Easter, Laundromat, Snowstorm

Waiting for the drying cycle to end she began to feel a vague dread, but it wasn’t until she was at the warm, lint-speckled folding table that she figured it out: she didn’t want to go home. And it wasn’t the drive through snow and ice she dreaded, it was going home to Jack.

It’s always a source of wonderment when I read fiction and come across a sentiment so akin to one I’ve felt, keenly, that I have to sit and think about it for a few minutes, or maybe even put the book down.  Was it three Easters ago that I was in a laundromat in snowy Regent Square feeling precisely the same way?

I can’t remember why I decided to reread The Easter Parade, but it’s been in my house for weeks, collecting dust. I zipped through it again and was amazed at how poorly I remembered not only the narrative, but the themes. I totally glossed over the entire religious discourse, which springs out so plainly now.

Now I remember why I had it checked out. I’d read Yates’ collected short stories a short time ago. The thing that stays with me from both books is the way he writes about writing–the anxiety associated with the creative act and the inevitable feeling that the resultant written work is ‘passable’, but never ‘right’. He must have fretted terribly over his own manuscripts, given all the fretting over manuscripts that his characters do.

:: Bibliography ::

• Yates, Richard. The Easter Parade: A Novel. New York: Delacorte Press, 1976. Page 104.