Between Them: Remembering My Parents

Between Them, this book's title, is meant, in part, to suggest that by being born I literally came between my parents, a virtual place where I was sheltered and adored as long as they were alive. But it is also meant, in part, to portray their ineradicable singleness – both in marriage, and in their lives as my parents.

Between Them is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Ford's biography of his parents, presented in two parts: A section focusing on his mother, written thirty years ago when she passed away; and a second section (which comes first in the book) about his father, written recently. Ford allows that there are likely to be inconsistencies between the two accounts – because the point was to rely solely on memory – and he permits himself to repeat certain events. And always and everywhere he stresses that, as is true for all of us, it is impossible for a child to ever truly know his parents; to know what is in their minds, to understand their relationship, or to see them as outsiders do. Certainly well-written and basically interesting, the fact that Ford knows so few details about his parents' lives, and refuses to speculate or extrapolate to fill them in, actually makes for thin gruel – I liked what is here but don't know that I see the point.

That which was most intimate, most important, most satisfying and necessary to each of my parents transpired almost exclusively between them. This is not an unhappy fact for a son to face. In most ways it's heartening, since knowing that this is so preserves for me a hopeful mystery about life – the mystery which promises that even with careful notice, much happens that we do not understand.

Like I said, the base details are interesting: Parker Ford was born in rural Arkansas; the youngest child and only son of a dour single mother (his father committed suicide), Parker had little education and modest ambition – landing a job as a travelling salesman (selling starch) for the Faultless Company suited him fine. Edna Akin, also from the Arkansas sticks, was only fourteen years younger than her mother and seven years younger than her step-father – and as she got in the way of their fun, Edna was sent away to boarding school, and when she was old enough, brought back home and set to work. Edna met Parker when she was seventeen and he was twenty-four, they soon married, and went on the road together: enjoying hotels and restaurants, and presumably, each other's company for fifteen years. Richard Ford came along relatively late in life for his parents, but if they resented him as a drag on their good times, they never let on: he felt loved and wanted and every move the family made – from apartment to duplex to the suburbs – seemed for his benefit. The need to lay down roots meant that Parker continued his sales route, alone, from Monday to Friday while his family stayed at home, and although that meant that Richard lived an atypical bifurcated life – loose and carefree on weekdays, more quiet and scheduled when his father was home – he regarded this as his normal; didn't think he could have been closer to either of his parents. Parker died suddenly, at home, when Richard was sixteen, and while that was, of course, devastating, Richard was soon gone away to college and family life became something for phone calls and visits. In the second half of the book, Ford describes his mother's eventual death as well. 

The more we see our parents fully, after all, see them as the world does, the better our chances to see the world as it is.

I did find this book interesting for two reasons: 1) My mother-in-law, who is just barely older than Richard Ford, had a father who was a travelling salesman; someone who was away from Monday to Friday; a father who died of a heart attack in a hotel room when she was just twenty – I enjoyed imagining that this is what her childhood had been like, too. And 2) I clearly remember trying to psychoanalyse my own parents when I was a kid – my dad was probably ill-tempered because his father had been abusive; my mum was probably an indifferent mother because she had married too young and felt short-changed by life – and it wasn't until I was grown up (and no longer needed to protect myself by making excuses for them) that I realised it wasn't my job to parse motives: all I know for sure is the way that they acted; I have zero information about their interior lives. Because of this, I appreciate that Ford didn't try to invent interior lives for his parents (even if it feels a bit maddening that he wrote a biography of people who had always been reluctant to talk about themselves), but perhaps this book would have felt weightier if he had added more of himself into it. As an only child who has lived to a greater age than either of his parents did, I understand Ford's desire to write this book and preserve what was known of Parker and Edna, I just don't know who the ideal reader would be.