I've been listening to Groundskeeping, by Lee Cole, which the New York Times reviewed in March. I was intrigued by the socioeconomic class aspect of the review, set in that fateful election year 2016. Here's what Hamilton Cain wrote in that NYT review, referring to Cole, the author, and Owen, the novel's protagonist:
If economic class is the third rail of American life, then [author] Cole eases his hand out, gently, to touch it, his realism a meld of Richard Russo and Anne Tyler by way of Sally Rooney. Despite [protagonist] Owen’s modest upbringing, he’s a striver with scant chill. He’s liberal in his politics and passionate about Walt Whitman and Modigliani, stoking a sense of curiosity and discipline not always associated with his demographic.
And here's a quote from the novel, excerpted in Cain's review, that illustrates the role of place and culture in it.
“I explained that Cracker Barrel was cheap, and they were working-class people without a lot of money who nonetheless wanted the experience of a family outing,” Owen notes. “They loved the food and the décor not because they had bad taste, but because it was familiar to them. They’d grown up on actual farms, milking cows and pulling the suckers from actual tobacco. They’d eaten stewed apples and turnip greens and ham hock, and the tools on the walls had been the tools their fathers used, in a time that was not, at least in Kentucky, some distant yesteryear. It was recent and vivid, and the ache of its passing away therefore still present, like a phantom limb.”
Cain's review tells us that the protagonist grew up in "a dot of a town" in western Kentucky. In fact, there is not a lot of rural in this book--unless one believes, as I tend to do, that rural culture moves to town when rural folks move to the city. This novel seems to support that thesis. Or maybe it's more accurate to say this novel illustrates why "rural" is often conflated with "working-class white" in contemporary political discussions.
The rural culture associated with the flyover states is alive and well, it seems, in places like Louisville, where the novel is set. That's evident in this conversation between the two primary characters. One is Owen, who aspires to be a writer but for now is working as a groundskeeper at a posh Louisville university; that job permits him to enroll free of charge in a class, and he's studying creative writing. The other is Alma, a professional writer who is writer in residence at the university, an immigrant from Bosnia. You see here how her parents' attitudes toward education differed dramatically from that of the parents of Owen.
You'll be able to tell who is who in this dialogue, which occurs at a juncture where they are becoming romantically interested in each other:
As we walked on, she pulled the sleeves of her sweatshirt over her fists and crossed her arms, shivering a little. Did you go to Princeton? I said.
Yep.
How was that?
She thought about the question a few moments. It was wonderful in a lot of ways, and also evil in a lot of ways. Going there as an immigrant is different than going as a legacy from some old-money family.
Was that where you always wanted to go?
I got into Dartmouth and Penn, too. I might’ve gone to Harvard, but they wait-listed me.
I didn’t ask where you got in, I asked where you wanted to go.
It’s hard to differentiate what you want from what your parents want at that age, you know?
I nodded as if I understood what she meant from experience, but I had no idea. When I was eighteen, all of my energy had been spent maintaining a clear border between what I wanted and what my parents wanted, defending its sovereignty against constant incursion.
No state schools?
She laughed.
Yeah, right.
So it was Ivy League or nothing?
Not even, she said. Cornell is a joke. Stanford would’ve been all right. I would’ve been okay with Stanford.
I can’t tell if you’re being serious.
Why would I not be serious?
There was a finality to her response that made it seem like she’d rather talk about something else.
I always wanted to go to a highfalutin school, I said.
She smiled skeptically. Now you’re just playing it up. You don’t really say “highfalutin.”
I just did, didn’t I?
So what happened, why didn’t you go to a highfalutin school?
I explained to her that I’d wanted to go to a good school when I was young, but by the time I finished high school, my grades weren’t good enough, and anyhow, my parents wouldn’t have been able to afford the out-of-state tuition. I ended up at the University of Kentucky, barely managing to graduate with a degree in English.
Didn’t anyone tell you that you were capable of more?
My parents didn’t want me to go off and become a coastal elite. If they’d had their druthers, I’d have gone to Murray State, an hour from their house.
Their druthers?
Yeah, you’ve never heard that? No, she said, laughing. That’s definitely going on the list.
When do I get to see this list?
When the time is right, she said. So what’s wrong with being a coastal elite?
Nothing, as far as I’m concerned. To them, it’s the worst thing you could be. I’ve wanted to be a coastal elite my whole life.(pp. 87-89) Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition (emphasis mine)
She looked at me as if she both pitied me and found me adorable—a look I was getting used to.
No comments:
Post a Comment