Matthew Thomas - We Are Not Ourselves

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We Are Not Ourselves: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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Born in 1941, Eileen Tumulty is raised by her Irish immigrant parents in Woodside, Queens, in an apartment where the mood swings between heartbreak and hilarity, depending on whether guests are over and how much alcohol has been consumed.
When Eileen meets Ed Leary, a scientist whose bearing is nothing like those of the men she grew up with, she thinks she’s found the perfect partner to deliver her to the cosmopolitan world she longs to inhabit. They marry, and Eileen quickly discovers Ed doesn’t aspire to the same, ever bigger, stakes in the American Dream.
Eileen encourages her husband to want more: a better job, better friends, a better house, but as years pass it becomes clear that his growing reluctance is part of a deeper psychological shift. An inescapable darkness enters their lives, and Eileen and Ed and their son Connell try desperately to hold together a semblance of the reality they have known, and to preserve, against long odds, an idea they have cherished of the future.
Through the Learys, novelist Matthew Thomas charts the story of the American Century, particularly the promise of domestic bliss and economic prosperity that captured hearts and minds after WWII. The result is a riveting and affecting work of art; one that reminds us that life is more than a tally of victories and defeats, that we live to love and be loved, and that we should tell each other so before the moment slips away.
Epic in scope, heroic in character, masterful in prose, We Are Not Ourselves heralds the arrival of a major new talent in contemporary fiction.

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“Jesus,” he said, finally opening his eyes. “Who are you all of a sudden?”

“I was fine with it until recently. But now it feels like some pressure is going to cave my head in.”

“I’ve been engaged in a project of recuperation, of rejuvenation,” he said, as if he’d been having a different conversation entirely. “I’ve become preoccupied lately with things I haven’t done. I didn’t want that pile of records staring at me. So I decided to take action, even if it wasn’t popular with you, or Connell, or the chattering classes of your friends.”

She burned to hear him talk of her friends. She hadn’t said a word to them about how he was behaving, afraid as she was to hear what they might have to say.

“It’s time I did some things for myself,” he said.

She should have been furious. Do things for himself? What about all the sacrifices she’d made to get him through graduate school? But his speech sounded vaguely rehearsed. Something rattled around in it, like a dead tooth that hadn’t fallen out. Was it that he didn’t believe it himself?

“I can’t live like this forever,” she said.

“It’s almost summer. I’m going to have more time to fix this place up. I’ve got projects in mind. I can revamp the garage. I can paint the house.”

“Can you bring back our old neighbors? Can you drown out the noise?” She smirked. “For the rest of us, I mean. You’re doing a fine job of doing it for yourself. Can you give us a lawn in front?”

“You need to relax.”

“Don’t tell me what I need. And don’t patronize me. Not when you’ve been half-crazy yourself. This all started when you started going crazy, come to think of it.”

“Things are going to get better now.” He reached to stroke her hair. Now it was her turn to recoil from his touch.

“I want you to go with me. Just come to look at them with me. I hate going alone.”

“What’s the point of looking if we’re staying put? I’m going to fix this place up.”

It was like talking to a child. She felt something in her snap. “You may be staying here,” she said slowly. “But I can’t.”

“And I can’t leave. I told you.”

“You can’t go back in the womb, Ed.”

“Don’t be a bitch.”

He’d never called her that in all their years together. She looked at him savagely.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean that.”

She ground her teeth. “Don’t talk filth to me,” she said, practically hissing. “You want to talk that way to a woman, get a girlfriend. Is that what this is about? This mooning, this philosophical mumbo jumbo? Is there a girl in the neighborhood you can’t bear to leave? A chiquita ?”

Ed rolled over. “Good night,” he said.

She wasn’t going to be the one to break the silence. She lay there turning her ring on her swollen finger, chafing at the discomfort of its digging into her skin. The salty corned beef she’d cooked for dinner had made her fingers expand as if they’d been inflated. She wanted the ring off, not so much because of the discomfort but just to have it off, just so that Ed wouldn’t have any claim on her at the moment, even if he didn’t know he didn’t, but she couldn’t get it past her knuckle.

