say, a married couple is under strain as they await the results of genetic testing; in It is July Now, a woman in an unnamed Communist-type country must play host to a visiting lecturer and local customs impede friendship; in Open Water, a swimming coach (and eventually his wife as well) allow their lives to be taken over by a young athlete with Olympic potential.
In The Perfect Day, an adult woman takes her elderly parents on a field trip, and as her father is now nearly helpless and in care, the lifelong family dynamics are brought into sharper focus as the woman must navigate her father's needs and her mother's impatience. There's a scene near the end when the mother and daughter argue over whether or not to remove the old man's sweater (yes, he asked for it, but it's cutting off circulation to his hands now), and when they are driving back home, the mother leans forward to tell her that this had been a perfect day. The daughter thinks:
Nip, tuck. Omit, forget. I should do the same but have never had the gift. Birds dart in front of the car. Drifts of blossom carpet the road. And knowing that Mum, too, wants to improve upon our shared reality is no small thing. The May colours brighten, waver and spill over as I tell her: yes, it was.Even if I've never been exactly there, that whole story is totally relatable. In Pigs, an obese couple is on a holiday to visit the Georgia O'Keeffe house in New Mexico, and while on the one hand they are happily married and well off and give the impression that they don't care what anyone thinks of them, internally, the wife doesn't understand how she got to where she is, whose fault it might be, or if her husband would even still love her if she tried to lose weight:
We are killing each other, she thought again. By inches. Or mouthfuls. Sometimes deliciously, but not always so. They were killing each other routinely, sometimes grudgingly or argumentatively, and mostly they were unaware of what they were doing. By now, she could see it, the strangeness of the pact they were joined in without ever having discussed it or consented to its goals and terms. Gravity pulled down on every pound of her flesh. She was her own worst enemy, and his.These aren't really stories that make you think, necessarily, but I was transported into many different realities and felt truth there. What better reason to read? This is why I love the longlists.
The 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize Longlist:
Mona Awad : 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl
Gary Barwin : Yiddish for Pirates
Andrew Battershill : Pillow
David Bergen : Stranger
Emma Donoghue : The Wonder
Catherine Leroux : The Party Wall
Kathy Page : The Two of Us
Susan Perly : Death Valley
Kerry Lee Powell : Willem De Kooning's Paintbrush
Steven Price : By Gaslight
Madeleine Thien : Do Not Say We Have Nothing
Zoe Whittall : The Best Kind of People
*Won by Madeleine Thien for Do Not Say We Have Nothing. Not really a surprise, but this is how I ranked the shortlist, entirely according to my own enjoyment level with the reading experience:
Gary Barwin : Yiddish for Pirates
Catherine Leroux : The Party Wall
Madeleine Thien : Do Not Say We Have Nothing
Mona Awad : 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl
Emma Donoghue : The Wonder
Zoe Whittall : The Best Kind of People