Harvard Book Store; WGBH Forum Network; Jill McCorkle: Going Away Shoes

Tonight I'm very excited to welcome Jill McCorkle to Harvard bookstore to read from her new short story collection going away shoes. Ms McCorkle is the author of eight previous books five of which were named New York Times Notable books. She is the recipient of the New England Book Award the John Dos Passos prize and the North Carolina award for literature. Her stories have appeared in The Atlantic shares the Best American Short Stories and new stories from the south. Among other publications the stories of going away shoes are about women grappling with the fact that life for better or worse hasn't turned out the way they had planned about running out of options and still having difficulty making the right decision. Jill McCorkle is the guardian angel of American Short Fiction wrote Jean and Phillips and she continued these stories are good news for literature so high praise. We're going to follow Miss McCorkle reading with a question answer session and we'll end with a book signing right here at this table. Copies of going away shoes are available at the register as we do ask that you purchase your copy before having it signed. And as always I do think those of you who purchase a book tonight by doing so you're supporting this local independent bookstore. And this author series

making it possible for her bookstore to bring gifted writers like Jill McCorkle to you. So please join me in welcoming her to the podium. Thanks so much thanks for coming. I'm just going to give a little sampling of the stories I thought I'd read the beginning of one and then shift gears to a very different time. And the story I want to began is a story called Intervention. I have my friend Alice Hoffman to thank for this story she was editing guest editor at plow shares at the time and gave me a much needed kick in the butt at the time to get a short story finished and this was it. And it really did sort of open up what became the progression that led to this book. So this is the beginning of intervention. The intervention is not Maryland but at minus Welby. She's the

one who has talked to my church and she's agreed to go along with that nodding and murmuring and all right and the receiver while seated in front of the evening news. They love watching the news. Things are so horrible all over the world that it makes them feel lucky just to be alive. Syd is 65. He's retired he's disappearing before her very eyes. Ok mom. She jumps with her daughters for ice which is loud to be heard over the noise at her end of the phone. A house full of children a television blasting wants about home more. All those noises you complain about for years only to wake one day and realize she would sell your soul to go back for another chance to do it right. Yes she says I'm here. Is he drinking right now. Marilyn has never heard the term intervention before her daughter Sally introduces it and showers her with a pile of literature. Sally's

husband has a master's in social work and considers himself an expert on this topic as well as many others. Most of Sally's sentences began with Rusty say as to the point that Syria had long ago made up a little spoof about Rusty say as turning it into a game like Simon say as Rusty says Put your hands on your head. Sid said the first time wants the newly married couple were out of earshot. Rusty says put your head up your ass. Marilyn Howard with laughter just as she always has said can always make her laugh. Usually she laughs longer and harder a stranger would have assumed that she was the one slinging back the vodka. Twenty years earlier the stranger would have been right. Sally and rusty have now been married for a dozen years. Three kids and two evolve and several major vacations that were so educational they couldn't have been any fun behind them.

And still Marilyn insisted cannot look each other in the eye while Rusty is talking without breaking into giggles like a couple of junior high school students. And Maryland junior high behavior she taught language arts for many years. She's not shocked when a boy wears the crotch of his pants down around his knees and she knows that Sean Combs has gone from that perfectly normal name to Sean Puffy Combs to Puff Daddy to pay did he. She knows that the kids make a big circle at dances so the ones in the center can do their grounding without getting in trouble. And she has learned that there are many perfectly good words you cannot use in front of humans who are being powered by hormonal surges. She wants to ask her class how will you ever get a hey ad only to have them even the most pristine honor roll girls collapse in hysterics. Just last year her final one she had learned never to ask if they had

hooked up with so-and-so. Learning quickly that this is no longer meant locating a person but having sex. She could not hear the term now without laughing. She told sit it reminded her of the time two dogs got stuck in the act just outside her classroom when the children were out of control especially when the assistant principal stepped out there armed with a garden hose which didn't faze the lust crazed dogs in the slightest. When the female was scrawny shepherd mix finally took off running the male who was quite a bit smaller was stuck and forced to hop along behind her like a jack rabbit. He stuck one of the girls jailed and broke out into Diane's prompting others to do the sun. Sounds like me he said sad that night when they were lying there in the dark. I'll follow you anywhere. Now as Sid says Marilyn goes and pulls out the lope of information about family intervention. She

