In the Hands of a Pro: Mrs. Somebody Somebody by Tracy Winn

After the deft language of these first powerhouse stories in Mrs. Somebody, Somebody, “Frankie Floats” makes less of an impact on the reader. But this is not to say the story is weak; rather it is a backhanded compliment to suggest that Ms. Winn’s lesser stories are equal to any found in a quality literary magazine.

Both “Frankie Floats” and “Another Way To Make Cleopatra Cry” lack Winn’s strongest trait, of which “Copper Leaves Waving” is a fine example. In this story, she manages to write about the nebulous feeling of familiarity that overtakes — even drowns — us when memory of place sparks a connection in the brain. This is a feeling that is difficult, at best, to try and write about and Winn is adept at leaving her reader both awed and quieted with her tone and diction:

She could be on her way to work, years later, after she had left Lowell and moved to Boston. She would look up from the detective story she was reading, and instead of the usual diagram of routes posted on the subway wall, she’d see their old house on once tony Fairmont Avenue. In place of the intersecting metro lines of red and green… she saw the amber of her mother’s dressing room, the green of her father’s parsley persisting in the garden, her red bedroom rug. She looked away. But the house, like a map of her growing up, went wherever she looked. YOU ARE HERE.

— pp. 144-45

Winn steps back and forth through some of Lowell’s postwar years, with the result that several times we catch sight of a character met in an earlier story, recognizing something about his or her mannerisms or appearance before we actually know who it is. In the final story, for instance, we glimpse little Izabel and her sister Lina from an earlier story, and the instant of recognition delivers a warm surprise, something akin to running into a familiar face while traveling in a foreign country. Earlier, in “Cantagallo,” Izabel was shown wearing a pair of red high tops given to her by Lina, the sister with a lovely singing voice who is serving in Iraq. So though we never actually meet Lina, we recognize her instantly when, in “Luck Be A Lady,” the protagonist mentions the beautiful song of a young female as she gets on the bus with a younger girl in red high tops. It is a small moment packed with huge emotion, reminding us in that briefest glimpse of Lina that she was once very much alive in this small town, and that if she dies in the Iraq war, her ghost will live on in Izabel’s red high tops and the memories of her beautiful voice.

“Luck Be A Lady” is a brilliant cap to this powerhouse debut. We come full circle from meeting Stella in “Mrs. Somebody Somebody” to the love of her life, Frenchie Duras, a man who “lived alone with his secrets.” But it is his way of dealing with the guilt and shame of his past, memories that eat at him when he understands his heart is giving out and he is dying, that endears Frenchie to us. When he finds a stone wall heaved apart by frost, he spends years of physical labour rebuilding it, using his body to cleanse his emotional burdens:

He would fit his hands to the stones, feel their rough curves, test their heft, eye their thickness, the contours, and snug them against each other. His focus made him forget the field behind and the woods in front of him, until his back ached. Then he’d notice the birds that had been singing all along, and the occasional car passing on the road below. Working surrounded by the careless beauty of the earth’s business helped him find the patience he needed to live the rest of his life.

— p. 168

And while he works on that stone wall, inside Frenchie’s shirt pocket is a small bone from Stella’s remains. Once again Winn has created a character it is difficult not to fall in love with. We identify and empathize with Frenchie’s flaws as proof of another human being just trying to cope with life.

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