"Often, just before sleep, Red sees Grandma's gold tooth gleaming in the perpetual twilight of the long hallway as she opens her mouth to destroy him: bitch, gorgon, harpy, goon."—page 209, Red the Fiend by Gilbert Sorrentino
"More generally, denial is understood as the mind's default reaction to serious forms of trauma, such as terminal illness or child abuse. Indeed, denial has been recognized as an essential coping mechanism in some situations where intense pain or psychic stress cannot be otherwise relieved."
—page 25, Norman Rockwell: Underside of Innocence by Richard Halpern
"There’s going to come a day when you feel better:
You’ll rise up free and easy on that day,
Float from branch to branch, lighter than the air.
Just when that day is coming, who can say? Who can say?"
—from "Up the Wolves" by The Mountain Goats on The Sunset Tree
I recently completed Red the Fiend by Gilbert Sorrentino. It was a brutal, painful, harrowing journey through a few months in the hell of Red. Red is a twelve-year old boy who has been held back and placed in the "morphodite" class at school. This is primarily due to the physical, verbal, and emotional abuse he suffers from his maternal grandmother. However, she is not alone. Her "allies" include a grandfather who stands by while he is abused, a mother who is slowly becoming her own mother, and a drunken father who is divorced from his mother and mostly absent. The book will shatter any notion of a past "golden age" with which you may surround the Great Depression. These people are the poor and uneducated marginalized.
I found myself drawn into Red's story like a moth to a flame. I knew that I would be consumed. I knew there was going to be little hope. Red's story is too futile, too desperate. He is slowly heading down the path of someone who will in turn abuse because they know nothing else. He is beginning to stand up to Grandma, but it feels hollow. It is his only hope for survival, yet it is nihilistic. I felt drained every time I began to read it again. I felt exhausted when I finished. Now don't get me wrong: this is a well-written book. It may even be a must-read for anyone who wants to better understand the cycle of abuse. It is not, however, for everyone.
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A story of abuse that is infused with hope is that of John Darnielle. John is the singer-songwriter who is the primary member of The Mountain Goats. His album The Sunset Tree is a mostly autobiographical collection of tales about abuse suffered at the hands of his stepfather. Intriguing lyrics of pain and hope, of escape into the world of music, of an attempt to comprehend the monster that inflicts one's suffering, are the hallmarks of the songs on The Sunset Tree.
I pulled the album out and began listening to it again, mostly to get a viewpoint of a victim of child abuse other than that of Red alone. John Darnielle's tale is a survivor's tale, a tale of hope in the face of nightmare; Red's tale is a tale of complete destruction, of a soul extinguished, of death.
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I needed a change of pace. First: a novel about one boy's experiences of the civil war and genocide in Sudan. Then: a novel about one boy's experiences growing up in poverty and abuse. Now: an examination of the painter Norman Rockwell and how his artwork is misunderstood. The interesting connection for me is how Richard Halpern is placing some of the same defense mechanisms that victims of abuse use to survive their torment before us as readers as ways that we try to avoid what Rockwell is actually showing us. Disavowal is laid bare. According to Halpern, we see things but pretend we don't. We bifurcate. We split.
It is interesting to see the sex and violence that seethe beneath the facade of our culture. Halpern's argument is that Rockwell was merely showing the "monsters below" in many of his most well-known and cherished paintings; we just don't want to admit what we see there. So far, the book is a fascinating read, and even though some of the same themes of Red the Fiend are present, they are discussed and examined in a way that makes them more palatable.
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Now, for a brief respite from talk of abuse, of children or otherwise...
I never really liked any of the "cutesy" characters that were prevalent when I was growing up. In fact, I rather loathed Strawberry Shortcake and pals, the Care Bears, the Smurfs, and My Little Ponies. Who knew that when I had a child of my own that My Little Ponies would make a comeback, people would give them to the child as presents, and that I would sit in my own living room brushing the hair of Blushie and Sunny Sparkle with the child? Yet, there is something quiet and calming about brushing the plastic hair of these peach and pink and purple ponies. There is something soothing about pretending to give them numbers (the child's idea) and have them race across the couch. I could almost imagine the blueberry scented air racing past my lavender nostrils and through my mane and tail, as syrupy songs were sung by choirs of Care Bears floating by on cotton-candy clouds. Ah, dreams of cartoon utopia...
[Styling on Blushie and Sunny Sparkle, above, by me!]
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