never should have told Sally that she had concerns. Never should have mentioned that there were times when she watched see a pull out of the driveway only to catch herself imagining that this could be the last time she ever saw him. Why do you think that Sally asked suddenly attentive and leaning forward in her chair. Up until that minute Marilyn had felt invisible while Sally rattled on and on about dry clothes and chairs and her book group and Rusty's accolades which he visibly dropped. Why do you let him drop when he's that way. He's never a visibly drunk Marilyn said. Then knowing that she had made a terrible mistake. They were at the mall. One of those forced outings that Sally had read what's important. Probably an article rusty read first called something like spend time with your parents so you won't feel guilty when you slap them in a urine smelling old folk's home. Rusty's parents already n such a place they have so much to tell their

living for the next time Rusty visits he says. I pray to God I never have to rely Sid's said when she relayed this bit of conversation. She didn't tell him the other parts of the conversation at the mall. How even when she tried to turn the topic to shoes and how it seemed to her that either shoes had gotten smaller or girls had gotten bigger. 9 was the average size for most of her willowy eighth grade girls. Sally bit into the subject like a pit bull. How much does he join Canada. Sally asked you must know you're the one who takes out the garbage and does the shopping. He helps me a fit up. Sid loves to go to the Harris Teeter they have a book section and everything. Rusty has saying this coming for years. Sally Lane forward and gripped Maryland's arm. Sally's hands were perfectly manicured with pale pink nails and a great big diamond. He asked me if Dad had a problem before we ever got married.

She gripped tighter do you know that that's a dozen years. I wonder if the Oriental folks have caused this change in the shoes says Marilyn pulled away and glanced over at Lady Footlocker as if to make a point. She knows that Oriental was not the thing to say. She knows to say Asian and Sally thinks that she and Rusty are the ones who teach her all of these things. The truth is that she learned it all from her students she knew to say Hispanic and then Latino. Probably before Rusty did because she sometimes watches the MTV channel so that she's up on what's happening in the world in the US and the lives of children at the junior high school. Shocking things but also important. Sinead has always believed that it's better to be educated even if it's true makes you uncomfortable or depressed. Rusty needs to watch MTV. He needs to watch that and all the reality shows. He's got children and unless he

completely rubs off on them they will be normal enough to want to know what's happening out there in the world. A. Sally whispered. You really need to just throw out that word Oriental unless you're talking about lamps and carpets. I know what you're doing to. Well what about queer. I hear that word it's ok again. You have to deal with Dad's problem Sally say. I hear that even the homo sapiens use that word. But it might be that kind of thing that only one who is a member can use can apply. Will you stop it. Sally interrupted him banged her hand on the table. Like the N-word Marilyn say had the black children in my class used it all the time but it would have been just terrible for somebody else to. Sally didn't even a Nazi ite African-American the way she usually does. This doesn't work anymore. Sally's face red and her voice a harsh whisper

so cut the Gracie Allen returning. I love Gracie so did see what a woman. Marilyn rummaged her purse for a tissue or a stick of gum or anything so as not to have to look at Sally Sally look so much like see I could be in a genetics textbook. Those Paddy lay ups and hard blue eyes prominent cheekbones and dark curly hair. Sid always told people his mother was a Cherokee and his father a Jew which made him a chair or Jew which Marilyn said sounded like Theraflu which they both like even when they don't have colds. So he went with you and stay in Maryland say ancestors were all Irish so she and C had called their children the Jews. Syd said that the only thing that could save the world would be when everybody was mixed up with this blood and that nobody could pronounce the resulting tribe name. It would have to be assemble like the name of the Artist Formerly Known as

Prince which was something she had just learned and had to explain to see it. She doubts that Sally and rusty even know who Prince A is or Nellie for that matter. Nellie is the reason all the kids are wearing Band-Aids on their faces which is just great for those just learning to share. I remember that whole rooting dad and I made up about Ancestry Marilyn I asked. She was able to look up now Sally's hand squeezing her Rusty's hands on her shoulders. If she had had an ounce of energy left in her body she would have run into Lord Tyler and gotten lost in the marriage cosmetics section. The fact that you brought all this up as a craft to help whether you admit it or not Sally said. And we're here mother. We're here for you. And she wanted to ask why mother. What happened to mom and mama and mommy. But she couldn't say a word.

