THE BRITISH WRITER Neil Bartlett has constantly astonished me, first with his debut novel, Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall (1992), then with novels such as Skin Lane (2007; reviewed by me in the MarchApril 2009 issue), and now with Address Book, a collection of seven first-person short stories that take their titles from the address where each occurs. The stories cover a range of times. In the first, a man remembers a sexual experience he had as a teenager in 1974. The second, in AIDS-drenched 1987, has a disco queen describe a moment of rage at a contemptuous straight world. The third takes place in 1891, where a teacher writes about the Italian laborer he uses as a model for a banner of St. Michael. Next, in 2004, a man tells about giving a speech at a celebration of a civil partnership between two lesbians. Then it’s back to 1965, and a pregnant woman narrates her interaction with her gay neighbor. In the early 2010s, a priest tries to intervene in an immigration case. Finally, in more or less the present, a man confronts his grief over his recently deceased husband. Seven stories told by seven different narrators. Bartlett skillfully captures each voice, paying attention to era and especially class. He fills each story with physical detail that anchors it in time and place. Yet, for all the differences, the stories all have the same narrative arc. Each deals with some everyday situation or problem; there is nothing exotic or even unusual in the events. But out of their ordinariness, the stories rise to what is for each narrator a moment of emancipatory epiphany, a realization that makes possible a new freedom and a new joy. That moment can take many forms: an orgasm (in several stories) or a triumphant sublimation; a shedding of the homophobic past or a shopping list that affirms the future; or (my favorite) “that someone is teaching [me] that it’s quite alright to smile.” The realization, like the story itself, is small-scale, but that’s what makes it effective. The moment feels earned, and the happiness feels real. The repeated story arc isn’t a failure of imagination. Instead, the recurring pattern suggests that underlying all the differences is a universality of experience, a plot line that fits all of these lives, a possibility for revelation in everyday reality. For example, the disco queen’s story is about shopping for a mattress—about as ordinary a narrative as possible. With his hardship stipend in hand, he goes into a store that’s above his price range and encounters a disdainful saleslady. Already piqued by her attitude, he notices that the mattresses have furnishings around them: “Like every bed in the showroom was supposed to be part of somebody’s actual life. And some of the cabinets even had little ornaments on them, little pictures or china figurines or whatever. ... But no ashtrays, you noticed, and no packs of Marlboro Lights; no condoms, and no KY. So this was all real life, but just not ours.” In his rage, he buys a mattress he can’t afford. When he gets it home, brooding about his foolish purchase, he has a revelation: “[W]hen the sight of it lying there starts to make you think about the future—and oh yes my darling, here it comes; here it actually fucking comes, thepoint; when the sight of this empty double mattress lying there on your actual, real and very-own back-bedroom floor starts to make you feel that the idea of the Future might be a real actual fucking thing for once in your dancing-queen life.” And he makes a list of the things he needs to buy to go with the mattress, to create that future for himself. The same arc structures the narrative of the Irish man who gives a toast at the lesbians’ commitment ceremony. Preparing the speech dredges up childhood memories of a priest who condemned him and a boy who beat him up. The anger surges and then breaks: “Because until I was up on that chair [giving the toast], you see, I had never quite realized that I still absolutely believed all of that stuff. At the grand old age of thirtyfour. And now—I don’t.” The fact that a gay marriage is actually happening lets him realize that he is capable of what he at first calls “happiness”: “I don’t think we should even be calling it by that name any more—at least, not until I’ve had the chance to get used to it. No, I think Seven Variations on an Arc MICHAEL SCHWARTZ ADDRESS BOOK by Neil Bartlett Inkandescent. 214 pages, $14.09 Michael Schwartz is an associate editor for this magazine. 40 The G&LR
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTk3MQ==