Getting a Life

Since my review of Getting a Life, by Helen Simpson, was swallowed by technical problems last week, I"m trying again.

This is a collection of short stories. A few of the characters reoccur across stories, but the real linkages are thematic. With a few exceptions, the the stories are all about mothers -- some employed, some not -- in and around contemporary London. Not much happens in most of the stories, but Simpson captures the daily details and inner thoughts of her characters in almost painful detail. I do mean painful -- at times reading the stories is like watching a dissection, with lots of bloody flesh hanging out until suddenly you see something that was hidden before.

My favorite story, by which I suppose I mean the one that resonated the most strongly with my life, is "Cafe Society" in which two women, who think that they might be friends, try to have a conversation over a cup of coffee while simultaneously dealing with one of their three-year-olds. Of course, they only manage to say a tiny fraction of what they're thinking -- enough maybe to sustain an existing friendship, but not to create a new one, to breach the walls of politeness and actually show a little of your real self.

I recommend skipping "Millennium Blues," which may have been entertaining in 2001 but is now sadly out of key. It's hard to read an ironic story about planes exploding overhead these days.

Some of the reader reviews on Amazon complained that the stories are unremittingly negative about motherhood. It's true -- the working mothers are mostly stressed and overwhelmed, the at-home mothers have lost touch with themselves, both groups are cattily judgmental about each other. But the stories are funny and sad, and sometimes sweet.

It does make me wonder about books like Naomi Wolf's Misconceptions and Susan Mausart's The Mask of Motherhood, which complain "no one ever told me it would be like this." Maybe I've been luckier than others, but I've found plenty of both books and people to tell me the downsides as well as the positives.

*****

A note on the links: Typepad automatically links the books on the sidebar list to Amazon.com (and I get a few cents if you buy them through them). I'm manually inserting links to Powell's, which I love for being a real live bookstore, with employees who love books, and for selling (and listing) both used and new books. If you're buying new books, Amazon is generally cheaper. If you're buying a lot of used books, Powell's is often a better deal, because you can get free shipping on orders over $50 while the Amazon marketplace charges shipping per item. My favorite source for comparison shopping is www.fetchbook.info.