There are some nights when say it is saying there that she feels frightened. She puts her hand on his chest to feel his heart. She puts her cheek close to his mouth to fill the breath. She did the same to Sally and Tom when they were children especially with Tom who came first. She was up and down all night long in those first weeks making sure that he was breathing. Still amazed that this perfect little creature belong to them. Sometimes Syd would wake and do it for her even though his work as a grocery distributor in those days calls him to get up at 5 a.m. the time she went to check he would return to their tiny bedroom and lunch toward her with the perfect Dr Frankenstein imitation. He's a law. Followed by maniacal laughter. In those days she joined him for a drink just as the sun was setting. It was their favorite time of day and they both always resisted the need to flip on a light and return to life.

The ritual continued for years and does to this day when the children were older they would make jokes about their parents who were always in the dark. And yet those Pauls says the punctuation marks of a marriage could tell their whole history spoken and unspoken. And it goes on from there to the to the big. That's a story the idea originated in an unusual way because I had that idea for that. And before the story was written and the idea of the end would be a person who would knowingly and willingly get into a car and fasten the seat belt but sod someone who clearly should not be driving and you know. Is there any explanation in life that would ever make the thing to do and very much be in the story of this long history of a marriage that has led them to where they are.

I have read in reviews recently that I'm quite sure that I'm not female anger and salty rants. And I hate to risk my reputation by not you know really doing that but I mean this is being filmed for TV they're already going to have to bleep me a little bit. But I'm not going to do one of the saltier rants and stay out I think I'm going to give you a little taste of what is the last story in the collection. It's the first story is kind of dysfunctional contemporary Cinderella story where a daughter is left to take care of her elderly dying mother and her prince came and went. Years before she missed the chance and she's looking back over her life and seeing what she missed. And so that's the beginning of the story and the collection basically ends with the

woman who has decided to Korea who should fill the shoes and just made them up herself and if you just a little bit. If that one an OK is called Me and Bigfoot. It is snowing a freak blinding storm that likely will shut things down for a day thank god. Just last night under a clear winner sky I had wished for a season or at least some kind of divine intervention from the matchmakers of the world. All those well-meaning friends who were far more upset over my single status than I am they drop by unannounced to offer me comfort and advice and descriptions of various man as if they are hot on trays on a silver platter. Now I look out my window to see a very large foreign object out there on the blowing snow. A big quiet rusty truck parked in my yard. I put on my heavy

cut and boots and go out they are circle lit a few times. There are no tire tracks leading in or footprints leading out no license plate or inspection sticker. The front bumper is a two by four. A wet note pinned on a coffee stained napkin is under the wiper. You owner of the scrappy little dog. Please don't tow or complying please. I'll be back soon. I tug open the heavy iced over door and climb up into the cab. As soon as I close my cell fan all windows glazed and I have the strangest feeling that I've been here before. I'm not a complainer. Imagine telling him and I hate to be around. There's no kiddie only a flashlight and a lighter in the glove compartment. A pair of gloves on the dash the thumbs cut out palm stiff with resin and dart. I sit there in the cab stretch my legs and feel an odd sense of comfort and warmth. The truck

