Edenwald is a retirement community in Towson, a very nice one. I have spoken there and I know at least one resident.
In WHAT THE DEAD KNOW, Kevin Infante visits Edenwald and it unnerves him. He’s relatively young and he has lost his father, whose last years were spent in a much cheaper nursing home on Long Island.
Kevin thinks: “Nursing homes — and whatever they called these places, retirement homes or assisted living, they were still nursing homes — were creepy to him.” He goes to TGIFridays, postponing his visit.
When he goes back, he thinks: “What was it about the air in these places? Whether super-posh, like this one, or just a step up from a county hospital, they all smelled and felt the same: overheated and cold at the same time, stuffy, room deoderizers and aerosols battling the medicinal air. Death’s waiting room. And the more they fought it, like this place with all its brightly colored flyers around the lobby — museum trip, opera trip, New York trip — the more obvious it seemed. Infante’s father had spent his last years in a nursing home in Long Island, a no-frills place that all but announced, ‘You’re here to die, please hurry up.’ There was something to be said for the honesty of its approach. But if you could afford a place like this, of course you’d ante up for it. At least it cut down on the guilt.”
Today, I received this e-mail. ” I have recently read your novel “What the Dead know”, and, as a resident of Edenwald, I find your remarks about Edenwald tasteless. To be sure, you will argue that it is a fictional figure who makes these offensive remarks. But YOU decided to overtly identify Edenwald as one of the places of action, YOU decided to create the mistaken impression of ugly smells and arrogant residents–both wrong. You have been here and should know better.
Artistically, the novel is poorly written ([spoiler redacted]‘s style of expression is much too sophisticated for her personality).The structure (much more expertly used in the novels of others) is confusing. The extensive use of pronouns (instead of names) is equally confusing, and the plot, whatever there is of it, is highly improbable.”
It’s not the first complaint. I doubt it will be the last. Yes, I would argue that it is a fictional figure who makes these offensive remarks. Kevin Infante also sleeps with a student at Towson University, uses coarse, sexist language and seems to have had a crush on the cartoon character Penelope Pitstop. This is not drawn from my life. So far.
Having just been to Keswick last week to see my Mom for her 91st birthday, I have my own, very similar thoughts on “nursing homes” as to what Kevin thinks. I hope to God I don’t have to live in one, but it is what it is,no matter what name you give it.
It’s got to be hard putting your words out there for everyone to critique, more power to you!
I kind of understand the person’s annoyance, because I wouldn’t be happy if you said something like that about where I live or work. That said, they were way out of line. You didn’t attack them, but they attacked you and that’s not cool at all.
Especially since, yeah, Kevin Infante is clearly not intended to be the voice of reason or culture. It’s not like Tess said anything like that. (I love Tess.)
And frankly, if you are confused by pronouns instead of names, I don’t think you should be reading grownup books.
And also, I have been in multiple nursing homes and your description wasn’t exactly inaccurate.
Laura, I’ll leave it up to others more knowledgeable to confront those literary criticisms. However, it sounds like you REALLY angered someone. Perhaps your e-mailer was throwing unkind words at you as a means of retaliation.
I did think the remarks about the smells at Edenwald were off base. A full fledged nursing home with people there for medical treatment has an entirely different atmosphere from a senior residence building or even assisted living. I was disappointed in you for putting the thoughts into Kevin’s head. Making sport of senior citizens seems to be one of those things not considered politically incorrect. As you know, I had reason to be aware of this before I entered the category.
June,
I’d only point out that Kevin’s head isn’t the healthiest place on the planet. He clearly feels a lot of guilt about his father and is in deep denial about his own mortality. Whatever that is — a poor choice, or an ill-considered one — it’s not “making sport.”
Reading the passage again, I was struck by the fact that Kevin was deeply envious of those families who could afford Edenwald.
Your evenhanded response is both admirable and further proof of your desperate need for a deadly sidekick.
Laura, I guess if one considers the source, having those thoughts come from Kevin would not be so out of line. However, note that the writers above who are agreeing with you, as is Kevin, ARE talking about nursing homes, not something of the caliber of Edenwald. That’s what riled up your writer. The cheap shots were out of anger.
June, I think you’ve raised an interesting point about the confusion between an upscale (“super-posh”) residence such as Edenwald and a nursing home. They are different, extremely different. Heck, when I visit such places, I often find myself envious of the activities offered. (And while I didn’t address this above, the one Edenwald resident we meet in the book is an extremely fit and energetic man. Which, by the way, wasn’t true in an early draft, but I decided the original version of Chet Willoughby _was_ a stereotype.)
My sister, by the way, was troubled by something else in the passage. She believes that Kevin, in order to go to TGIFridays, makes an illegal left turn.
Deadly sidekick.
Laura:
I have a feeling that particular resident is uncomfortable with themselves, or something like that. I “read” from the comments that this person had to direct some kind of anger outward.
I’m not just talking out of my hat. I work for a non-profit social services agency (NOT stated related) and I have had contact with lots of folks who live in that situation. I have a feeling that particular person has always had a problem understanding that something is fiction and that another person has a right to an opinion.
And to think that a fictional story is going to make a place look bad….ah well.
I also had a mom who had to live in a rather upscale place, on a locked Alzheimer’s wing. She loved it, even before she got where she couldn’t understand where she was, she loved it. After all, free cable tv…but I digress.
