[reviews]
[masthead]
Sharon Dilworth, The Long White (1989, University of Iowa Press)
[This classic title is difficult to track down, but copies are still available for ordering via the publisher's website.]
reviewed by David LeGault
Sharon Dilworth's short story collection, The Long
White, has already received a great deal of critical acclaim. Winner
of the Iowa Short Fiction Award, the collection of stories portrays a
cold, bleak landscape across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The stories
tackle many critical subjects—including divorce, death, and loneliness—though
the region's harsh winters help to mold the stories into something innovative
and striking.
The Long White's stories deal
with many of the common themes of Northern Michigan writing, but Dilworth's
approach to the subjects makes for a unique literary experience. In the
collection's first story, entitled "Winter Mines," we see the
narrator's struggles with her husband as well as an old friend's suicide.
The husband, who is laid off for winter from his mining job, is stuck
with a feeling of uselessness and dread that the company's never going
to hire him back. Through the narrator's eyes, we see a husband's mental
decline coinciding with the narrator's lack of control, the duality fitting
well with Dilworth's other stories of loss and betrayal. This is further
seen in the story "Lunch at Archibald's," where a woman has
a run-in with her ex-husband's new wife. Here, the story focuses on a
woman's troubles of letting go of her former husband, but the small town
aspect forces the two women to continually run into each other, resulting
in the rising tension found throughout the story. Through the small town
setting and seasonal economy of the Upper Peninsula, Dilworth makes her
stories unique and raw.
Although the setting plays a tremendous
role in The Long White, in no way is this more apparent than
it is with the characters Dilworth chooses to include. Particularly, the
conflicts that arise between the Native Americans of the region and the
large Finnish population fuel several of the stories, including "Mad
Dog Queen." In this story, Beth, a Native American, is hitchhiking
north to defend her title as the Mad Dog Queen—a wine drinking contest
with a $300 dollar prize. On the way, she stops by her fathers and runs
into his new wife, a Finnish woman who broke up her Beth's parents' marriage.
From this, Dilworth's writing takes on a new animosity, covering the topics
of trust, relationships, and what it means to belong to a town. She also
covers the conflict between Finn's and Native Americans in the titular
story, "The Long White." Here, Dilworth writes of a small town
near the Mackinac Bridge whose only claim to fame was a murder in the
late 60's: Jurff Pancy, a Native American, supposedly killed his wife
and dog. The town still obsesses with this story, drawing a fair amount
of conflict between the townspeople and those who live in Indian Town,
a local reservation. One woman, through the mysterious disappearance of
her husband, manages to change that. Through these cultural differences,
The Long White encapsulates racial tension while still exploring
other key plot points.
Outside of setting and cultural differences,
Dilworth conveys her stories through a strong, believable narrative voice.
In "The Long White," she writes in one of the purest children
voices I've ever read. When writing about Jurff Pancy, the aforementioned
character from Indiantown, she writes:
People just knew he was the one. He looks like the kind of person who could have done something like that. His eyebrows go straight across his forehead—it looks like he just has one. Everyone in town believes the house is still jinxed and the police want to burn it to the ground. Jurff moved up to Indiantown. He still comes to Good Hart once in a while. People stare at him, some of the men mumble good morning his way, but no one talks to him directly.
Other than children's
voices, she also covers butchers, barmaids, divorcees, widows, and a twenty
something male having troubles with his family due to unemployment and
homosexuality. Men, women, children: Dilworth covers them all beautifully.
To read this book is to experience the
Upper Peninsula from every direction. Whether taking on death, loss, industry,
or the insufferable cold of winter, Dilworth's short story collection
is not to be missed.
___
David LeGault is an undergraduate student at Grand Valley State University. He's currently conducting research on the importance of labor in Michigan literature.
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