Harvard Book Store; WGBH Forum Network; Howard Norman: What Is Left the Daughter

Tonight I'm very excited. Welcome Howard Norman the Harvard bookstore which read from his new novel What is left of the daughter. Mr. Orman is the author of five previous novels including The Northern Lights and the bird artists both of which were nominated for the National Book Award. Mr. Norman is a three time winner of the National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and he was awarded the Landon Prize for fiction. He currently teaches the MFA program at the University of Maryland. What is left the daughter is written as a long letter from a father to his estranged daughter attempting to reveal something he has kept secret for 21 years. Orphaned after his parents suicides Wyatt Hillyer moves in with his aunt and uncle in Nova Scotia and helps with his uncle's toboggan business. Wyatt falls in love with his adopted cousin Tilda who is involved in the German students and White's uncle becomes increasingly obsessed with reports of German U-boats off Kandice eastern coast as World War 2 progresses the novel's characters find themselves touched by the war's violence and surprising ways. Publisher's Weekly called what is left the daughter a testament to Norman's mastery of the craft. And Entertainment Weekly said of the book Norman writes with spare elegance and dry humor and the extraordinary emotional power of the novel is earned with authentic Grace.

You have to borrow a book from you. Think back to bring. Thank you so much inviting me and some of my oldest dearest friends here so it really is really wonderful. I won't be long winded about this I think. Thank you for setting the scene and I'm going to read a chapter from this book. It's not a long chapter and it just needs a couple of sentences. While the sinking of a U boat by U boat of a ferry is the journalistic basis of this book really. The few novels I've written all have one thing in common in that I'm interested in the most

difficult possible courtships that can happen in a friend of mine said. Well in Howard's books two people finally get together after they've exhausted all negative possibilities. And I think that that's actually accurate. And this is no different at all in one thousand forty two. There were already a lot of sinkings of fairies off the coast of Newfoundland and Halifax. The psychological tension that was built up is archived in newspapers and radio reports all of which are in the Halifax archive. They are harrowing to listen to and the import of what was happening came through Halifax and into the out ports along the Bay of Fundy and all through Nova Scotia in one thousand forty two.

There were 61 German students. These are facts no German students at Bell House University. They were having a very rough time because of the war. One of these in my book is named Hans moring he's a philology student. The old term philology we don't use anymore. Meet a young woman named Tilda on a bus and they go back to Tilda's hometown of middle economy those of you that know Nova Scotia know that theirs operate economy middle economy and lower economy. And so if you're going from east to west. Life gets worse and reverses the other way and midol economy is a place that I know quite well. And they he takes up residence above a bakery owned by Cornelia tell a woman there and starts to court Tilda

and they fall madly in love and almost as if the war approaching and it accelerates their romance. They get married but before that happens the narrator Wyatt Hillyer Tilda is his adopted cousin has fallen in love with her and is just madly in love so here comes this handsome German boy with this larger context of the war into this small village of which there is no secrets and they start courting very openly and sleeping together. And Wyatt has now all these volcanic emotions and jealousies. And that sets the scene for the chapter I'm going to read which is called The sooner you might declare yourself to tilt up. And this is the aunt Tilda's mother is still alive.

She she has not yet been. I won't give away too much but this is a story about a man a young man who's in the wrong place at the wrong time and we keep experiencing that of course in history. The whole book is an epistolary novel it's one letter as you said thank you for that. From Wyatt looking back writing to his long strange daughter a character who is developed in absentia Her name is Marlice and this is this is the story of what happened. This is the part of what happens when Hans first comes to dinner with this overwrought uncle in extremis about what's happening in the world he is a maker of sleds and toboggans and his entire shed is covered with the headlines of these sinkings. So you see what state of mind he's in. I always wondered what hons moring thought of there being no books in my aunt and uncle's house. He couldn't help but notice this him being a philology student. Me I always felt the house