smells of mildew and would smell the floorboard is frozen and the seats are damp and frosted as if it driven offroad through the swamp. A thick lipped coffee mug has waged into the opened ashtray and I've run my fingers around the smooth staying dram. Beyond the Sea there's a big pair of hunting boots covered in red mud and muck. I reach my hands down into those tall sturdy boots and fill the worn thick wool. My body slowly absorbed and held there. Had he walked up to my door please. If so he might have seen me through the sheer spining Monteux nails and talking to my friend Sophie telling her yet again about how I am not going to the swinging single sing along at her church. She's married happily she say but has made me her project. If he had waited he might even have heard me there under the sky saying I'm more ards plea

to the powers of the great beyond. I don't know what it is about a person alone that drives other people crazy. I'm thinking we all heard too many bible stories coming along. Adam and Eve that match made in heaven or no was dark desperate payors scurrying on to the love. A lesson reinforced by that Irish song we sang to death in grade school about the poor unicorn left crying on a rock because he didn't fire on somebody. He wanted to live with all eternity. What's more people seem to really hate it if you say you're happy alone. It makes Sufi so uncomfortable in fact that I finally confessed to her that of course I had a dream of a perfect match but that I also would rather live alone than just any old body who slipped up and took root next to me fast so she wouldn't think I was referring to Cal who she married in haste after only three months. I went on to say that even in my most ideal dream

match. It would still require a lot of solitary time with limited interruptions from friends and family. I've said this very directly since she drops been announced all the time and has implied several times that both my house and person need an extreme makeover. She said My bedroom was abominable that it looked like a cheap motel Yale and that my clothes were too bad to even give away especially that olive green dress I wore to their Christmas party. Especially since it was cold and I was bare legged. Well thank you I say it hoping to hurry her along but she was hellbent on connecting mom poor fashion sense to the break up with Scott. Months ago. Even though I have explained many times I've read that we broke up because I said that I would never marry him and his biological clock was ticking. I could not marry him not now and not ever. We had nothing in common and the fact that I had trouble listening to what he was saying was proof enough that it would be a

mistake. And why is that so hard to understand. Why did these people look out there and say had a Roman had a rug get on the bus. Why you both need to brave to stay alive. Great amazing night get on the bus. And you say I bet I'm not the least bit attracted to that person I hate his politics the way he choose the way he finishes my sentence as I'm speaking it. I can't stand anything worse than a spoiled white boy trying to sound and act like he grew up in the ghetto or trial or part that was God in a nut shell privilege gangsta wannabe drivin a Hummer and canceling my vote every time I say I cannot live like that I'm better off alone. And people like Sophie as if deaf to all else will see. But he has such a good job. And yes there's a perfect man in my mond and he's always been there nameless faceless self-sufficient and therefore

free from all suicidal entrapments and most important more loyal than any dog. As he reminds fiercely rooted in my life. Does he exist. I want to believe that like all the great abstractions he might that with the right angle of the sun or direction of the wind he could. And now assess it in this frozen warm breath trapped against my mouth by the wool of my scarf. It is like he is here sitting right there in the passenger seat in his big tall boots his hand surprisingly smooth for someone so outdoorsy. I close by and he is there. I can smell and taste him feel his hands pulling me close and it is like every little pheromone and hormone in my body is waking after a long hibernation. A million little Rip Van Winkle's eager to make up for a lot of lost time. I have what is called a major out of body experience and no one could be more surprised than I am.

And I go inside feeling like a new woman. I look in the mirror and I'm younger more alive looking than I've ever ban. When Sophie calls a teller No Dan with a visiting friend that no she's never met him. Yes I've known him forever that I'm hoping he will stay a few days and now call later I go and get his big nasty boots and put them by my front door so when the storm ins it will look like we never left the house. Put on some music light candles build a fire. The snow has quieted everything my whole world Paul says. Who is he so fiasco after a week. The truck still part there. She's at my front door and bright yellow ski gear even the little snow remains and I motion for her to be quiet still sleeping. And point to my closed bedroom door. He loves my bedroom. I can hardly get him to leave it. She gives me a skeptical look starts to speak but catches

