The Shipping News

I'm supposed to be writing about Chris tonight. Not writing so much as typing. It is already written. But tonight I am tempted away from the computer by a book. A friend gave me this book months ago, and I thought it might keep me occupied during hours of waiting at the Paramount in Seattle. Turns out, my new friends kept me occupied and the book was simply a weight in my hand.

My plan was to finish the book in line and leave it in the lobby before the concert. You don't take books to rock concerts. Besides, the book was irksome--not in size so much as in style. I have never seen a book so full of partial sentences. I am used to Dickens or Stendhal, who begin a sentence one day and finish it the following week. This was different. Fragmented. Written by a writer with A.D.D. who couldn't keep track of a subject, verb, object and prepositional phrase or two. Not all at once. So she chopped it up. Single servings. Actions. Descriptions. Characters.


I marveled at the first few chapters and kept glancing at the cover to make sure I have read it right: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. The Pulitzer Prize for Fragments? It reminded me of a music video that never sat on one scene for more than a second--never long enough for you to be sure of what you were seeing.

But there was a story, suspense, in the short, abrupt phrasing, and I kept reading. The hero was an awkward, middle-aged human with no accomplishments and too much self-awareness. I was attached to him. Then, the concert. I still had at least three-quarters of the book left when the doors opened and the music started.

This was Seattle in October, and I had a suitable coat, fleece covered with a rain-repellent shell, and a zip-off hood. It did rain, and hard, for a few hours during the wait, but I had gotten there so early that I was protected from the weather from the inward curve of the box office and outwardly-curving marquis. I don't think they had time to replace all the bulbs on the sign that you could see from the Sound or Capitol Hill. The night before I walked towards it and it said "PAR MO " in neon orange letters.

But the coat I wouldn't discard, even for Cornell, and I found that when I slipped the book into one sleeve it stopped short at the wrist, which narrowed to half the book's width. So I watched--was crushed during--the concert holding fast to my jacket with The Shipping News lying protected in the left sleeve. I lost my sign--the sign I drew to request songs from Chris that he actually played when I threw it frisbee-style at his feet and he picked it up and said "Play it, Fucker!" laughing at me--but the book survived. So, too, a partial box of Junior Mints. I ate one before I met Chris. Took me two days to bring myself to throw the box away. For a moment, I thought of having him sign it. Luckily, decided against it.

I could not read the book on the flight home. If I was not sleeping I was scrawling notes about the preceding 24 hours. I was battered with memories like the crowd had battered me the night before. I needed no more bruises. Best to get it out while I could.

When I got home, I tried to transcribe my notes, and a few made it aboard the blogging vessel. But the book. While at the grocery store Saturday night Ginger had pulled the book off the coffee table and dented it with one threatening canine. My fault. I had left a Kleenex in it to hold my place. Ginger loves her Kleenex, and the paperback had almost bought it in her quest for my bookmark, which did not survive.

So I sat down with the novel before Ginger could finish it off. And could not get up. Oh, I managed to make it to the freezer for some Dove chocolate ice cream, but went right back to the book.

Tonight, I finished it. I have the taste of sea salt in my mouth, the stench of boiled squid in my nostrils. Images of boats, whole and wrecked, on the rocks of Newfoundland. A desire to learn how to make knots.

And now I write in fragments. Damn E. Annie Proulx.