Just out., February 01, 1989, Page 21, Image 21

Emotional journeys
Cows and Horses, set vividly in a Pacific Northwest winter, is
the story of one woman s slow emotional thaw
b y
a n n d e e
h o c h m a n
Cows and Horses. By Barbara Wilson. The
Eighth Mountain Press, Portland, OR 1988.
198pages, $7.95.
he entire plot of Cows and Horses takes
place between the end of a ten-year
lesbian relationship and the onset of one part­
ner’s grief. The very fact that this journey takes
months and not minutes, tells us a lot about Bet.
T
the novel’s cautious protagonist. For Bet — in
her early ’30s, jarred by the break-up with
Norah, her lover and business partner of a
decade — grief will be an achievement, an
emotion she cannot grasp immediately but must
walk toward, realizing with each step, the
magnitude of her loss.
This steady, soft-voiced novel, set vividly in
a Pacific Northwest winter, is the story of one
woman’s slow emotional thaw.
What actually happens to Bet is far from
unique. As the book opens, she and Norah,
co-owners of a Seattle futon shop, have decided
to split. Bet escapes Seattle for a long weekend
at an island farm and there meets Kelly, a wo­
man as forward and impulsive as Bet is quiet
and deliberate. They have an affair. Bet decides
she cannot work with Norah if they are no
longer lovers. The affair with Kelly ends
abruptly. Eventually. Bet discovers a truth for
herself— that she must begin to live on her own
terms, at her own pace, away from the influence
of Norah or Kelly or anyone.
These events, these realizations, are ordinary
enough. They happen to so many, so often. But
Book briefs
The Princess of the Iron Palace by Gustavo
Sainz, translated by Andrew Hurley. Grove
Press, New York. $9.95.
Princess is superbly written, contemporary
literature at its finest. It is written to the reader
— entirely composed of thoughts and stories
out of a young woman’s mind. The novel fol­
lows the outrageous escapades of a young wo­
man living in Mexico City. Gustavo Sainz has
chosen to show us what society and the constant
What are you going to have?’ Kelly asked as
she saw the waitress approaching.
‘God damnit.” Bet almost hissed. “I don’t
want you ordering for me. 1 can tell her myself.’
. . . Bet felt they were being stared at by
everyone in Denny’s. She was horribly
conscious of Kelly’s black leather jacket and
short, flattened-down hair. Why had she ever
suggested that they come here? Didn’t Kelly
have an sense of what was okay and not okay,
o f how you were supposed to act in public?”
One of Wilson’s strengths is her ability to
hone in on a moment and capture believably the
rapid emotional shifts that can occur in a matter
of seconds. An attentiveness to both inner and
external details gives her prose texture. In Cows
and Horses even her backdrop is painted with
care. The Pacific Northwest is familiar turf for
Wilson; Sisters o f the Road, her other book,
also was set in Seattle and Portland. She obvi­
ously knows the dreary weather well enough to
make it palpable. Often a metaphor for Bet’s
mood. Wilson’s original descriptions of sky
and landscape lend a special note of authenticity
for Northwest readers. She describes the sky as
“ a sopping washrag pressed over the broken
face of the city . . . and everywhere the muted
orchestra of illness — sneezing, coughing and
complaining.”
Mostly, Wilson’s voice rings steady and
even, nudging this story along without any
harsh shoves forward. This modulated style
.
for any one individual, the changes are huge
and criticial. A running allegory to Bet’s emo­
tional journey is a series of excerpted passages
from the books she reads obsessively, mostly
journals by women in occupied countries during
World War II. She reads about villages under
siege, about growing isolation and the slow
crumble of routine. She “ was interested in the
everyday life of people who suffered momen­
tous change: what they ate, what they wore,
how they entertained themselves,” author
Wilson writes. Through this magnified parallel
of war, isolation, destruction and its inevitable
losses. Bet comes to terms with her own fractur­
ing life, her own grief.
