New Yorker Fiction Review #203: "Displaced" by Richard Ford


Review of a short story from the August 6 & 13, 2018 issue of The New Yorker...

(I normally do these short story reviews in chronological order, but two things have happened: a.) I've fallen more than a year behind, b.) I started subscribing to the print edition of the magazine again. Meaning, as I am getting caught up on past editions, I will be reviewing the short stories in the current issues of The New Yorker...until I get behind on those again, too...)

I'd hesitate to call Richard Ford one of the "giants" of American letters -- a title I dole out pretty liberally -- but most serious American readers will recognize him as the author of that great piece of American middle-aged existential angst, The Sportswriter

I liked The Sportswriter so much that after I read the last page I literally turned back to the front page and started the book over again. Such was the power of Richard Ford's insights into life, careers, middle-aged post-divorce romance, etc. But I've never since read anything else by him. My loss perhaps, but if he's written anything close to the power or influence of The Sportswriter, someone please write to me and tell me about it. 

The current story, "Displaced," is apparently not a piece from Richard Ford's memoir Between Them but is, however, loosely based on characters and incidents he knew and that happened to him in his youth in Jackson, Mississippi. Either way, in my opinion, the story falls flat. 

Number one, the characters are a little bit "see-through." The main character a 16-year old kid who seems, from within the context of the story, like he's more like age eight, barely has a personality and seems far too much of a "waif" drifting through a fictional world created specifically for him to drift around in without making much of an impact. I felt as though I was inhabiting a 2D outline drawing of a 16-year-old boy, rather than a real one.

Number two, the secondary character, a 17-year-old Irish kid named Niall, is much more interesting but still seems "off" for some reason, as though Ford did not spend enough time trying to inhabit his character before writing the book. Again, it just felt a little bit cut-and-paste, "insert world-wise Irish kid neighbor here" type of thing. 

Number three, as if that weren't enough, I feel the latest Golden Age of the memoir is kind of over. I may be overreaching or talking out my kazoo here (it's my blog, after all) but...I feel like from the mid-90s through somewhere during the 2000s the memoir enjoyed a pretty significant run. I'm not even talking about the memoirs of famous people, I mean the memoirs of people who simply had interesting childhoods or lives and found literary success because they wrote about them so well. The memoirs itself can, in some cases, make a writer's career. 

But unless you're super famous or had a super weird childhood, locked in a shed in some killer's backyard or what have you, I'm not sure there's much room any more the "My Mildly Odd Childhood" memoir any more. And thank God...

I suspect die-hard Richard Ford fans will appreciate a story like this, though strip the name Richard Ford off the byline and I'd like to see what their opinion is. In spite of this story's mediocre turn-out, I can't help but be interested in what Richard Ford might have to say in his actual biography so long as, like I say, it's peppered with some really pithy observations about life and not just a catalog of unusual but not really that bizarre episodes from his childhood. Cause let's face it, any one of us could write one of those. 

Comments

Harold F said…
Awesome blog you have here

Popular Posts