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BOOKS
Far from heaven
Author of some seriously raw fiction
says she’s reaily a big goof
by
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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
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