Parsing a short story
SUSAN BOYAR LEADS LIVELY DISCUSSIONS FOR BEFUDDLED READERS
There are times you feel that you have to take a college course to understand a short story in the New Yorker magazine (forget poems — that calls for an MFA degree).
At the end of so many New Yorker short stories, you wonder, “That’s it? What the heck happened?” The narrative seems to have fallen off a cliff at the end mark of the article. You puzzle over the story for days. Shouldn’t there have been a resolution for the narrator? Is the grandfather a curmudgeon or just a concerned adult? Was the lover in the front seat or the back seat of the car when it crashed? Why is this particular poetic prose so difficult to parse? You’re lost, you want help. You need Susan Boyar.
Susan Boyar may not be a college professor — but she is no neophyte as a literary discussion host. She has been leading book club discussions, as well as shortstory analyses, in New York City and throughout Westchester and Fairfield counties for more than 28 years.
Her meetings at Greenwich and Cos Cob libraries have devoted followers who are not hesitant to voice their opinions, sometimes sharply disagreeing with her interpretations. There are always spirited conversations laced with personal reactions.
Boyar peruses a short story, a narrative of precision, the same way she does a book, spending hours in research, scouring interviews and reviews of past works by the authors, before every discussion. She carefully analyzes theme, character, setting, conflict and plot.
“New Yorker stories are always a stretch,” says Boyar. “You must stick to the text, but,” she allows, “you can read between the lines”—if it makes sense. As she will tell you, there really is no right or wrong way to read fiction. We each bring our own sensibilities into our perceptions of what the author is saying. When someone voices a strong opinion about a character’s intention or an event that is not specifically spelled out by the author, Boyar may come back with her proverbial “We don’t know that.”
Sometimes there isn’t a plot and sometimes a story flummoxes everyone in the group as did Ben Lerner’s “The Media,” which appeared in the April 20 issue of the New Yorker. Lerner’s piece is poetic prose, wherein a sentence or phrase is often followed by poetic cadence. Lerner’s story, which ran as a single paragraph on one page, thoroughly mystified the attendees on Boyar’s recent Zoom invitational site. Some passages, agreed Boyar, were “like pulling smoke.” Little by little, however, the story line came into focus with her guidance.
Like many book reviewers, Boyar was a voracious reader as a child. Her parents were very supportive of her selections “without interdictions.” Then, as now, she often rereads favorites. In college, she majored in French literature and when that led to dead ends for a career, she knitted a different pattern, with stints as a social service worker, paralegal, nursery school teacher, and private tutor. All along she took English Literature classes at the University of Connecticut in Stamford. One day a librarian invited her to fill in as a sub at the Cos Cob Library’s fiction book discussion group that had been led by a rotation of professors from UConn.
“It sounded like fun,” she recalls, “and the rest is history.”
As with avid fiction aficionados, Boyar has her favorite authors, like George Saunders and even Ben Lerner, and her favorite books, like “Atonement” by Ian McEwan, “Jane Eyre” by Emily Bronte, “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad. But, she says, after almost three decades of literary discussions involving a great deal of reading, it is difficult to single out all her favorite books or short stories. “Really, who remembers?” she asks. Boyar is amazingly perceptive of what titles, be they best sellers or classics, may appeal to readers in her group. The New Yorker short story, on the other hand, is a given for that week’s meeting.
“I try never to do a group without having read the work at least twice,” says Boyar reassuringly. “I read reviews, interviews, historical context.” She’ll listen to author recordings of their works when available, as is often the case with New Yorker pieces. Some novels, she admits, are easier than others. But others, well, are life-long voyages of discovery.
“I like to work hard at understanding,” she says. “If you ask me how long I have been preparing ‘Pride and Prejudice’ or ‘Jane Eyre’ or ‘The Custom of the Country,’ I’d have to answer in years,” she says from her comfortable home in Weston. “Some novels are much easier than others. Some I also listen to. Some I have read probably 15 times.”
Boyar may like a book, e.g., “The Milkman,” while some in the group admit they couldn’t get beyond the first 100 pages. Nothing seems to offend her, and it’s evident, she thoroughly enjoys the lively arguments over plot twists, character flaws, and plausible endings proffered by members of the group. Boyar wants the short story and the book to stay with you long after you’ve put them down. And if they require more careful attention, by all means, read them more than once.
To join a short story or book discussion led by Susan Boyar, contact Laura Matthews of Greenwich Library at lmatthews@greenwichlibrary.org.