The Ironic Thing II
In defense of Alternadad.
by Neal Pollack
January 30, 2007
2. I refuse to peer into the darkness of parenting, and therefore my book is less than honest.
Upon deep thinking, this second point seems somewhat related to my previous point, but I'm really whacking out the words now, so I'll keep going.
There's a scene in my book where a person is stabbed through the heart with a coathanger until he dies. You never saw that on an episode of Home Improvement. I started a neighborhood association because guys were fighting over a prostitute under my son's bedroom window. And I suffered an almost complete emotional collapse in the year-plus after my son was born. The darkness and I are quite familiar, but I've also seen The Darkness perform live. I prefer, and choose, the silly, ironic fake-hair-band version.
Carver breaks out the hoarily-used epigram from Anna Karenina about how "all happy families are alike." That's just not true, and I've always read that line, yes, ironically. Every successful family must chart its own waters to create its own kind of happiness. The best comic writing about families, likeI've always viewed my life as a comedy., say, Moss Hart's Act One, or the memoirs of Jean Shepherd, ends with that family finding peace, happiness, and fulfillment on its own terms.
Lost in all the literary melodrama over Anna's death is the story of Kitty and Levin, Anna Karenina's secondary couple, who, after years of struggle and misunderstanding, finally find joy in each other, and in their children. They are the book's true heroes, willing to banish the darkness. I take my parenting seriously, but I've always viewed my life as a comedy with the assumption that it will be, and should be, a happy one. If that doesn't please or agree with Lisa Carver, then somehow I must endure. Not every story ends with the heroine throwing herself in front of a train.
Finally, I want to address Carver's weird statement that she, and other people who are fortunate enough to earn money writing, are covering the topic of parenting because their editors "make" them. That seems a bit disingenuous. No one's forcing anyone else to write about being a dad, or a mom. I write about being a dad right now because I enjoy it and because I've found a voice that works, which is rare enough so that I don't want to discard it right away. A writer as deeply wise and infinitely graceful as Carver should be able to write about anything she wants, as long as she gets a new grammar checker installed on her computer.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go contemplate "a quiet sense of sacredness." Rage and humility, I'm sure, will emerge from that, followed quickly by guilt. And then I'll go write about poo-poo on my blog.
©2007 Neal Pollack and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Neal Pollack is the author of Alternadad, The Neal Pollack Anthology Of American Literature, Beneath The Axis Of Evil, and Never Mind the Pollacks: A Rock and Roll Novel. He lives in Austin, Texas. |
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