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May 2000

By All Means

Two uplifing tales of getting through life on little

Gap Creek *** by Robert Morgan Algonquin Books 2000
Life in the Appalachian Mountains in the late 19th century was hard. And, as a teenage girl whose family depended on the fruits of her labor for survival, it must have been even harder. In his new novel, Gap Creek, Robert Morgan tells the story of such a life, one that consists mainly of grueling physical labor. The heroine, Julie Harmon, is just 17 years old when her younger brother dies in her arms, and the job of nursing her father who is dying of consumption falls to her. Early on in life she comes to the conclusion that “human life didn’t mean a thing in this world. People could be born and they could suffer, and they could die, and it didn’t mean a thing.” In a world such as this, little time is left for grief and Julie isn’t one to despair. After a brief courtship, she marries Hank, with whom she moves to Gap Creek, a remote South Carolina valley. Here, the hard work continues. Whether it’s splitting wood, butchering a hog or rendering lard, Julie rolls up her sleeves and gets on with it, not because she enjoys it, but because the work has to be done. With Hank working at a cotton mill and hunting in the woods after he loses his job, there is no one else to do it. Even though she drudges from dawn until dusk, money is always scarce, and sometimes also food. Natural disasters, such as fire and flood, as well as shrewd con men and violent drunks continually threaten their existence. Through all these difficulties, Julie emerges as a remarkably strong woman, who masters her life’s hardships and heartbreaks with a simple formula: work and love. Even though the misfortunes and the cruelties of nature that befall the young couple at times seem too great to bear, the family and community prove to be sources of immense strength. This is not only a story of incredible struggle, but also an uplifting tale of love, hope and dignity.
Morgan, who himself grew up in the mountains of North Carolina, vividly describes the raw beauty of the land. With his simple yet powerful prose, he leads the reader into an almost forgotten world. Never giving way to sentimentality, Morgan draws us into this world of honest, hard-working people, to whom poverty and hunger are no strangers, the death of a cow is a tragedy and a jar of jelly a most treasured gift.

Fasting, Feasting*** by Anita Desai Houghton, Mifflin, 2000
As its title promises, Fasting, Feasting is bifurcated into distinct realms: one half is set in India, the other, in the United States. The halves are united by the hunger and plenty implied by the title. Two families, two cultures, are juxtaposed to reveal the faults and virtues of each. Desai’s tact is deceptively simple, but beneath her polished surface seethes a tale of barbed and poisonous family ire.
A modestly prosperous family struggles to maintain respectability amid a decaying house and disintegrating family structure. The parents idle their hours away, rocking on a swing, dictating orders to their eldest, housebound daughter, Uma. She is a simple, eager girl — and a perpetual disappointment to her parents. The younger daughter, Aruna, is a lively, precociously alluring girl who can do no wrong. Several vain attempts are made at arranging a matrimonial alliance for plain Uma, each ending in painful disaster. Daring Aruna, on the other hand, finds herself a rich, dynamic husband, and flees to a colorful life in Bombay with him. A far younger son, Arun, is self-contained and sickly, and figures only as an object of fuss and concern.
Once grown, Arun moves to the U.S. to further his studies in Massachusetts. Still as frail as the onion-skin aerogrammes he posts home to his expectant family, he nevertheless pursues his studies with unflagging vigor. When he grudgingly accepts accommodation with the well-meaning Patton family for one sweltering summer, he learns vital lessons about the value of culture and tradition. Sickened by the excess of the slice of American society to which he is exposed, Arun wonders, for instance, at the gluttonous abundance of capacious suburban grocery stores — the bright, fake produce; the boxed cakes picked from shelves for their lack of calories, rather than the nourishment they provide. The perversity of such a society is typified also by the Pattons’ bulimic daughter, jogging-obsessed son and sun-worshipping mother. Although this characterization is stereotypical and hyperbolic, it resonates with undeniable truth, from the perspective of one who comes from a place of relative privation. The irony is that the hardships and chaos of Indian life come to seem welcomely meaningful and rooted in tradition when held up to American vacuousness. Desai thereby powerfully underscores the truth of the idea that the feasts of one culture are the fasts of another.