“You’re all wrong,” Ed said after a while. She felt his hand between her shoulder blades. “There’s no girl. You’re my only girl. You know I adore you.”

She didn’t turn over. She stared at the handles on the chest of drawers. “Then why won’t you do this for me?”

He slapped at the bed in frustration. She felt it shake. “I can’t right now,” he said. “I just want to stay in place.”

“That’s what the suburbs are for —staying in place.” He didn’t respond. “Honey, listen. Is everything all right with you? Really? You don’t seem yourself lately.”

“I’m fine. It’s just been a long year.”

They lay in silence again. Finally she turned to him. “We wouldn’t be moving right away,” she said. “It takes months to move. Maybe even more than a year.”

“I just can’t!” he said, pounding the pillow. “Don’t you hear me?”

She fooled with the little raised flower at the front of her camisole, to disperse the humiliation she felt at being spoken to that way.

“I’m not going to stop looking, and I’m not going to sell the house out from under you, Ed. I need your consent.”

“I’m going to work on the house this summer,” he said. “Maybe you’ll want to stay after that.”

“Do it if it makes you happy,” she said. “But don’t go thinking it’ll make a difference. You can’t put out a fire with a thimbleful of water.”

23

Eileen went in Gloria’s car. One house had six bedrooms, more space than she’d ever imagined in even her most lavish dreams of dinner parties and extended visits, and she wanted Gloria to leave her there to sleep on the floor in the master bedroom and wake in the night to roam the dark spaces like a watchman in an empty office building. She registered her approval of touches Gloria pointed out, the beauty of which she needed no vocabulary to understand. It was impossible not to be enchanted by the exquisite good taste of the wood running everywhere, the quiet granite of the countertops.

“I want to see as many houses as I can,” she said giddily as they left. “I want to take them all in.”

Gloria was a willing enough conspirator that Eileen allowed herself to relax. She’d been afraid of wasting the agent’s time, but Gloria did such a good job of projecting professional aplomb that Eileen decided to believe in the durability of her patience. Gloria would tell her the price on the way and what she thought they could get them down to. Eileen could see Gloria watching her for some reaction that would establish benchmarks to strive for, and she gave her none; she merely marveled indiscriminately at the gorgeous interiors, the manicured lawns, the impeccable patios, the huge kitchen windows that might look out, in the future, on grandchildren at play. Every time, Eileen said the same thing: “Wow!” or “Gee!” or “Beautiful!” or some other blandishment that kept Gloria off the trail of what she really felt, which was terror. She dispatched that terror with manic exuberance and affirmation. They would sit in the car for a few minutes talking, then head up to begin another simulation. The afternoon passed in a haze.

After perhaps the fifth house, Gloria paused before turning the key in the ignition.

“This is fun, isn’t it?”

“Enormous fun,” Eileen said. “I could do this all day.”

“Yes. Well, at some point we have to settle on some parameters.”

“It’s so hard to say. They’re all so beautiful. Who could ever leave some of these houses, except to move to the others?”

“I’m pretty sure you’re going to love this next one,” Gloria said determinedly. “I’m not even going to give you the fact sheet. I just want you to react. I want to see what tickles you.”

They drove to the house, which turned out to be the most impressive yet. It was a gray brick center hall colonial — she knew that term now — set high off the road, with a front lawn that sloped gently downward. It had long black shutters, a gorgeous front porch, and a room off to the side with floor-to-ceiling glass windows. It must have had three times the space of the floor they inhabited in their house. After they’d walked through it, Eileen studiously wide-eyed the whole time, Gloria led her to the porch.

“Do you mind sitting for a minute?”

“Not at all,” Eileen said, and took a seat in one of the tall white rockers. Gloria sat on the top step and faced her. It felt as luxurious to sit on the porch as it had seemed it might from the curb.

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