"From a Farther Room"

By David Gilbert
~7600 words

With his wife and kids away for the weekend, a man stays out late drinking with an old friend and finds a strange visitor awaiting him the following morning.

Robert Childress wakes up with a blinding hangover and finds, in the spot by the side of the bed where he threw up in the middle of the night, an object

about the size of an eggplant, though in color more reddish brown, its body a mishmash of textures and lumps, a goulash molded into a ghoul. There was a shape that resembled a head, plus four distinct parts that roughly corresponded with two arms and two legs, further articulated by an assumption of ten fingers and ten toes, presently wriggling.

The rest of the story follows how Robert deals with this "creature," from initially trying to bury it in his backyard to eventually outfitting it in diapers and feeding it sweet potato baby food, until Becka and the kids return at the end of the story. By that point it has become reasonably clear that the creature is some sort of projection of Robert, filtered through bruised memories of childhood and reflections on a marriage that seems to be in deep trouble.

This story has many fine qualities. The plot is unusual but never strains credibility, nor does it try to pull off an O. Henry ending; at bottom it is a universal tale of a man struggling desperately for redemption. A keen grasp of human nature comes across in the complexity of the main character, who is deeply flawed but also deeply aware of his flaws:

Robert wondered if he was simply good at lying, or withholding, or whatever it was that he often did, or if Becka was too trusting and a savvier wife would have seen through him.

This type of self-reflection, as long as it doesn't cross the line into self-pity (and it doesn't in this case), makes for an ultimately sympathetic character.

Finally, Gilbert's language is beautiful. He has a knack for walking a nearly impossible line between the absurd and the heartbreaking, a talent that seeps into the story's imagery, from a turkey baster that sits "like a rogue exclamation mark" in Robert's hand to the muffled sounds coming from the creature's makeshift grave, "as if the earth were a heartbroken pillow."

My only objection to "From a Farther Room" is the ick factor. Yes, I know that's part of the point, but the descriptions of the creature are just a little too disgusting for me to say I really loved the story. But it's a powerful piece of fiction any way you measure it.

Strong.

"Member / Guest"

By David Gilbert
~7400 words

Under the half-attentive gaze of a beach club attendant, four snarky girls poke at the topics of sex and death while vying with one another for prominence in their group.

Given the summary in the sentence above, a reader might be forgiven for pressing for more information: “Yes, but what actually happens in the story?” The answer: precious little. And yet a lot.

Let me explain. In “Member / Guest” we traipse beside fourteen-year-old Beckett during a day at the beach. She and most of her friends were born into the uppermost crust of New York (though poor Clio is a clinger-on from Westchester), and their families spend some weeks during the summer languishing on members-only beachfront. Protecting the privacy of these of one-percenters is the job of an unnamed attendant who rises from his Adirondack chair only to ask middle-class interlopers to kindly leave the premises.

There would be much to despise in the micro-society of “Member / Guest,” except that the characters are so human. While the adults are afflicted with an affable cluelessness reminiscent of The Great Gatsby, Beckett has not yet learned to be blind. On the cusp in many ways—physically, socially, intellectually—she studies social dynamics at the same time she participates in them. As the girls in her group test one another with sexual knowledge or physical strength, the group of four reproduces in miniature the exclusive society in which they live. Is it Clio who should be excluded, or is it Beckett herself? They are all desperate to be members—a point made with some poignancy when Beckett engages in conversation with the one person who is neither a member nor a guest—the beach attendant. There we see her testing the limits:

“How can you tell who’s a member and who’s not a member?”
“I get to know their faces,” he said.
“But I mean, like, with guests.”
“It’s not that hard,” he said.
“You ever make a mistake?”
“Sometimes people pretend to be guests, and that can be awkward.”
“Jesus, how desperate.”
The man tilted his head.
Beckett feared she had said a snobby thing.

The great strength in “Member / Guest” lies in the subtle intimacy of the point of view. We bob along with all the ripples of Beckett’s emotions—about her parents, her brother, herself. Even her hesitation about whether to fetch an ice cream cone smacks of poignancy.

In the end, while we’re made to worry for Beckett’s safety as the girls swim to and from a buoy, a deeper fear gnaws at us: by this time next year, Beckett will have outgrown her adolescent questions, and will be well on her way to becoming her mother.

Delicate yet powerful, “Member / Guest” is an extraordinary exercise. One might quibble with details (I could do without the obscure Latin in the penultimate line), but it is by and large,

Outstanding. Strong (modified 24 December 2012, explanation here).

Reader poll: I found "Member / Guest" to be __.