that contains books not only a Bible has a concealed spirituality and maybe I thought that because so few people in middle economy left their books in plain sight reading was a private enterprise when it occurred especially of novels. Come to think of it Marlice most of your mother tilled as a reading took place in the three bedroom middle economy library. The only stone building in the village located a short walk from the bakery. I recall Tilda shaking off the winter cold by the wood stove at home and saying this afternoon I've read straight through a collection by Catherine Mansfield. It's called In A German Pencey on Katherine Mansfield is from New Zealand. Her stories are too excellent To summarize. I shouldn't say no books were in the house. Because your mother Tilda signed out the Highland book of platitudes on the Holland book of platitudes is an actual book self-published in pen in Scotland and it contains a whole bunch of

completely useless platitudes about life. But some of them are really compelling and tell'd is tilled is quite addicted to this book. Until this I doubt the Highland book of platitudes on her 18th birthday. How do I know that she never returned it because I'm looking at it right now. It's on my kitchen table. It's possible she considered the Highland book of platitudes despite all propriety as a kind of birthday gift to herself. As far as I know the librarian at the time Mrs Bethany oleander born and raised in Newport station didn't get after her about it. Then again I doubt that the Highland book of platitude was in great demand. The book has a frayed red round red leather bound cover yet the book was in demand nightly by Tilda. She kept it by her bedside late some nights I'd hear her read from it aloud never bothering to whisper I'm jumping ahead a little here but I remember the first time Hons morning came to dinner at our house. She boldly said. Come see my library hons and

took him by the hand and led him into her bedroom door kept open naturally. I chaperoned from the hallway she said. Take a look at this book cons It's called the Highland book of platitudes. It's inspirational. My aunt served tea in the parlor. We were all there my Uncle Aunt Tilda hons and me Han's took apart and put back together the word platitude as the rest of us listened. It's not that platitudes can't say important things Hans said but in the dictionary meaning I won't be exact here platitude is a statement that's basically dull or trite but spoken as though it's brand new the way many politicians present their ideas for instance you understand. Well I don't find the platitudes in my book in the least dull Tilda said. Not a single one. And with that moment I was immediately alerted to two things. First the fact that Tilda was not pleased. Second maybe Hans had fallen just a little from grace and that was my hope. Well thank you Hans I've learned a

lot my aunt said. We're in for supper now. A week later tilled announced I've invited Hans morning to supper. What's the hurry my aunt said. The invitations made Tilda said. Which evening. Tomorrow evening I'll get out my recipes. It'll be nice for Hans Tilda said he's only been eating Cornelia's sandwiches. I hope he shared them with you my aunt said. Is that your way of saying you haven't seen me for supper lately. The next evening at about 6:30 and Constance had the table set with her best china and Christmas cloth napkins no tablecloth but she had polished the wood. Hans was seated next to Tilda. I occupied the one chair opposite them my place setting noticeably centered alone at that side of the table. Of course my aunt uncle said at either end. My aunt served baked salmon boiled potatoes bread and rare at our table white wine. And there was a pitcher of water too. She said a prayer.

Hans dug right in wielding his fork in that different fashion. Well at this point in Nova Scotia no one had ever really seen people that ate in the European style you know where you where you cut in and eat it with your left hand and hold the fork prongs downward. This is a was a new a new thing. Then we'll ding his for it in a different fashion Well won't you look at that my aunt said and we all turned to the dining room table. Half a dozen children had their faces pressed to the glass. The baker Cornelia tell must have said something to somebody Tilda said. Yes my uncle said you're giving those kids quite the lesson in German Etiquette. He moved his own four from his right hand to his left hand spearing a piece of salmon and eating it. Hans caught on directly after dinner. Perhaps I'll sit on the porch and tell them a Grimm's tale Hans said. How grim my aunt asked. There are neighbors children after all. No no no.

