IF
I WOULD LEAVE MYSELF BEHIND
Lauren Becker. Curbside Splendor,
$14.95 paperback (112 pp) ISBN: 978-1-9404300-7-2
To some, a
“challenging” book means one in which the writing is convoluted and “un-fun to
read” and, possibly, isn’t worth the effort. Happily, if I would leave myself behind, a collection comprised of a novella
and short stories by Lauren Becker, the effort demanded from readers is more
than worth it. Becker’s stories challenge us in a couple ways to reveal the
tragic aura of contemporary romantic relationships.
While
“challenging” might suggest literary mega-fauna like Infinite Jest, Becker’s extreme concision is one demanding aspect
of her stories. Other than the novella, the stories are flash-fiction length,
and what’s included in these brief portrayals prompts readers to extrapolate
what’s been left out and why. Becker withholds much, pushing readers into the
mindset of her characters who are forced to make judgments about others on
limited information. In Object Lessons: The Paris Review Presents the Art of the Short Story,
Jeffrey Eugenides introduces Denis Johnson’s masterpiece “Car Crash While
Hitchhiking” by saying that Johnson finds “a way to leave out the maximum in
terms of plot, setting, characterization, and authorial explanation while
finding a voice that suggest[s] all these things, a voice whose brokenness is
the reason behind the narrative deprivation, and therefore a kind of
explanation itself.” Becker also leaves out “the maximum” to plunge readers
into the minds of the desperately lonely.
Similar to
Johnson’s characters, Becker’s have a “brokenness,” though hers read more as
“incompleteness,” which drives them to seek out unsuitable romantic partners. The protagonists
know they’re unsuitable, too. For instance, the narrator of “boilerplate”
sleeps with a man she doesn’t much like and actively keeps him at a distance. She
wants only to remember “his common name,” which she “only borrowed for as long
as it took to add to the list that I told myself again should end with the next.” He’s not a good match, and readers
can see that she’s already imagining him as part of a prologue to her final
relationship. Yet, she’s felt this way before and has thought each terrible
choice would be the last, but they weren’t.
The above
example illustrates the second way Becker’s fiction challenges. Readers may
question this narrator’s choices, but Becker isn’t spinning out cautionary
tales about the emotional tolls of sleeping around. She also isn’t trying to
present well-adjusted and healthy attitudes toward sex. Instead, these stories
ably tread a precarious middle where characters’ experiences occupy center
stage rather than pronouncements about contemporary romance. Becker doesn’t
tell readers about experiencing desperate loneliness, she—like Johnson—tries to
make those tragic experiences the readers’ own. Yet, readers will find themselves
grappling with their responses to these depictions. Becker’s portrayals throw our
attitudes—be they sexist, puritanical, permissive, or whatever—into sharp
relief, and we see that we’re clinging to ugly attitudes and not recognizing
the tragedy in these characters’ loss of identity. The collection’s
title implies this loss. When characters “leave themselves behind,” they deny
their true selves. They begin not to like the “selves” into which they have
fallen, and it’s as if the ghosts of who they really are haunt them and us. (June 2014)
Purchase if i would leave myself behind HERE.