Cows and Horses is not a story of unrelieved
solemnity. Bet's struggle to define herself and
her loss is salted with moments of intense
sexuality and wry humor. In one scene, Kelly
arrives unexpectedly at Bet’s apartment, and
the two end up at a local Denny’s.
4 ‘At Denny’s Kelly would not sit across from
Bet in the booth; she sat right next to her,
wanted to share the menu, to hold it together.
Bet’s skin crawled.
P
In a winter’s reading list compiled by Lee
Lynch (Just Out. January 1989) the publisher of
Cows and Horses was misidentified. The
publisher is Eighth Mountain Press.
BOOKS
1015 NW 23rd Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97210, (503) 224-5097
Monday-Thursday 9:30-6 pm H Friday Open Till 9 pm H Saturday 10 am-5 pm I Sunday 11 am-4 pm
exposure to “ adult” entertainment such as
pornography, bars, drugs, alcohol, and sex can
do to complicate adolescence.
Princess is fast paced and laced with humor
and pain. It is a powerful novel. The woman
lives an unbelievable life, but Sainz has chosen
to leave her nameless as a statement. You can
insert your own neighborhood girl’s name.
The book is objective; the reader is left to fill
in emotions and judgments. This reviewer was
left with a heaviness and a sadness for the youth
of today. There is much truth in this fiction. •
our attempts to cope with AIDS. It’s a slice of
lives which captures what it is like to live with
AIDS in America in the late ’80s.”
Volume Two contains a large section on
treatment
options. AZT. aerosol pentamidine.
eople With AIDS Coalition New York’s
DHPG. TPN. AL72I, and holistic approaches
Surviving and Thriving With AIDS Volume
are
discussed in first-hand accounts. Volume
Two — Collected Wisdom is a 368 page book of
Two also attempts to remedy what Callen views
writing by people with AIDS. It.also contains
as
the major deficiency of Hints — that it con­
many photographs of people with AIDS.
tained little material not generated by white,
The Coalition’s Surviving and Thriving With
gay men. The new book contains much material
AIDS: Hints fo r the Newly Diagnosed, pub­
by and about women and AIDS and people of
lished in 1987, will be reprinted for the second
color with AIDS. It also includes a section
time. Twenty thousand copies have been
about AIDS-Related Complex and HIV anti­
distributed. Both books are offered free to
body positivity.
people with AIDS and ARC.
The general public may purchase either book
“ The two books are meant to be read
by mail order from the PWA Coalition. Volume
together, and in order.” said Michael Callen.
Two costs $20, Volume One (Hints) $10. Bulk
editor of both volumes. "Hints is still essential
rates are also avialable. Order from People with
reading for the newly diagnosed. Collected
AIDS
Coalition. 31 West 26th Street. New
Wisdom expands upon the information and
York. NY 10010.
•
ideas contained in Hints. It's an anthology of
Correction
TWENTY-THIRD AVENUE
. foreign Car Rap*
Expert
feir Prices-
High Standards. Far
Esquire Motors ’ 226
— Frank Macomber
Surviving and
thriving with AIDS
aptly matches Bet’s point-of-view; she is so
numbed to her own feelings that she experi­
ences everything in moderation. At the book’s
opening, as Bet rides a ferry north to her
weekend getaway, Wilson writes. “ There
weren’t many passengers. It was mid-week in
the off-season. They would, as Norah said, still
remain friends.” She needs say no more than
this spare sketch; we can surmise the rest.
On occasion, Wilson dresses the prose in too
many adverbs, telling us more than we need to
know. “ Judy said, anthropoligically . . . Norah
moved agitatedly . . . Bet said aggressively and
cheerfully” — these phrases seem heavy-
handed in a book that otherwise operates with a
mild touch.
In some ways, this novel begins in the middle
and ends at the beginning. Norah is gone; Bet
finally knows that. She must go on, alone,
deliberately setting her own pace. It happens —
to all kinds of people, all the time. But these
events — these relationships and break-ups and
realizations and renewals — are. finally, the
stuff of our lives, and they deserve Barbara
W ilson’s deep look.
•
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21 • February I989