Are The Dead Uncles Real?

This was a rather riveting short story by David Rabe, titled 'Uncle Jim Called', published in The New Yorker's issue for July 8 & 15, 2019. The story began when Glenn received a strange phone call from his supposedly long-deceased uncles Jim and Hank. They were looking for their sister, Glenn's mother, Margie, who was also dead. He thought it was a prank call and hung up. His wife and daughter were away for a few days, visiting relatives in California.

And then the story went wild. After dinner, Glen turned on the television and channel-surfed. Then he saw the past appear on his television screen, like a film, except that the volume was low, and he couldn't hear what the characters were talking about. He saw his uncles seated in his grandparents' kitchen, talking over coffee. It made him think.

They had been a passionately connected set of siblings. A high romance of charged emotions, expectations, disappointments, and competition bound them. But, if they were all dead, why weren’t they together? Or, at least, aware of one another’s whereabouts? It made me uneasy. Not that this seeming incongruity was the only aspect of the night that deserved such a response. Certainly, I was aware of the larger concerns, the irrational, irreducible elements. I recognized them for what they were, irrational and irreducible, as uncanny as they were compelling. But that didn’t help me with them. Why had my uncles called? Why did they think I might know where Margie was? Their concern about her whereabouts made me worry, too. Was this what they wanted? For me to think about her, worry about her?

Sure, it's a complex play of family relationships, emotions and life events. It's one man's burden now. I didn't quite know what to make of it. Our conscience calls to us when we're older? Repressed emotions surfacing to make a mid-life crisis? Or simply our brain degenerating into a senile state? An interview with the author by Deborah Treisman provides insight.

The story unfolded in a most surreal fashion. Glenn's father came into the story late, but loomed large. After a few paragraphs, I began to wonder if this was all in Glenn's head, or was it his conscience? The story ends in a rather unsatisfying manner, but brilliantly so. It had a firm conclusion—Glenn has gone away from his wife and daughter. They begged him to come home, but he was apparently 'home', led away by a strange sort of restlessness. I don't even know if his dead uncles were a metaphor or if they weren't ghosts at all.