No no no Hans said the Brothers Grimm their famous German storytellers long dead now very important you know Hansel and Gretel. I read it to Tilda when she was a little girl my aunt said originally that's a story told by the Brothers Grimm's Hans said those Grimm brothers my uncle said if they tell any truly heart stopping tales if you know one of those hands go right ahead and scare the hell out of those little rabble rousers out there. Maybe toss in a few German words to boot. You don't mean to tell me Hans and Gretel were German children my aunt said. Also Hans said reponse will and Rumpelstiltskin both of them not Rumpelstiltskin my onset. I'm afraid so Hans said. Well live and learn. A playground. Tilda wore a dress of her own design in her own making. It was ankle length made of

cotton material so dark blue it was almost black. I'd seen her sewing it but I'd never seen her wearing it. Hons morning coming to dinner apparently was the occasion she was waiting for. The dress had a high collar and Tilda had pinned an ivory cameo to it. So what with Han's wearing the same white shirt buttoned to the neck. They reminded me of a portrait of a stuffy brick Victorian British couple that used to hang above the card catalog and Mrs oleanders library. But I now realize that my making that connection of Hans until done with a portrait meant I had a sudden concern about them becoming an old married couple. Who knows maybe they'd become well-to-do and maybe they'd end up living in England. I didn't like the thought but you can't help where your mind goes can you. Supper was pleasant enough all please pass the bread and what is life like at university hons. But I could see that Hans thought Tilda was the cat's pajamas. Also they've been seen together in public at Cornelia's bakery the Parrs borough wharf walking hand in hand

along the horseshoe shaped beach. Apparently Cornelia had even called them love birds and when Reverend Witt suggested Tilda bring Hons as a guest to church according to wit Tilda had said I have a different rendezvous in mind this Sunday. I knew they spend hours on end in the library. Actually more hours than were officially posted is open because Mrs only and her had given Tilda a key. Separate arrangements just so Tilda and Hans could discuss God knows which words plus have privileged access to the Big Rick Webster's Dictionary. At supper no subject caused a dust up. But then again my uncle had not yet referred to U-boats or the war in general and Hans didn't lecture us much on philology he took seconds on potatoes and so did I and so did my uncle. There were two or three awkward silences However none felt like an outside presence had hushed all human voices because had such a silence occurred. My aunt

predictably would have said an Angel is passing all well and good. Yet when Tilda stole in plain sight a spoonful of Hans's dessert a vanilla ice cream. The playfulness of it made me blurt out Hans Why would a person in their right mind get hypnotised nine times anyway. He had he had been hypnotized as a young man you'll hear why. Hans my family Tilda said including Wyatt here doesn't have much experience with hypnotism. Why it didn't mean anything by it. Yes but for the sake of argument Hans said Let us say that Wyatt honestly did mean something I can educate him. You know Hans I fell short of graduating high school only by a year. Educate onset in the sense of why I needed hypnotism so many times. Why not educate all then my uncle said. My aunt carried a tray in a tray and distributed tea and cookies all around in the parlor and then sat

next to me. Hans took a bite of cookie leaned forward and said You see I walked in my sleep. I was most prolific at this you might say it started at age 10. We lived in a small village larger than yours yes but not large by standards of German farm villages. We had a small house. My parents are good people you see and they had with me I think you say a handful. They had a handful at night I was walking long distances in my sleep. Usually I was found out on the road. Once I was about to swim in a pond a number of times I was found in a neighbour's garden. Ever ride your bicycle asleep my uncle asked. I always wondered Could a person do that. No no Mr. Hillier I never rode a bicycle. At least nobody reported that I had. Most often my mother or father would discover me simply sitting at our kitchen table sometimes eating food. I taken from the ice box while asleep. Eventually my father had to purchase inside locks and he locked the doors and windows. Still I walked all over the house. I might visit every room. By morning I'd be

exhausted. I could hardly stay awake in school. A hypnotist in the Munich was recommended I went to him nine times as I mentioned to Tilda. Yet hypnotism didn't work. I walked in my sleep for several years in Denmark it stopped. I never walked in my sleep in Denmark Denmark my uncle said. We had to leave Germany my uncle my mother's brother previously was living there. He has funds in fact he's sponsoring me at university Germany to Denmark to Canada my aunt said. My goodness. I've never been further than Newfoundland. We escaped to Denmark onset in 35 Adolf Hitler is not the travel agent you'd wish on your worst enemy. This was my father's joke. Hans said my father always tries to bring a little light to the darkness. My mother is quite different. She always thinks the darkness is about to get even darker. That is their different natures. Well that it goes on like this. And then the tension builds up so much that the ONT suggests a

