Madame Lazarus by Maile Meloy, 2014
The magic trick:
Relying on the comparison of two similar incidents to present the story’s themes; but intermingling enough different ideas and connections along the way to make sure the comparison never feels obvious or simplistic
It’s difficult to write a story about an old man who loves his pet terrier and steer clear of maudlin sentimentality. So that’s the primary overarching magic trick here.
Digging just a tiny bit deeper, we’ll highlight the way the story takes two separate but similar incidents and elegantly unites them.
We learn early in the story of a tragic loss in our narrator’s past. A friend – love interest, really – visits him at his brother’s house and dies suddenly. It’s a terrible thing, made worse by the narrator’s extraordinary guilt and confusion in the aftermath. So the parallels are obvious later in the story when the narrator finds himself trying to save his dog’s life during one of their walks about Paris.
Some might argue the parallels are too obvious. Certainly, that’s the risk in writing it this way. But therein lies the magic. What could be clunky and simplistic becomes a rich, complex contrast. The story intermingles connections and references throughout, so that by the time the twin incidents stand next to each other, it’s never an A-B comparison.
And that’s quite a trick on Meloy’s part.
The selection:
At first I believed that the appearance of love from a dog is only a strategy, to win protection. Cordelia chose me because I was the one to feed her and to chase away the hawks and the wolves. But after a time we crossed over a line, Cordelia and I. We went out each day to chase the pigeons and smell the piss of other dogs on the trees, and we came home to read the paper. The look with the eyebrows was sometimes skeptical about my actions, and sometimes a question that I understood. There were no arguments except silent ones—I do not want to go there on the leash—and these could be easily solved. Her hair needed to be cut, so I found a woman to do it, who tied pink ribbons over Cordelia’s ears. She hated these ribbons. You could see she was ashamed. I told the groomer no more—she is too dignified for this. And, if she feels shame, then why not other emotions? A creature’s eyes are on you all the time, or the warm body is next to you. There is an understanding. And I think this becomes something like love.
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