herself. I whisper over coffee in the kitchen. I tell her all about him his slow gentle movements and ability to sense my needs before I even speak. I tell her how we're reading things aloud at night funny columns that make us laugh. Political ones that make us mad poetry that breaks our hearts how we're working to try a little curly said he will fetch something other than what's in the cat's litter box. It all sounds so wonderful I can hardly believe it myself. The truck is still here when the Crocus is surface and I like to think this can go on forever. I've gotten so comfortable with it all the questions the stories oh we love to just cook and sit there. We take long walks in the woods watch lots of old movies. Sophie says everyone has noticed how our glass IAD and rumpled like someone just rolled from the bay at that one day as she would have sworn I had a

hickie which really did shock her out laughed and blushed for real because sometimes before going to the store or any place I might see people I do pinch my neck and roll around and rub against the Endore outdoor carpet all mussed Ayers. I have to confess I cannae like the way it fills their own aisle for so primal and earthy like an animal following us and sometimes I start laughing and can't stop. The cat thinks I'm making fun and switches off into another room. Word is out that my man is kind of anti-social. The talkers tell how he always has been a little bit of a loner and with good reason. He's wanted everywhere he goes. His advice his experience his big strong body and intellect and winning was but sad he's an archeologist out there digging around in the forest and river banks while they're sleeping. He's nocturnal and there are certainly worse things

full spring and I never tire of closing my eyes and seeing him there. He is the best man I've ever known. He never mentions if my legs are prickly or toe nail polish chipped or if I look plump or my breath smells of garlic. He doesn't care that I don't have much money and I'm not ready to have a kid that I eat snacks in bed and keep the house cold year round here. He doesn't care that my bedroom looks like the days and in fact because we're so much alike he likes it and he loves that green dress and thinks it's the sexiest thing on. He sometimes likes for me to wear while I clean his boots and he washes the dishes and changes the sheets. He likes 400 count sheets which is a little contradiction about him that I just adore. We would rather have solved sheets than shoes. And of course because he's that way it makes me want to please him even more. And there's the real difference. Desire.

My man was created in my image and then roughed up in a way I found attractive. Hey here's me only big hairy and forceful in every way. He's the man I'd want to be. And at night when I get under my warm quilt like a cave I'm waiting for him to return. The anticipation of his arrival is all I need. April no one believes that anyone can be perfect. So I give him seasonal allergies and a big quiet car wreck scar on his clavicle. I give him a childhood just unhappy enough to develop his artistic sensitivity and compassion. I give him a sweet aurally heart that keeps him romantic and longing to recreate a pure and perfect love that health conscious and in really great shape. He does love the occasional smug good bourbon and poor kidney why he can get it. You are a phenomenon of the first degree. Whisper to him a softball Asli say you are a giant of a man a

magical and mythical wonder. I call him sass Skookum yet a yaoi. He just calls me sweetheart which out of his mouth is like nothing I've ever heard. I'll stop there. Thank you. People in Taiwan actually start seeing him. So it is kind of a Where's Waldo. That's a little sampling of two different voices in the collection. Frankly for Hadleigh got tough. But if there are questions I would love to. Answer. Well it's I think I'm always looking for humor and if I can find it on the page but in in life as well and I think that humor is something that is always present you know even in the most serious and kind of heartbreaking

situations people still say and quirky and funny thing so as a writer I think I'm always on the lookout for that because in a way the humor enables you know it's like it's like a pendant. You know I think I think as far as you're willing to go in this direction it enables you to go in the other. And so engaging the humor oftentimes to the right to then come over and channelized in the darker corners. One of the stories I like to tale of round one of the stories in the collection that connects with that is a story called surrender and it's a story of a grandmother trying to bridge a relationship with her granddaughter. And what came out of real life that inform the story is once years ago when my children were only 1 and

4 I got invited to teach in the Bennington writer's conference in the summer and the only way I could go was to type my kids and the only way I could take my kids was to take my mother and then word got out that I had the Bilton grandmother at my house and so other riders started dropping their kids off and so I go to check on my mom after an hour and she's sitting there and this darling little girl with this pixie hair has decided to just sit and draw a picture after picture of my mother now I could. And my mom is kind of the epitome of the church you know. So she's like just not knowing what to do. And I walk in and she's like you have to make her stop. And of course I was filled with admiration because this little girl had done in an hour what I had been trying to do my whole life you know. She had saved the whale and was just drivin the bus.

