Inside the Hatboxes (2005)
Bill Long 1/9/06
A First Novel for RC Marlen
In her inaugural novel, Oregon writer RC Marlen has given us a wise, engaging and moving book. It is the story of how two families' lives and destinies become interwoven in a St. Louis neighborhood not far from where Marlen herself spent many of her years. The novel is wise because it makes the reader learn the lesson through reading that Marlen wants to teach about life: that you should never draw conclusions until all the facts are "in." Time after time I as a reader thought I "knew" where the story was going, only to be pleasantly surprised, delighted and deeply touched by where the story actually went. The novel is engaging because Marlen is a master story-teller, weaving emotions and facts, small details and large themes, in a tightly-organized and quickly-flowing narrative. It is moving because the lives of the characters become interconnected in ways that we know connect our lives--through common loves and work, through tears and grief, through unexpected joys and numbing loss.
Marlen's Approach
The picture on the cover of the book, with a portion of the photograph excised, reflects Marlen's approach to biography and life. As we live our lives we are, as it were, taking a picture or painting a canvas. Often we begin "in medias res," or in the middle of things. When we meet someone, we meet them as they are today. But, in fact, that person is a network of the most finely spun stories and experiences, or, to change the metaphor, of a canvas whose colors and scenes reach far back to the left (the past) and will reach far forward to the right (the future). What we know about others, and ourselves, only slowly comes into view. As we learn more, the canvas is made more full, and scene after scene fills it. But there are and maybe always will be gaps in the past. Those gaps are the result of secrets withheld from us, of stories never told to us, of things embedded so deeply within the soul that they never rise to the surface. But it is those secrets that contribute to our making and unmaking. Thus, there is a grace and a tragedy in learning the secrets. The secrets are almost sacred things and, as sacred things, can burn the hands and sear the soul upon contact with them.
Marlen has captured to me the essence of the way stories unfold in life. We begin in the middle. There always was a "long ago" and always will be a future towards which we long. The greatest epic in Western literature, the Iliad, recognizes this. It begins in the 7th year of the Trojan War. It doesn't begin at the beginning. We only learn about the beginning as the narrative develops. We learn why Achilles is mad; we learn why he and Agamemnon are at loggerheads; we learn some of the reasons for the war. But learning takes time, patience, a variety of approaches, mistakes and gradually growing insights.
But the human tendency is to make our provisional conclusions final and, thereby, lose the grace of the moment or the very person whom we think we love. We conclude things based on insufficient evidence or on emotional responses to what is before us. Perhaps the phrase "Rush to War," which contributed to a 20-point hit in President Bush's approval rating in 2005, is indicative of what we all know is our signal failing--that we are not willing to let things simmer, to permit stories to unfold in their own times, to live in the dark or the dim. Marlen deftly points out the danger of rushing to judgment.
Telling A Story
What she does incomparably well, however, is to tell a story. It opens with a young family traveling from LA to St. Louis so that the father, Tony, can take a job as a fire-fighter in his native St. Louis. His wife cradles their lifeless daughter, and they drive in silence. We have to listen to discover how their beloved child died, and we are captivated by the tale and saddened by the loss. Then, after arriving in St. Louis, they lodge at a motel, and Tony, unable to sleep, ventures out for a drive. Inexplicably for him (but explicably from the narrative that follows), he encounters a child 16-months old in the middle of the night who wants to accompany him. He allows her to clamber in his car, and he returns to the motel with the child. When his wife awakes, there is a beautiful little girl next to her. Thus begins a journey of discovery, joy, secrets and, ultimately, incomparable grief and suffering. Two families are joined in that act, the Scaglione's (Tony and Claire) and the Bartlett's (whose little girl is lost). If there is a message in all of this, and indeed there is, it is that our secrets consume us and ultimately lead to our downfall. I was led to consider the secrets I have kept from others, the secrets that have led to my own undoing in the past, and to resolve and make sure that those secrets are revealed to the right person, at the right time, in the not-too-distant future.
Ah, but the stories Marlen tells. She really has a knack of telling an engaging tale. I laughed uproariously and was caught up in the tension as Tony's grandfather Nonno told the story of the great St. Louis fire of 1849. I was intrigued by her reconstruction of the events surrounding the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. I was entrance by the stories of Suzanne's meeting with gypsies and the lore and lure, as well as the deception, of one of the gypsies she met. Sprinkled throughout the stories are many historical gems, such as the tale of the St. Louis fire, the epidemic in KY in the mid-nineteenth century, a reference to Al Capone's hearing he had in federal court in Atlanta in 1932, the fire that claimed Tony's life.*
[*Marlen raised some historical questions on p. 291 regarding the photo of Al Capone as it appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Nov. 18, 1932, and I have devoted four essays to answering her questions and telling the tale of Capone's legal problems.]
She tells stories about pharmacological practice in the 1930s or firefighting equipment at the time. Her narrative sparkles with the fast-paced narrative, and the characters really are portrayed in vivid and sympathetic ways. And, there is always the surprise, as when Claire (Tony's wife), learns something that changes her life.
One Slight Caveat
I enjoyed reading the book so much that I wondered if I should close this essay without mentioning my caveat, but I figured that since I, as an author, really do appreciate people pointing out where I have slipped, I ought to do the same for RC Marlen. My caveat has to do with numbers and dates. I was a math major in college for a while, and my mind is riveted by numbers. I can't forget them. So, when I notice what is seemingly a mistake, I am more than distracted. Here are a few.
FDR died in his fourth Presidential term, not his third (he was one month into his fourth term, in April 1945--p. 152). The St. Louis rail station is said to be have opened in 1894 (p. 70) but then is also said to have opened five years before Tony's birth (p. 69). Elsewhere we learn Tony was born in 1901, so our years are off. When Suzanne was to begin working at the pharmacy, her parents only would allow her to work for two hours (p. 66), but her first shift was for three hours (p. 102)--with no explanation for the discrepancy. The most complex error related to Harry, and I was confused by the chronology. On p. 78, Claire flashes back to a winter "almost seven years ago." She has this flashback in Spring 1942. Therefore, the Winter had to have been the Winter from 1935-36. She just met Harry then. Over the next few months (and probably more than a year) she had an "encounter" with Harry. Then, we learn later that Harry had died "one year previously" (probably in 1938) and that before his death he had made out his will leaving a lot to Claire. But this will couldn't have been written until 1936 and probably, as the narrative develops, until 1937. Yet, later in the book, the lawyers/bankers say that Harry's will bequeathing things to Claire was from 1935. It didn't make sense. I had the same sort of feeling regarding the chronology of Nonno's death, but I won't go into it here for lack of space and time.
Conclusion
These minor blemishes didn't hurt the overall effect of the book for me. I look forward to her future offerings.
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