San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
‘Stranger’ churns grief, family and sex in an observant coming-of-middle-age tale
Reading Kate Christensen’s incisive eighth novel, a quote from 19th century author Ivan Turgenev came to mind: “A poet must be a psychologist.” As evidenced in her previous works (including 2008 PEN/ Faulkner Award winner “The Great Man”), Christensen is both. Her prose glimmers and glints, more sensation than exposition, whether she’s shining her light on broken family, broken dreams or our broken Earth. In this short but mighty novel , Christensen does a psychologist’s job with a poet’s lyrical pen.
We meet divorced, postmenopausal eco-journalist Rachel Calloway in the wake of her mother’s death, at her first family dinner in a decade, at the Portland, Maine, home of her sister Celeste, brother-inlaw Neil and their two adolescent children. “‘Oh, I love you kids so much,’ says Celeste out of nowhere. She shrieks gently in the back of her throat, the sound of histrionic emotional pressure mounting like a gas. The kids hear it too. They withdraw their attention from their mother before she explodes. It works. The drama ratchets down, the pressure leaks invisibly from Celeste’s skull.”
Wow. Rachel’s deep observations, bitter and smart and sad, steer us through this comingof-middle-age tale of a driven, wounded woman seeing her present self in contrast to her life of origin. Home for her mother’s memorial, Rachel finds each family member, including herself, fueled and foiled by decades-old simmering rage. Celeste resents Rachel for absenting herself from their mother’s long, gruesome death. Celeste’s children resent their parents’ escalating alcoholism. Rachel resents Celeste for inviting Rachel’s longtime, married paramour, David, to the family reunion. “I almost don’t recognize him at first,” Rachel reports. “His gray hair is cut in a straight line across his forehead. David, my wild boy, has become an old man.”
The action of this novel is quiet, interior . People say things they shouldn’t, with life-altering results. Jobs, marriages, houses, fix-it men and other security measures prove unreliable. But what really happens in “Welcome Home, Stranger” is the universal progression of every human lucky enough to survive their youth. Wild boys become gray old men. Young dreams morph into middle-aged discontent. Supple bodies become brittle encumbrances. Adults thrash, disentangling themselves from their parents’ ghosts. For Rachel, even sex — especially sex — can’t quiet her dead mother’s voice.
“No man can make me come. Even David. When I get close, her voice squawks in my head. … She can’t let go; I can’t dislodge her.”
The mood of the novel is as broodingly persistent as its protagonist. Rachel refuses to quit her journalism job, even when her male bosses are trying to force her out. For decades, she doesn’t quit David — until she sees why she must, in a stunning moment of selflove.
“My brain clicks. He doesn’t care that sex with him was hurting me.
“‘Get out, David. Get dressed. Go home.’ I can’t believe how heartsick I was for years over this putz. Now, in the sane, ice-hot clarity of my new hormone-free brain, I look at him clearly for the first time in my life.”
As they tend to do, one breakthrough leads to another. While she’s cleaning out her mother’s house, Rachel’s rage dissolves into the ultimate sign of maturity: acceptance.
“Of course she hated me for seeing her so clearly and judging her. … She might not have read everything I wrote, but she knew it was important, and she was proud of me. Maybe I haven’t wanted to remember any of this because it complicates my story about my mother and kind of breaks my heart. But it’s true.”
At midlife, at last, Rachel stops yearning for the relationship she wanted with her mother, and accepts the relationship she had. What better foundation for a mature woman’s future could there be?
The action of this novel is quiet, interior . ... What really happens in ‘Welcome Home, Stranger’ is the universal progression of every human lucky enough to survive their youth.