Siobhan Harvey
From Under the Overcoat, Sue Orr (Vintage, 2011), 348 pp., $29.99
From Under the Overcoat, Sue Orr (Vintage, 2011), 348 pp., $29.99
Clothes: whether it’s the beret worn by Anna Sergeevna in Chekhov’s ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’, or the beige raincoat donned by the protagonist of Lorrie Moore’s ‘How to be an Other Woman’, or Nie Chuanqing’s ‘blue gown of lined silk’ in Eileen Chang’s ‘Love in a Fallen City’ (i), or the ‘dark mohair’ bristling at the nape of tragic heroine of Maurice Duggan’s ‘Blues for Miss Laverty’ (ii), the garb writers choose to dress their characters in not only offers the kind of detail that makes prose convincing and compelling, but resonates with thematic and symbolic effect.
Of course, like most literary motifs, clothes are binaries. Worn by characters to suggest inner emotions — their atmospheric and cerebral worlds — this clothing is also simultaneously put on by the writer each time he or she picks up a pen and begins to place words beside each other to flesh out, develop and refine the wearer. The notion of waning, venereal Flaubert donning Félicité’s dimity kerchief, red skirt, grey stockings and apron whilst penning his poignant short story ‘A Simple Heart’ in 1877, or love-struck but vilified Mikhail Bulgakov wearing the typist’s fil de Perse stockings in his satirical novel Heart of a Dog might amuse or appal, but figuratively speaking, during each text’s development, so it transpired.
Over the past three years, New Zealand author Sue Orr has built a name for herself as an accomplished short story writer. Her first collection, Etiquette for a Dinner Party (Vintage, 2008), contained stories which showcased a broad range of styles, themes, structures, characters and perspectives. Above all, it was her ability to don the mantle and attire of multiple personas that was most skilful. Apparently humdrum Alan Cooper wearing taxi-driver garb in ‘Friday Lunch’; the cancerous protagonist dressed in a pale pink nightie with broderie anglaise trimming in ‘The Death of Mrs. Harrison’; Clare Bentworth in ‘Baggage’ delineated by her black cardigan, her ‘red skirt which flares out from the hip’ and her ‘black flat shoes with little straps’ (iii): these were characters whose voices, viewpoints — and outer- and underwear — made us notice them.
In her new collection Orr again uses this layering – of range, outlook, experience, composition, mood – to dazzling effect. Each story here is a finely made piece. What gives them extra gravitas, as singular offerings and as an ensemble, is the effortless manner with which they hang together. It’s as if, in spite of their busyness (of shade, tone, voice and ambience), they are at some higher level held in perfect, model-like poise by their author.
The best stories are maps. They locate people at a fixed point in a journey, but they also can’t help charting the motorways, grasslands, settlements and hinterlands, in short, the entire topography that exists before arrival and after departure. It is this scope – geographical and existential – which the finest stories in From Under the Overcoat give us. The opener, ‘Journeyman’ is a case in point. The tale of a new father and classy amateur golfer who leaps at the chance of a weekend break from his Hunter syndrome-suffering newborn is rich with not only the present quandaries of first-time parenthood, marital strife and office politics, but also the past and future ethical and altruistic dilemmas that accompany a sick child’s care. Its ending, unsettling and unsettled, speaks of the ambience of the complete story, and the book as a whole.
Other offerings are no less ornately textured, particularly so the teenage surfers tale ‘Worms’ and the story of the difficulties and deceits involved in realty, entitled ‘The Open Home’.
Of course, another layer to this collection, as the title signposts, is its genesis from, its formation by and its referencing of the heritage of the short story form. Nineteenth-century Russian writer Nikolay Gogol’s masterfully concise ‘The Overcoat’ not only subliminally underpins Orr’s title and book, but is discussed at length in her introduction, and reproduced at the book’s conclusion. Other classic works of world literature which provide starting points for the tales in From Under the Overcoat include Arthur Schnitzler’s ‘Lieutenant Gustl’, Henry James’ ‘The Turn of the Screw’ and James Joyce’s ‘The Dead’. Orr’s collection, then, is a conscious and subconscious homage to the possibilities suggested by the short story’s masterworks, from beginnings to present-day.
