The late Arturo Vivante once likened a novel to a bird’s longer migration from the North Pole to the South Pole, and compared the short story to a short flight from branch to branch. The implication of these words is that a novel requires stopovers and resting places, perhaps getting a bit worn and dented and even a bit deflated in the journey. With quicker and more deft execution, the short story has the potential to present itself as untarnished by flight and sometimes even perfectly preserved at the end of the ride.
A novella, however, falls in between. Punctuated with novelistic pauses and episodes, a novella still manages to unfold with a compact, consistent power; whereas the best novellas, like the best short stories, still retain the potential of being perfect in execution and effect.
And like short stories, novellas can be consumed from start to finish at three o’clock in the morning which is how I read “Sandra and the Snake Handlers”, one of three perfect novellas in a dazzling collection of four by James Driggers. This is the tale of a recently widowed woman who, furious at the untimely death of her husband, falls in love with a sexy televangelist. After years of zero interest in sex, “She felt hot and dreamy as his words poured out of the television over her. It was then she realized she was touching herself – down there.” Sandra begins to dress provocatively for Shep Waters’ weekly televised appearances, and prepares her home by fluffing “pillows on the couch and [making] sure there were no sandwich crumbs on the rug. Instinctively, she knew everything needed to be just right.” But here’s where Drigger’s brilliance kicks in: Sandra begins to believe that her husband’s accidental death was no accident at all, but rather a divine intervention to help Sandra achieve a higher purpose. This is an obvious delusion that is an excuse for her unbridled, late-blooming sexuality and the narrative suggests just how the axioms of fundamentalist Christianity can belie the strong sexual current that ensnares many of its believers who manage to find some kind of Biblical excuse for their sexual deviance or their extra-marital prowling.
Over the course of this novella, the reader begins to hope that Sandra’s passion for the T.V. preacher will somehow be realized and Driggers does eventually bring them together. Saying any more would be a spoiler; and yet, I must add that the denouement of this marvelous tale has to do with – yes – poisonous snakes and the belief by many fundamentalists that being born again will prevent these deadly snakes from striking.
Although the novellas all focus on murder, which is often considered genre fiction, with their unusual and original choice of material, with a masterful and in-depth realization of character, with perfectly pitched language, Driggers’ novellas are decidedly literary. They are reminiscent of some of the more harrowing stories of Flannery O’Connor and the darker plays of Tennessee Williams.
The novellas also contain subtle social commentary about class, gender politics, and racial tensions. Set in the 1930s, “Butcher, The Baker” is the story of George Butcher, a talented black chef known for his delectable popovers and pies. With admirable dedication, Butcher trains a beautiful but aimless white woman named Virginia to compete in the Mystic White Flour baking contest with the proviso that if she wins she’ll split the generous proceeds with him.
It’s a recipe,” he said, holding the notebook out to her. “And I got hundreds here. I can teach you to make ‘em – you don’t have to cook ‘em all. Make one or two. Maybe three or four tops. I can teach you that.”
“But why me?”
“You have a style,” he said. When she didn’t respond, he offered. “I don’t mean offense by that.”
“No,” she said. “I understand that much – they aren’t looking for Auntie Lou or a mammy. They want to sell a certain image.”
“Style,” he repeated.
“This would be cheating. Is that what you are proposing to me, George?”
“It ain’t cheating if the game is rigged, and this sure as hell is a closed game,” he said. “I could cook circles around any of them Miss Anns who will enter the contest. But I’m not the . . .image, as you put it.”
Arguably, several “Southern” sociological narratives are embedded in this very demotic exchange: a cooking contest open to all white housewives, which George knows will be rigged to favor the finalist who will present the prettiest face on a package of baking flour; baking by a black man raised to the level of art that will never be recognized; a talented and evolved black man propping up a white woman, who is bedeviled by alcoholism and a morally questionable past, and who will ultimately take credit for all his hard work. These are various tropes that most southerners surely would recognize.
The frosting on the novella is the inspired descriptions of food preparation.
The making of the biscuits proved more difficult. The lard had to be chilled, cubed, chilled again. It took a while for her to get the sizes correct. And then there was the cutting in. He sifted the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder into a bowl and crumbled the chilled white lard on top. “Some will want to use self-rising flour,” he said. “I don’t believe in it myself. Like to add my own salt and my own baking powder.” When he spoke of the ingredients, he seemed somehow to be more alive, like each element’s purpose was more special to him.
George orchestrates his plan to such a degree that he manages to get a job (not as a baker) in the hotel where the baking contest will take place. But his plan, alas, never quite comes off. It’s partly because he has fallen in love with Virginia’s light-skinned maid who, we begin to suspect, is actually her illegitimate daughter. The blight on Virginia’s character would certainly tarnish her candidacy to be the anointed queen of the white lady bakers. This story, like the others, has a gothic twist at the end that rivals the best of George Butcher’s concoctions.
Serving a man his just desserts is one of the conceits upon which the deception explored in “The Brambles” is based. Jewel and Freddie are two middle-aged sisters who share a house and are thought to be spinsters by most of the people who live in their town; but in fact, they have had several marriages between them. All these marriages have curiously ended with the tragic death of each husband, a demise that turns out to have been carefully orchestrated, enabling the sisters to collect the life insurance policies of their deceased spouses.
It all comes undone with the arrival of Mr. Odom, who is Jewel’s next mail-order husband. Odom unexpectedly arrives with his dead’s wife child and his step-daughter, named Isabelle, who happens to be pregnant. With Isabelle around, it’s not going to be easy to do away with Mr. Odom, a conundrum made even more complicated by the fact that Freddie warms to Isabelle but hates Odom, while Jewel grows fond of her new husband but hates his step-daughter.
This novella, as do the others, turns Southern stereotype on its head. Here women are in control, and men are seen as weak. Women survive their spouses by outmaneuvering them, through sheer force of will and even physical strength. Much to Jewel’s chagrin, Freddie sometimes takes to dressing up in a man’s work clothes and goes out to help the men who are tending their farm. Physically speaking she is more than a match for Mr. Odom. But she is hobbled and ultimately brought down by her maternal affection for Isabelle, an affection that may or may not be erotic but which not only undoes her, but brings the tale to its tragic conclusion, perhaps the most tragic conclusion of all of these novellas.
The last novella, M.R. Vale, was my least favorite of the four, not because it was executed with any less dexterity or was any less realized than the others, but because it subtly reinforces the stereotype of the gay man as weaker than and often in thrall to the straight man. M.R. Vale, a garden-variety gay florist, falls under the spell of a violent, self-loathing bisexual mechanic named Lonnie and ends up being complicit in Lonnie’s acts of violence. But rather than dwell on this, I prefer to view this tale as yet another angle on Driggers’ theme that men are the weaker sex. Arguably the only truly strong male character in the collection is George Butcher who, in the end, ironically, is unable to manifest his great gift.
And in these beautifully wrought fictions that are long enough to suggest the more protracted, picaresque journey of a novel, but short enough to be packed severally into a single vessel of flight, Drigger’s great gift is made manifest, leaving us to look forward to whatever he determines to write next.
