Our Strangers
Lydia DavisBookshop Editions, 2023, $26
Lydia Davis's new story collection displays her virtuosity with parlaying the quotidian into the fascinating. Each story ranges from a few lines to a few pages, with subsets revisiting topics of particular resonance—brushes with fame and marital dissonance. Many stem from observations of daily life, whether at her home in Rensselaer County or while traveling. Davis writes with clarity and precision, transforming seemingly banal topics and compressing character sketches in a few choice words, like in "Master Builder": With most excellent workmanship / he is up there on his ladder, / carefully ruining the oldest house in town."
If you happen to live in the Hudson Valley, many of these stories will ring bells. In "The Sounds of a Summer Afternoon," Davis describes a hierarchy of noises heard on a given day—how the drone of a riding mower drowns out the roar of a nearby dragstrip. But when both are silent, one hears target practice, or crows crowing, or neighbors bickering, or bugs buzzing, or a housemate reading, revealing a neurosis, and heightened state of attention, that can afflict us all. I just noticed the faint but distinctive sounds of a pickle ball tourney taking place about a half mile away, carrying over fallow fields and neighbors' yards.
So much of literature takes its form in narrative paragraphs. Davis also writes in full paragraphs, of course, but she shatters this norm, not only in her haiku-length stories, but in pieces that are essentially lists. "Pardon the Intrusion," on the longer side at 21 pages, reads like a neighborhood page on social media, noting items or services needed or unwanted. They range from bizarre, to ominous, to hilarious. "We are looking for nurses interested in working this summer at a local Extreme Ballet camp. Email us for details." "For sale: rollerblades, women's size 6, black, including knee and elbow guards, and instructions. Used once."
"More Corrections" comprises a list of edits one might receive from an editor, displaying the secret power of this specific jargon: "stet caps on Navy," "take out little girl in blueberry bush." She captures the sartorial details that contribute to the meaning and tradition of a wedding, such as "a full-skirted dress of polished cotton in deep forest green" worn by the bride's matron attendant, while the bride's mother wore "a dress of Dior blue silk faille." More than providing a snapshot of the event, cumulatively these lines craft an inquisition into the significance and artifice of marriage itself, and of economic and social status embedded in the attached rites.
A similar process takes place in "Learning to Sing," albeit more fully explicated. It traces the actions of a person ("You") who joins a neighborhood avocational singing group. You takes singing lessons to improve, thinking it can only help, but the process leads down a path strewn with obstacles: breathing problems, how You holds their body and neck, carrying tension, what are the root causes for carrying tension, why You is so self-critical, has dry throat, and the medical reasons and fixes for that. This all leads to a recital and the accompanying dread and nervousness, but You sings satisfactorily. Eventually, You sees another musical group perform, including a woman who has no skill but sings with vigor and joy.
On the whole, Davis focuses on her immediate surrounds and the objects and actions that populate it. She wanders into political satire once, in "How He Changed over Time." The parable concerns a man who has devolved from being cultured, philanthropic, sporting, lean. He replaces the replica portraits of his idols (Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton) with poor portraits of himself, rejects new knowledge, emptying his bookshelves and painting them gold. He loses interest in fine cuisine, instead subsisting on the same cuts of meat, plain bread, and sweet drinks. This certainly unhappy man would undoubtedly declare himself happy. It reads like an absurd fairy tale, but one which is nauseatingly real.
Davis makes another kind of statement with the release of Our Strangers. She is making it available for sale only at indie bookstores and on Bookshop.org, and not on Amazon.com, which she believes has too much dominance in the field. It is the first volume to be published by Bookshop.org under the imprint Bookshop Editions. Davis's prominence as an author should draw deserved notice to the site, which allows readers to designate a local independent bookstore to receive the profits from purchases.
Lydia Davis and will read and sign Our Strangers at St. Gregory's Church in Woodstock on October 14 at 2pm. Sponsored by the Golden Notebook.
