'In The Driver's Seat' by Helen Simpson
This collection of short stories leaves the reader feeling short-changed
By Adam Schragin
Published: May 31st, 2007 | 3:12pm
Knopf, List Price: $22.00, 192 pages
Helen Simpson comes from a long line of ambitious short story writers who prefer clipped, whip-smart prose coupled with startling, very personal observations. She's no newbie, either, and wrote her first collection, Four Bare Legs in a Bed
Simpson's stories are short, even for short stories. The title piece is a mere six pages, and most are briskly paced in to begin with. Thematically, Simpson deals primarily with worry, as in a pervasive, intuitive worry justified by the walls crumbling around her character's fragile lives. "Every Third Thought," for example, deals with cancer scares and begins with, "It happened very fast, without warning. One day everybody started dying." The same unease resonates through "If I'm Spared," which concerns an estranged couple's momentary bond during a period of intense uncertainty. Fears of safety ("The Door"), of old age ("Constitutional"), of one's place in the world ("Early One Morning") all haunt Simpson's characters relentlessly. The grey unease she creates in her stories are somehow there but not there, hanging over the stories but remaining untouchable.
Unfortunately, the result is often a mix of soupy and depressing prose, and made less palatable by a certain stereotype that pops up every other story, that of a reticent male who only half listens, both to his lovers or himself. In "Up at a Villa," he's in the form of a new father who cares more about The Times and his wife's waistline to bother actually having a discussion with her. In "The Phlebotomist's Love Life," he's a jock so glued to the television that his negligence finally exercises a violent outburst in his girlfriend.
Occasionally it seems as though Simpson has spread herself, or her ideas, too thin on "In the Driver's Seat" which is why more contemplative, open-ended pieces like "Constitutional" fare the best. The story is about a science teacher taking her daily constitutional and remarking on her late-life pregnancy, her dearly departed friend Stella, and the physiology of the brain and the place memory holds in our lives. The story manages to be both touching and fascinating, and while it's the longest piece in the book, when it ends you may wish it could go on for much longer, to perhaps even grow into a novel. "Constitutional" is Simpson at her very best, as her narrative brings together world of hard science with the slowly-shifting zone of daily life, tied up neatly with remembrances of her grandfather's slow descent into Alzheimer's and of the recently departed Stella. If Simpson had kept up the marksmanship with which she finishes her collection, "In the Driver's Seat" would qualify as a certain success. But as it stands now, the collection is weighted down by its own frustrating qualities.
Issue #35
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