How Does A Woman Prevail?

I told myself to read at least five books a year that are far and out from my usual genres. This is one — Hilma Wolitzer's 'Today A Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket' (2021). The author writes a genre of stories that I'm not interested in, hence I don't know her, or her daughter, acclaimed writer Meg Wolitzer. (Reviews here, here, here and here.) 

I had to read a number of reviews to familiarize myself with said author before starting on this book. Thanks to NPR, I learnt that, "the collection is bookended on one end by the title tale, which was first published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1966, and on the other by a powerful new story, written in 2020, which checks in on a pair of Wolitzer's longtime recurring characters just as the novel coronavirus pandemic hits New York."

I don't know what possessed me to read the book. When I finished the last story, I was relieved. Yup. I didn't like any of the stories at all. As nuanced as the 13 stories are, beautifully layered and painted, and the writing is good, I didn't like these short stories at all. Most of these stories were written in the 1960s and 70s. They touch on a girl's growing pains, motherhood, suicide, marriage complexities and such. The first story is written in 1966 — the eponymously titled 'Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket', and that would be Shirley Lewis who has a husband and two small children. In the supermarket pushing an empty cart, she broke down.

Of course, I"m too sophisticated in things psychological (isn't everyone today?)  to think that one goes mad at a moment's notice. There are insipid beginnings to a nervous breakdown. There's lonely crying in the bathroom, balanced on the edge for the tub, and in the kitchen, weeping into the dishwater, tears breaking the surface of the suds. There's forgetting, or or wishing to forget, the names of the children, the way to the local bank, the reason for getting up in the morning. There's loss of vanity — toenails growing long and dirty into prehensile claws, hair uncombed, eyebrows unpacked. Yet something seems very right to me about going mad in a supermarket: 

After reading the first few stories, I was like, oh the author really likes to name her characters as 'Paulie' and 'Howard'. Then I realized, they are the same Paulie and Howard. They're not the narrators, but most of the stories are seen through their marriages and perceptions.

The last story in the book is 'The Great Escape' written in 2020 by the 92-year-old author, who's coming to terms with her life after the death of her husband from Covid-19, and an eight-year hiatus from writing. At the encouragement of her daughter Meg Wolitzer, she did so, by publishing this book. This last story is almost a recollection of her life with her then-alive husband. This one, I didn't mind since it touched on end-of-life topics. 

The first-person narrator Paulie recalled her time with her husband (Howard, yes), and her adult children who have their independent lives. Then Covid-19 came along. One day, Howard fell ill first with pneumonia and then tested positive for Covid-19. Paulie tested positive shortly after. She recovered. He passed away in hospital, alone. She had to pick up the pieces of their shared lives. 

But the business of being old took up most of our time and concentration. A schedule for our various pills and tonics was stuck by a magnet to the refrigerator, where we used to hang the children's drawings, then the grandchildren's. And our bodies let us down as we lurched toward oblivion. 

............

And Howard had died without anyone who loved him nearby, had been cremated with no on there to see him off. I hadn't witnessed any of it and my imagination failed me for once—I couldn't picture it. His clothes were hanging in the closet, his frayed blue toothbrush was in its holder. It was as if he had merely vanished, like a magician's assistant falling through a secret trapdoor.