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Silent Retreats (Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction)

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In Silent Retreats, Philip Deaver shows us what so few writers can: the sometimes delicate, sometimes harrowing, shifting of real emotion beneath the everyday. With deft turns of phrase and a sharp eye for telling detail, Deaver's haunted runners, love-struck teens, and overstressed businessmen seeking serenity reflect to us things about ourselves we have always known, but never stated. In the early-60s, small Illinois town setting of "Arcola Girls", an O Henry Award winning story, Deaver depicts with tenderness teenage love, longing, and loss. Why this book is out of print is beyond me.

Philip F. Deaver's short story about a midlife crisis and one man's profound self-doubt, "Wilbur Gray Falls in Love with an Idea," is unified by a technique, or narrative structure, that juxtaposes a series of sequential present actions with a series of equally sequential memories; a basic flashback construction. What is interesting and unique is how Deaver reinforces the technique by employing alternating patterns of verb tense shifts; from the present tense of the story's "now" to simple past, then back to present, and so on. Exploring how the story world of Wilbur Gray is constructed, and then how the story begins to unfold, uncovers Deaver's mastery of controlling time in narrative. The analysis is of particular significance for students of narrative art.
The opening sentence, delivered in present tense, inserts the reader directly into the protagonist's thoughts; and, knowing any two facts clustered around a pronoun begin to generate character in a reader's mind (Delany 77), Deaver writes: "When I run, like now, I head down Court Street because of its grassy boulevard" (213). The next two sentences in the story are descriptive, and longer to deliberately contrast with the first. They are sprinkled with concrete, specific nouns, which serve to solidly ground readers in a vivid sense of place; a quiet, small town in central Illinois, perhaps a University town.
Paragraph two begins with the revelation of Wilbur Gray's state of mind. "I've been battling depression this whole summer" (213). An excellent "hook line." Readers ask immediately, why? The answer is not delayed. "It's the price I pay in middle life for living lies and harboring secrets" (213). This is the "through line" of the story. The theme is now set, the conflict defined. What is Wilbur Gray doing about it? "I've waged the battle with daydreams ..." (213). And, "... I've learned to depend on the ... helpful practice of running six miles a day, rain or shine" (213).
The third paragraph slips readers into the first flashback, and first verb shift. "I remember, for instance, Ann Hollander, in church nearly twenty years ago ..." (213). "Ann sat in the stained-glass shadows of her father ..." (214).
Deaver approaches the creation of story as a problem to be solved. The discerning reader/writer will spot the particular problem in this story, and Deaver's ingenious solution, by the end of paragraph three.
To illustrate the technical story problem, consider how a less talented writer might have begun this tale before running into a brick wall. Suppose the less talented writer is somewhat conventional in thought, as the less talented usually are. Wanting to write the exact same story he begins tapping away on the laptop:
When I ran, like then, I headed down Court Street because of its grassy boulevard. Our blinkered young author is perfectly happy with this first line. After all, most stories use the simple past as the story now. He taps a couple of descriptive sentences, then begins paragraph two. I'd been battling depression that whole summer. It was the price I'd paid for living lies and harboring secrets. I'd waged the battle with daydreams .... I'd learned to depend on the ... helpful practice of running six miles a day, rain or shine.
Ready for paragraph three - Bam! Our novice writer slams into the brick wall. He writes: I remembered, for instance Ann Hollander, in church twenty years ago ... Ann had sat in the stained-glass shadows of her father ....
The impediment is the awkward use of the past perfect tense, the word "had," which is the customary technique of introducing flashback. Throw a couple of "hads" in the prose and then return to simple past. The reader gets it. Sure. Yet, in the example above all the texture of Deaver's story has just been ripped to shred. The essence destroyed. Were the neophyte writer to continue alternating the present action with flashback in past perfect all immediacy would be lost, the story would be completely flat. Uninspired. In order for the scenes to play right, for the time sequences to work, this story has to be written in present tense!
Deaver's technique of employing alternating patterns of verb tense shifts, from present tense to simple past, gives this story texture and depth, tightly braids the various themes (e.g. the loss of youth, marital failure, and dysfunctional relationships to name a few) and demonstrates how a master writer confronts a time problem in story structure, thinks it through, and delivers the perfect, near invisible solution.

OK... This hits close to home. The author grew up in my home town. I dated Arcola Girls too... Two of them to be exact. The author, grew up and graduated high school with my mom so I can almost taste and smell these stories in my mind. On the verge of another "Cola War", I always love to read these stories. Central Illinois is wonderful place to grow up. Deaver captures what it is to grow up and flourish in the flat lands of the Embrass River valley. He can tell the tale and make me feel just like I am there. I have driven those same roads.... American Grafitti for the Midwest!

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