North Of by Marie-Helene Bertino, 2007
The magic trick:
Taking two giant literary risks (and pulling them off successfully) at once
Happy Thanksgiving! We have quite an original tale of turkey to help you celebrate today.
“North Of” makes a bold move. Very bold, indeed. It has our narrator, in an otherwise very realistic scenario, bring Bob Dylan home to Philadelphia for Thanksgiving dinner. So that’s something.
But that’s not all. The story also plays with chronology – rearranging its narrative timeline in a way that keeps the reader playing catch-up. Think Christopher-Nolan-esque.
You don’t see many stories take a literary risk as large as either of those swings. To try both – and successfully execute them? Amazing.
And that’s quite a trick on Bertino’s part.
The selection:
Bob Dylan mopes in the car. I feel saddled with him now. He was supposed to create some sort of lather, and he barely summoned enough energy to behead a pile of string beans. I buy him a magazine, a Liberty Bell key chain, Band-Aids shaped like pieces of bacon, and a pack of Camel Reds. They are parting gifts. In line, I try to catch his eye through the window, but he is sulking and won’t look up. Bob Dylan can be a real baby.
My brother’s car is gone when I pull into my mother’s driveway.
There is a picture in her garage: a stop motion account. In the first panel the Vet is whole, intact. In the second panel there is smoke around the eastern wall: a stadium with a headache. In the third panel it is half obscured by the smoke, and so on.
My mother is at the table drinking. She has poured one for me before I come in, stamping off mud and leaves.
“Where’s your friend?” she says.
“Dropped him off at the train.”
She nods, and senses my apology before I have time to form one. “I don’t want to hear it,” she says. “You should try to get along with your brother.”
On her collar, a pin as small as a thumbprint, the shape of a flag.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and then I can’t stop saying it.
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