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MY WIDOW
First published in The New Yorker
(February 12, 2001): 80-87.
From a French
interview during the February 2000 publicity tour for "25
Histoires d'amour":
TCB: My wife? As I've said on TV last night,
I'm her sexual slave. So, she takes me for granted. She's
happy that I'm selling books, making money and paying the bills,
but she doesn't pay that much attention. The last story of the
new book, which I should have included in the love stories but
it's too late, is the only story I've read her that didn't make
her fall asleep, the reason being it's called "My Widow".
It takes place 30 years from now, she's the star of this story
and it's very evil. But I figure since love and death are exactly
the same, I will put this story into the death volume. She likes
my work, she realizes that I'm an artist, I've always been interested
in powerful, commanding women. I guess that's what you see of
these women in the stories.
Interviewer: Isn't it difficult to live in couple
when you write such horrible things about it?
TCB: No, I think that the fact I'm the
slave of a woman makes it easier, because I have no other chance.
I clean the house, I pay the bills, I make love to her and that's
it. I think it gives me the stability to write these stories
and imagine all the scenarios, some of it is from personal experience,
but a lot of it is invented or from the experience of my friends.
Most of my friends are bachelors and I write about their love
lives and experiences. This is the real test of friendship, because
it's not always a very favourable story to them. (laughs)
- - - - -
Posted by Mimi Carmen on February
10, 2001:
Dear TCB
When my last New Yorker came,
I knew you were there somewhere waiting for me. Not Barbara,
or Ruthie, or Sandye, (or that French guy I kinda like too) just
me special, like a chocolate you save until last, anticipating
the decadence, the taste, reaching beyond fondest expectations,
so I've held off reading, savoring the cover, wondering what's
waiting there? My own preference is the chewey caramels, which
I save and look at before I nibble. But if
it turns out to be the soft squishey
kind, dripping with gooey, smooth cherries and coffe cream, that's
fine. Happy Valentine's Day, TCB. Best Mimi
Posted by TCB on February
11, 2001:
Dear Mimi: Thank you for the
kind wishes. I was pleased that "My Widow" was chosen
for the Valentine's Day issue of The New Yorker. It is an odd
and very personal story, which, I hope, also contains an element
of sweetness, pure and unadulterated. (Not saccharine.) I did
enjoy the legend on the cover of the newsstand issue: "T.
Coraghessan Boyle on his widow." Such sweet sorrow, no?
TCB.
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Posted by shirley r. ottenstein
on February 11, 2001:
Just read your latest story
in the New Yorker. I truly loved it. At the end of the story
I shed a tear. The story was so tender and full of understanding
for an elderly woman. Whenever the dead husband, said, My Widow,
you could feel thelove that the couple must have had.
Thank you,
Shirley Ottenstein
Posted by Juan Martinez
on February 13, 2001:
In Reply to: New Yorker Story
posted by shirley r. ottenstein on February 11, 2001:
I liked it a lot as well.
That splash of benevolence, "because this is a good and
fitting universe I'm constructing here," was fantastic.
It also got me thinking of other stories and novels whose narrators
happen to be ghosts.
Offhand there's Nabokov's
_Transparent Things_ and the last paragraph of "The Vane
Sisters" -- and also Alice Walker's _Possessing (sp?) the
Secret of Joy_ -- Rulfo's _Pedro Paramo_ -- I'm sure there is
also at least one Robertson Davies novel w/ a ghostly narrator
(_World of Wonders_,maybe?)... -- can anyone think of any more?
Posted by stephen on February
13, 2001:
In Reply to: Ghosts posted
by Juan Martinez on February 13, 2001:
The Robertson Davies book
was Murther and Walking Spirits, I believe ... my own addition
to the list would have to be The Third Policeman, by Flann O'Brien.
Posted by TCB on February
13, 2001:
In Reply to: Ghosts posted
by Juan Martinez on February 13, 2001:
Dear Shirely R. Ottenstein
and Juan Martinez: Thank you for your responses to the story.
It is enormously gratifying for me to know that I'm connecting
with people out there, and with you specifically. TCB.
- - - - -
Posted by Mary on February
14, 2001:
What a perfect story for the
middle-aged person to read on a rainy Valentine's Day! Although
I'm with Ruthie on cats, the cats (and the chronically lost pocketbooks)
serve an important function. The widow was in need of some flaw-
just a little dottiness- to temper the inherent superiority and
natural strength that enabled her to outlive everyone but her
younger sister, avoid the nursing home, and subdue all interlopers.
Not to mention keep her pretty dimples and her own teeth.
So, how much life insurance
should one consider to cover lifetime roofs and gutters?
Posted by BArbara on February
15, 2001:
In Reply to: My Widow posted
by Mary on February 14, 2001:
Ruthie will be pleased; however,
for the record she has never squeezed a cat to see what's inside.
("Eeeew! It would get cat guts all over my rugs.")
My favorite was the sentiment
about the 2nd husband being a golfer. That pretty much tells
me all I need to know. The bad clothes with designer labels;
the small, sporty rag-topped vehicles with the storage area that
just so conveniently accommodates a coller full of beer; the
bonding rituals back at the clubhouse--hell, this isn't a sport,
it's a fraternity for the AARPs!
Posted by TCB on February
15, 2001:
In Reply to: My Widow posted
by Mary on February 14, 2001 at 22:25:14:
Dear Mary: I love your interpretation.
Very soothing to both me and my widow. TCB.
- - - - -
Posted by Georgia Fox on February
15, 2001:
I read My Widow last night
(New Yorker), and laughed, but also was deeply deeply moved,
especially at the end of the story. It reminded me so much of
my own mother during her last days in her house (also in Santa
Barbara), with the cats and the lost purses, as she glided into
the early stages of dementia. My Widow is a wonderful story.
Posted by sandye on February
15, 2001:
In Reply to: My Widow posted
by Georgia Fox on February 15, 2001 at 00:55:03:
i really liked it, too. it
read to me like a very sweet valentine to mrs. boyle.
sandye
p.s. of course, i am a cat-lover,
too.
Posted by Al Yonan on February
15, 2001:
In Reply to: Re: My Widow
posted by sandye on February 15, 2001 at 03:51:35:
I quite agree, Sandye, a touching
story with a delghtful dose of wit.
Regards always-
Al
Posted by TCB on February
15, 2001:
In Reply to: Re: My Widow
posted by sandye on February 15, 2001 at 03:51:35:
Dear Georgia Fox and Sandye:
Thank you so much. There is sweetness in the story, I hope, but
it is tempered by, shall we say, a little satiric critique?
TCB.
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© Copyright 2001 Sandye
Utley
Last Page Update: 16 March
2001
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