If this sounds like very erudite, academic and restrictive stuff, Orr’s approach to this embracing of global tale-telling is as nicely understated as someone who adds a single piece of vintage attire to their everyday contemporary garments. To this end, Orr uses the classics only as starting-points: they are inspirations which having been read, or soaked up, were then at the back of her mind during the literary genesis of her own prose pieces. We’re not told which of her stories derived from which of the abiding stories she references. This approach is fundamental in aiding an open approach to our reading of From Under the Overcoat, for it means that these stories can be read as stand-alone pieces, irrespective of the reader’s deeper knowledge of the story craft.
The notion of Orr’s collection as a series of beautifully sewn together ‘items’ worn by their characters and author is reinforced by the very striking outfit image by talented cover designer and writer, Sarah Laing, which adorns the front and back cover of From Under the Overcoat. Perhaps because of her literary sympathies, Laing’s images often make chic and striking book illustrations. Certainly, the black overcoat and colourful, image-laden skirt on a white background here not only offers classy visual appeal, but also ably symbolises and summarises what readers will find between the covers.
All in all then, From Under the Overcoat is that rare thing in homegrown literature – chic writing likely to appeal to a broad spectrum of (particularly women) readers, which simultaneously and effortlessly offers a sophistication and depth which will charm book buyers of both genders who might be looking for literary fiction.
Notes
i. Eileen Chang, ‘Jasmine Tea’ in Love in a Fallen City, London, Penguin Books, 2007, p. 79.
ii. Maurice Duggan, ‘Blues for Miss Laverty’ in Summer in the Gravel Pit, Auckland, Longman Paul, 1965, p. 18.
iii. Sue Orr, ‘Baggage’ in Etiquette for a Dinner Party, Auckland, Vintage, 2008, p. 252.
SIOBHAN HARVEY’s new poetry collection, Lost Relatives (Steele Roberts), has just been released. She is also the editor of Words Chosen Carefully: New Zealand Writers in Discussion (Cape Catley, 2010) and Our Own Kind: 100 New Zealand Poems about Animals (Godwit, 2009).
Nice to read your review, Siobhan, and to see you enjoyed the book as much as I did. I am still thinking about these clever, crafted stories especially the one you mention about the golf trip, and the one about the Open Home – oh, and the one with the woman and the Lotto ticket…. Really, this writer nails it.
The only off note in your review is this: ‘We’re not told which of her stories derived from which of the abiding stories she references.’ In fact, it’s clear at the back of the book which story is referenced each time, and which elements Sue draws out and plays with. I found this fascinating.
Hello Mary, thank you so much for the comment and for the commendation of the review. I’m heartened to know that Orr’s stories touched us both.
Thanks too for the comment about the perceived off note in the review. I stand by the comment, as Orr doesn’t tell us which of her stories derived from which of the abiding stories she references. At the rear of the book, she gives us an overview of the classic stories she read and we can infer from this overview which of these classic stories may have been the source for the constituent tales in Orr’s collection, but she doesn’t directly tell us this information. To this end, my use of the words “not told” is deliberate. I wanted so much to make sure I honoured Orr’s own viewpoint of these stories and their sources, as she expresses it in her Introduction, “This collection although inspired by those famous words has not been bound by them. The idea was to identify ten classic short stories and write a modern story in response to each, a story that tipped its hat to the original in some way… (pages 12-13)… The stories in ‘From Under the Overcoat’ also stand alone; if the reader is not curious about the archetypal story that inspired them, he or she may read the book for what it also is – a modern collection of (mostly) New Zealand short stories” (page 15).
yours sincerely
Siobhan