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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (May 2, 2003)
52 jM t Mtf ’ mjyZ2Q02 BOOKS Far from heaven Author of some seriously raw fiction says she’s reaily a big goof by CLUB POR a b a t h h o u s e AND n 0 y (I • • L <D JD L isa B radshaw an d E ls D eb b a u t f s Rebecca Brown some kind of sadist? T he Seattle lesbian writer’s newest compi lation of linked short stories is as emotionally tonnenting as its predecessors— 10 Kxiks full of stormy, dysfunctional family and lesbian cou ple relationships, abuse, death, A ID S and loss. A quote from “Heaven,” the first story in The End o f Youth: “T he lady in the first heaven is my mother, brown-skinned and plum p...the way she was before she turned into the bald, gray- skinned sack of hones she was the month she died. T he guy in the second version is my father, clear-eyed and strong and confident, not the sad and volatile, cloudy-eyed dmnk he was for his last forty years. I’ve been thinking about heaven because ever since my parents died I’ve wished l believed in some place I could imagine them." Browns 1998 novel The Dogs: A Modem Bes- tiary was so ravishingly desperate and frightening (a young lesbian fights off ghostly Doberman pin schers that suddenly appear in her apartment), some readers had trouble finishing it. T h e 47-year-old author, who reads from her latest May 11 at Powell’s, claims she’s “known to he extremely goofy and silly,” so Rebecca Brow n reads from T h e E n d o f Youth why the literary lashings? May 11 at Pow ell’s Books “T here is a love o f despair in my Hxiks, Perhaps th at’s because for 11 years now h u t...th ere is at least a little hope in them, she’s been with “the world’s greatest girlfriend. too,” she says. “If nothing else, the hope of Sh e and I had a com m itm ent cerem ony seven survival, o f wisdom, o f beauty." years ago and hope to becom e old ladies True. Brown’s characters— who are often together w ith lot o f cats.” clearly based on herself and her own troubled W hat The End o f Youth is about is the past, youth with an alcoholic father whose Navy job about missing the visions of the way things were. moved the family frequently artxmd the coun “1 wish I could see the way I did when I was try— struggle through depression, pain and confu young,” reads the last sentence of the first story. sion hut ultimately (usually) survive it. “To a certain degree,” she shares, “all of my Brown teaches at Hugo House, a com m u work is autobiographical, so in that sense Imyl nity literary center, and in a low-residency early books.. .are drawn from or about ‘real’ rela master’s of fine arts program at Goddard C o l tionships. ... But 1 am happy to say my recent lege in Verm ont. S h e worked as a caretaker work is not about miserable relationships.” for several years, mostly for people with A ID S, which fueled Gifts o f the Body, her 1994 book about a home care assistant to A ID S patients. “T h a t has been important to m e,” Brown he End o f Youth is R ebecca Brown’s newest states? “1 really believe we should act compas highly original bundle o f stories, rants and sionately with one another.” essays, many of S h e ’s also quite an opera buff, giving lec which appeared sepa tures for the Seattle Opera on such potent top rately through the years ics as Japanese-U .S. cultural relations, feminist in other publications. interpretations o f fairy tales and censorship in A nd yet they oddly art. S h e ’s near collaboration with S eattle’s B et belong together. ter Biscuit Dance and with New C ity Theater, T h e re is a natural who will pnxluce her play The Toaster this fall. co n tin u atio n o f ch ar T h e woman is smart. T h e writing is, too, acters and a recurrence but the language is so straightforward and sim o f th e idea o f life after ple, it’s deceptive. “I am moved by the direct the death o f youthful statem ent, the clear observation,” she explains ideas. T h e re is the per hut notes that "my style is very deliberate, spective o f irreversible very careful and studied. 1 revise a lo t!” wisdom o f the narrator, in part gained after Does Brown really believe in an end of the loss o f both parents. youth? “Well, that’s a narrator, a construct, As always, Brown goes Buddhist style. T h e speaking those sentences— not exactly, entirely language is clear and deceptively simple, the me. But I do think I used to believe or have emotions are eerily universal, and no judg desires.. .that I no longer do. For example, I was m ent is attached. really politically involved and thought the world T he reader is left with essential reality as it is, could change. Some o f it has changed— life is so in all its bittersweet glory. Nobody quite achieves much easier for queers these days, for example. this like Brown does, and that’s just one of the But I no longer hope for just, honest, peaceful government, for example.” many reasons she is heavily under-acclaimed. T here is a lot of sadness in her work, but In any case, don’t worry about Brown’s inten it’s always soothed by its beauty. A nd it is tions— they’re all gsxxl. "No, I ain’t a sadist. I’m funny and sexy, like in the stories “N ancy a pretty boring, old-fashioned gal!” J H Booth” and “Vision.” Try her if you dare— you will not be disappointed. R ebecca B rown reads from her new hook, — ED T h e End of Youth, 7 :3 0 p.m. May 11 at : - ...... - r f Powell's, 1005 W. Burnside St. REVIEW T h e M o s t M e n + T h e M o s t T im es T h e M o s t P o p u la r 3 0 3 sw 12th & Stark * a Continental Club Bath * clubpdx.com O k , I despair of ever finding a suitable Dear fellow, have you availed gentleman! yourself of the Just Friends personals ads on page 54?