And there was nothing anybody could do to stop it. And so you know that was. But that's an anecdote is not a story but it's the kind of thing I like to talk away and want you know look for the right place and then suddenly I have this situation where I have a woman and all that's left of the son she adored who died prematurely is this little girl. And I'm like this. This is where it comes in. And so that the opening scene of that story that this this grandmother who's trying very hard to reject a child. Is confronted with a little girl who's not only draw on the pictures but tried to force her grandmother to say all the body parts you know with sharpie. And. And it evolves so a lot of times you know in life you can always just make it up on the day a lot of

times I hear or say things that I'm so amused by but I'm not sure where they're like like about a month or so ago I picked up my dry cleaning and the woman behind the counter saying to me she said the humility has been full this summer and I said you are right. Their humility has been awful Would you not. And I could not get to my car fast enough you know I had to write it down then. And that's the kind of thing that that you know I can always take credit for Soraya. I'm very much a collector of those moments in life and you know I do store them up because I get very nervous when I found myself in a story without the humor. You know I think I was one of those kids in school who was the class clown pretty early and

and so you know I like to have it employed. Thank you. Other questions yes I do remember the first story I ever wrote I was seven years old and it was called The Night Santa failed to come. And the memorable sound is that you know at the end it ended up somehow the reindeer had gotten confused. You know I had seen cotton grow when I mean I had never been any like that as well. Fleiss and North Carolina and so are my favorites says they ended up flying all the children into the North Pole and it was they came from everywhere they came from Texas North Carolina and Lumberton which was the name of my ferrets that once lived in Texas. The world was quite small but that was the first story.

And then the first story I ever wrote in college. It is something I have held onto because I've now Talat college students for 25 years and sort of force must sail to rewrite that story often because it brings me to money said and I am a much kinder gentler teacher and it's a hard thing to rid of. It all takes place in the bathroom. I think that's all I'll tell you. No you know it just occurred to me and I now remember where I was when it came to me. My kids were small and we were visiting Cooperstown and going to the baseball museum and sort of in and out of buildings and I don't know why you know but it was one of those times where something ended and you just see all these people just sort of you know just like McCann everybody just go right to a

car and get in the end and you know just that gesture and I'm not I'm not sure you know why. I mean it just was was just this impulsive thought. I think it was interesting because I think once I had children I saw a lot more danger in the world than I had ever seeing before. And bing changed dramatically. Same to me. When when my children were born because things that I had never frightened me suddenly did frighten me. And so I think it all kind of came together at that. You know there's. Yes. Oh wow. There is so much out there right now. I just read Richard roosts new novel about Lori Moore's

And I appreciate you being here because you know she's just right over there at Brooklyn books. I know how. And I really I do read a lot of stories. And somehow I had missed. I had never read the stories of Richard Yates and this summer read his book 11 kinds of loneliness which just really made a huge impact and kind of sent me back. To read a lot of the stories of drug abuse and and then you know preparing for school. Sort of always go back to my standards. A lot of Catherine and Porter and Welty and Conner where you know I mean I lived up here almost 20 years but of course you know when I walk around and I open my mouth the. The southern part is kind of hard to

deny. You know it's like one day was I do you been a Southern woman Rod I'm going you know what are you going to do if you're going to show up. And you know I think the only reason it would bother me is if it if it's used in a way that suggests your work would only be of interest to that particular region. I have to say you know mass stories sometimes very much are placed in the sile because that is where I do rely a lot on in terms of place and history. And you know I'm I'm very proud to be part of that very rich lineage of storytelling. So I thought sometimes it feels good to kind of have a foot in both worlds because you know I've really loved it up here and it was a great exposure and in many ways I think it brought me closer to my

roots because I think sometimes when you're away from your home in a very different landscape it all becomes that much richer and clearer. Thank you so much for coming.