game of criss cross and criss cross was the prototype for Scrabble. They say you can still find old Kriss Kross games up in Canada and you know pawn shops and stuff but it was the prototype for it and it was a little more complicated actually. And they go over the rules and the radio in the background is now starting to broadcast the news of another sinking. And so the uncle is getting more agitated. Remember Hans my uncle said in criss cross you can't use German words that's breaking the law. My uncle was pacing the room now I hadn't seen him do that except when he heard terrible war bulletins on the radio. I see Hans said for example you can't use your money oh EFT the operation which builds a lot of U-boats Never mind my pronunciation. Donald

please my onset or you can't use it god damn son of a bitch shit hole commanders name Carl Thurman. Who captained you 553 the one that sunk the Nicoya off the gaspé. I understand Hans said. Come to think of it my uncle said don't try to get away with Republicans all are still going to either. Tilda took the criss cross down from a shelf. Why aren't washing the rack the dishes in my uncle went outside to cool down with a cigarette. To look at all the wooden Criss Cross letters lined up neatly you always have exactly 10 letters to work with. We played for an hour and then we had seconds of ice cream till they made coffee which we took into the parlor back at the table it was Hans's turn. He set down the word ravishing. That's a lot of points Tilda said. Do you know this word Wyatt. Hans

said ravishing its definition is well basically it's Tilda don't you agree. Quitting the game. I left the house and walked to the wharf. I stood there hangdog only in shirtsleeves roiled up see what had caught up with me. Standing there in the cold fog of the wharf was the stark belief that I was illiterate in matters of the heart. That is I felt Tilda was ravishing but I hadn't known to use that perfect word. I stood there for quite a while. Finally my uncle's truck appeared and I walked toward it. My aunt was on the passenger side. They were both dressed properly for the weather. You'll catch your death Wyatt my uncle said. I got in beside my aunt in front in the front seat. But my uncle opened his door and got out. He walked to the end of the dock and smoked a cigarette. Tilda said you might be down here my aunt said. Where is Tilda now I said. Well she's not at home.

I've a mind to go over to the bakery I said and do what you get to the bakery and do what. Let's just get Uncle Donald and drive back to the house than Donald won't smoke the whole cigarette she said so with what time we've got. Listen. All right. First off why it I took to heart your undignified behavior. I mean at supper and later on when I eavesdropped on your game of criss cross and just so you know Donald and I are quite aware of Tilda and this German boy's fawning over each other right from the start. Make no mistake about it Hans moring has a genuine courtship in progress. I know that I said. We need to keep our distance from it Donald and I tilled as allowed her young woman's discoveries on the other hand and lord knows I'm no great student of people. But when you untold are in the same room. You should just see how you light up and how often in a life time. Do you have to hear All's fair in love

and war for it to become useful. Really. You see me as being in love with tilde on Constance. Yes I do. Yes I do how do you see yourself Wyatt. The same way. Wyatt here's my two cents worth of advice. The longer Han's moring lives over the bakery the sooner you might declare yourself to Tilda give yourself a fighting chance young man. I said but and I don't quite know how to ask this is there anything in the Bible or in Nova Scotia law that speaks to cousins tilled is merely called your cousin my aunt said but her being but her being adopted she's not blood relations family tree wise she's not. I consulted Rev. Witt and he said grudgingly but still he said even the church recognizes this besides Donlon I might as well be from Mongolia considering how little Tolda resembles us. Hard not to notice our features are a world apart.

I see you put a lot of thought into this. What I mean why it is ethically. If you have feelings for Tilda there's leeway. I hadn't felt the urgency to discuss this with you before why it neither had Donald out in the shed. But now there it is. Will thanks for coming out here and Constance some rescue mission she said with Tilda. You might also try a different nation. Some people believe in them. If a divination doesn't work nothing happens. If it does work life changes for the better. Would it be a proper divination do you think. Well she said start with something simple name your bedposts after the one you love. Name my bedpost till you heal your. Is that what you're suggesting. I'm suggesting it can't hurt. When I looked over I saw my uncle doused his cigarette by holding it above his head and whacking it a few times in the fog drenched air. He tossed the butt onto the dock not into the sea. My uncle wasn't much given

