A Portal Opens

“Two of Her,” from The Hungry and the Haunted, a remarkable new story collection by Rilla Askew, opens by quickly explaining the story’s title: “There had always been two of her, inner and outer, dream self and face self.” Un-named, the protagonist is something of an everywoman for the down-and-out spaces these stories explore. Nineteen, she lives with her arthritic mother and works three dead-end jobs. Her inner self dreams of escaping. Her outer self is trapped in a small Oklahoma town, also un-named. Her face self: regularly “cute and perky.” Her dream self: marinating in boredom.

At her babysitting job, this young woman puts two children to bed, then reads from trashy novels the man of the house has secreted in a bedside drawer. Until one evening, returned from an evening out, he catches her in the act. Instead of driving her home, the man parks in an isolated spot and asks her to describe a scene from her reading while he pleasures himself in the dark car.

Everywoman calls the man a creep, steps out of the car, and walks to a local bar, where the narrative moves into a mystic space that is both outer and inner, as the protagonist’s hold on her face self gives way to a confused dream self. A strange young woman takes the adjacent bar stool and speaks to our young woman about a past they supposedly have in common, though the protagonist has no matching memory. Jarringly, the stranger knows about “that creep in the station wagon,” knows what everywoman is thinking. By the time the stranger offers three wishes, Askew’s story has opened a portal of sorts—into a fairy-tale world turned upside down. Where are we? Who is this knowing stranger? What about the two in “two of her”? Has outer self lost control to inner self? Dream self escaped to wreak havoc with face self?

At this point I backtracked to what had seemed a purely incidental moment, when the young woman at story center noticed a neon sign flashing on and off against the night sky—slipper-shaped, for the Cinderella Motel. A clue here, to help parse the surprises this story has to offer.

I don’t want to explain my understanding of the disorienting moments that kept me absorbed, that hold me rapt on re-reading. You’ll want to read this story on your own—the complete collection, too. Highly recommended.

About the Author:

Rilla Askew’s novel about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Fire in Beulah, received the American Book Award and the Myers Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in 2002. Askew's most recent novel, Prize for the Fire, is an historical biographical novel about the Early Modern writer and martyr Anne Askew, whose connections to Queen Katheryn Parr, Henry VIII’s last wife, put her own life in peril.

I have not yet read Fire in Beulah, but Prize for the Fire entranced me, first page to last.

The Hungry and the Haunted is available here ⇒

Prize for the Fire is available here ⇒

About Narrative Surprise:

For thirteen weeks, I have posted weekly to this blog. As of today, I’m switching to twice a month. I will post entries on the first and third Fridays of each month.

BEST to all . . .