The Deposition by Tobias Wolff, 2006
The magic trick:
A shockingly routine plot twist
An attorney takes a walk through a small town where he’s taking a deposition for a lawsuit he’s trying to win for a client. He fashions himself a hero of sorts. The walk gives the reader the opportunity to learn more about him as his thoughts drift between memories of his childhood hometown and observations about the state of America.
It’s more subtle but it’s not dissimilar from the condescending narrator of Wolff’s famous “Bullet In The Brain.” This guy here is doing all the good one man can do, but, yikes, it’s an uphill climb. The greedy ruling class has really made a mess of things and it’s the little guy who has to pay the price. But, hey, they’re dumb enough to be manipulated into voting for this stuff, so maybe they deserve it.
But then something surprising happens near the end of this walk. I won’t spoil it here for those of you who haven’t read this story. It’s nothing particularly abnormal. But it’s the routine nature of the plot twist that make it all the more concerning.
Is this story about Bill Clinton?
Maybe. Maybe it is.
And that’s quite a trick on Wolff’s part.
The selection:
Burke stopped and looked up at the winged red horse still rearing over the lot. Then he took in the block he had just travelled. A stooped woman in an overcoat was making her way down the opposite sidewalk—the only person in sight. It might have been a street in his home town, with its own bankrupt industries and air of stagnation. Burke’s widowed mother still lived in the old house. He visited dutifully with his wife, who claimed to find the town charming and soothingly tranquil, but Burke couldn’t imagine living there, and wasn’t sure how anyone else did. To be on such comfortable terms with exhaustion and decline . . .
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