to superstition but he'd warned more than once. Never sully the sea or someday it'll come back at you hard ten fold. Thank you. They're not in my life long enough for me for my tastes I mean I like them. I think you should never write a character that you don't really want to be with for a long time. So there's a vicarious ness but I think any platitudes about writing are only a pluggable for that book. So I I'm up in Nova Scotia a lot and so these are all just pastiches in composites. You know I think as a process every writer is different. I tend to stop researching when what I find out happened starts to trespass on what I imagined happened. There's some middle ground there that you try to find. But I don't base my work. I mean I

don't try to recapitulate something that's already out there otherwise it would be nonfiction. But this book is perhaps a touch more journalistic than other ones I've written. It's it's it's you know not the epistolary part but just the all the historical elements were all research the U-boats the U-boat captains that kind of thing. And so you know I enjoyed that for a change it it was interesting to me but it took a lot of editing because you kind of went on and on and on I mean I was reading journals of U-boat sailors you know and stuff like that it got to be it can be very obsessive. I think as anybody here from Halifax are familiar with Halifax the old historic district I mean which is so small since the nitroglycerine thing but are you from Halifax. Well there's a pub there's There used to be a lot more pubs but before

the anti-submarine it's not netting it's linked fencing was really put into use. U-boats could get in quite close and did. And there are a number of photographs and again if you go to the Halifax archives you can find these are they're awfully haunting and interesting where you'd see young Germans just in in town. There were a number of of of interactions like marriages and so forth and these were just young men. And then after that that fic linked anti-submarine fencing was invented they would float it out and it would keep that from coming in but there are photographs you can see and they're all pretty much archived and marked. I looked at them a long time and of course visually if you didn't know the circumstances

they look like just any other young guy who was trying to have a nice time with people his own age. But this other thing was happening to be to be just pretty simplistic about it I think. Probably the cases of the North African guys and others who were brutally beat up especially in Portland Oregon and Seattle after September 11th really got to me. I mean so that the template would be again the wrong place at the wrong time just going about your business being a person having a quotidian life and then history intervenes or imposes itself and people who are normally very poised and quiet and so on so forth have this other thing. And so there were a lot of instances of this in Canada if you look at the history of Halifax.

Right. Right after the war ended there were phenomenal riots in Halifax. And and and paradoxically an increasing end to some medical incidents. So talk about. Confusion in transference and all that kind of stuff. There were there were at that point four synagogues people Jews came through Pier 21 like they did. Ellis Island here and there were a lot of and and Robin MacNeil who's now an American but his father was an admiral is is a developing at a six part series about. The Jewish history in Halifax. So it's really quite an intense history there. And you can you can you can you know that that's what I got really interested in that. But again I had to add it. I mean it just became started to becomes a polemic. You know something like that in Pearl right

in the village right next to a great village that Lloyd knows very well because it was the childhood home of Elizabeth Bishop for a period of time there. There was a bakery it's closed about two years ago and the baker there whose name is Cornelia tell I just took her name. She told me that she'd been working just in passing she told me she'd been working on a letter to her. Sister who she hadn't seen and I said How long have you been working on and she said about seven eight years. But she didn't mean it. She didn't mean it ironically she meant that that she felt like that would be how long it would take to percolate to get out of her system everything. And that combined with the fact that my own mother she'd just passed away this February always did this sort of strange thing when I was a little boy and would come home upset or angry about something she would say write that person a nasty letter but don't send it.

So I decided at age 58 I was going to send it. And that's what with this is really about sort of you know in a pistol or a novel I mean it's an old tradition I mean as you know and but this is just one letter with your story. Yeah yeah yeah. I thought you know why not do it. I mean it doesn't matter if you come off as a literary Luddite or anything. I didn't care I I just thought how could you have somebody work on something through insomniac nights. And in a sense become literate become a literate person in a way to come to some knowledge of himself. And then the other part of it of course was I think quite simplistically put as as having a daughter who. You know what. Well what you actually want to leave your child you know her farmhouse or some photographs or something but maybe an open attempt to describe how

you tried to live your life. And I didn't I wanted to make it you know not sentimental in any way. And I hope it was off that way.