Sheesh. For the first time, I’m glad that I can’t write. You know Laura that I envy you for these 3 things: 1. You can write fiction; 2. You can make a living writing fiction; and 3. You can make a living writing while living in Baltimore-this seems like the perfect life! But seeing you get this kind of grief for a perfectly realistic description of a character’s response (and you get to say how he reacts because you made him up) to a continuing care retirement community (he did call it “super-posh”) makes me realize the the NY Times bestselling writer’s life is not all it is cracked up to be.
Bloggers, get a life. I have known Laura for a number of years and as she well knows, have only the highest regard for her. However, none of us think alike 100% of the time. Isn’t that what Journalscape is about? Wouldn’t it be a tribute in our mutual regard for Laura if we could learn from one another here?
For the record: I’m not the least bit concerned about the critique. I included it in the interest of equal time — I had clearly offended someone, and it was only fair to allow that person to have his/her say.
What I find interesting about the criticism is that, if I’m reading it correctly, it centers on the fact that I used a real place. If I had used a fictional setting, I don’t think it would have grated as much.
I’m fine with someone objecting, as June did here, with Infante’s hostility/denial resulting in an unfair depiction of a TYPE of place. The defense of that type of facility is within bounds.
But the complaint here is two-fold: Not that senior residences were misrepresented, but that this particular senior residence was misrepresented (in the thoughts of a far-from-reliable observer.)
I’m sympathetic to the uber-view, less swayed by the specific one. By the way — Roland Park Place and Leisure World, two other upper-end senior residences, have shown up in my fiction, and no one objected, although Tess was certainly frightened by what she saw at RPP and the Leisure World reference was in a story about senior citizen porn.
When confronted with this sort of pissy little critique, I am guided by the wit and wisdom of one of my favorite cinematic characters, namely Sgt. Hulka from STRIPES, and I reply:
“Lighten up, Francis.”
I think this brings up an interesting subject: readers who confuse characters with their creators. Should one believe that Donald Westlake is just like Dortmunder, or Parker for that matter? Why does this happen? Is it a failure on the part of the writer? No, I don’t think so. I think it is an indication of the lack of imagination of the reader, or at least the ability to allow their mind to accept fictional constructs that aren’t based directly on reality. Maybe they don’t believe in a person’s ability to make things up. One possibility is that they are unable to do it themselves, so they think others are incapable of the task too. I’ve come across plenty of people who can’t, or won’t, believe a character is created purely by imagination. It’s frustrating, but I don’t think there is anything one can do about it.
And here I thought you liked Penelope.
I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit, with far more ambivalence than I expected. What I’ve come to understand is that, for those who live in Edenwald, the passages in the book carry the same shock I would feel if someone wrote about my home in a disparaging way (even via the POV of a less-than-perfect person.)
The unpleasant truth is that retirement homes, no matter how nice, can creep out the young and middle-aged. Reminders of one’s own mortality are seldom welcome. And such residences do tend to be one’s ultimate or penultimate home on this planet.
Still, I think that idea is easier in the abstract than the specific, and hearing that someone, even a fictional someone, was unnerved by a perfectly lovely building, with nice people and lots of activities — I can see how that would be hurtful.
Suppose Kevin had gone off on obesity in his head? I think most people would find that acceptable. But what if Kevin had gone off on obesity in response to meeting a specific private citizen? That named citizen would be pretty hurt.
That said . . . I’ve always used real places in my fiction. I don’t think I’m particularly kind to TGIFridays or the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport in this book. But, granted, these places are not anyone’s home.
Baltimoreons are a prickly lot.
I’m always fascinated by readers who want interesting characters and therefore would expect those characters to have some opinions about their world, one way or the other… but then don’t want anything negative said or thought about anything at all. Like it’s okay for a character to think badly about ‘other people’ just not ‘us’ — whoever that ‘us’ may be. If all of the characters sounded like an advertisement for a specific place, you’d get slammed (probably fairly often) for just being a mouthpiece, an advertisement, and your credibility shot. And that credibility of character is, ultimately, the most important thing if we’re going to tell a story and a reader who cannot differentiate needs to quit reading fiction.
Following up on what Steve wrote . . . As a reader, one of my tasks is to separate myself, in a sense, from what I’m reading (that’s what keeps it fictional). Sometimes a writer is so powerful that doing so is difficult. Sometimes that’s really fun. Sometimes it’s really painful. Sometimes it’s so painful (or frightening, or otherwise intolerable) that I have to stop reading. But I don’t assign any kind of “blame” to the situation. The writer did his/her job really well. What I choose to do in response is my choice. And I know absolutely that I am missing some fantastic writing because of my inability to “separate” about some things.
You mean Penelope Pitstop….isn’t REAL? My life is OVER.
“I have recently read your novel….and I really should have put it down since I didn’t like it but I am a compulsive whiner without a lot of joy in my life, so instead I read it and wish to pick the following NITS with you.
Says the woman whom Laura named a friggin psych unit after – FICTION YOU DINGBRAIN IT’S FICTION. It is a FICTIONAL CHARACTER’s opinion,not the AUTHOR’S. Why is this so difficult for people to GRASP? Argh.
I’m not an author and this crapola makes me whimper with frustration. If I had to deal with it as some of you do, my head would explode. Weekly.
As Dusty put perfectly (where did I first learn this line, Anne Lamott? I never saw the movie) “lighten UP, Frances!”
Says the woman whom Laura named a friggin psych unit after – FICTION YOU DINGBRAIN IT’S FICTION.
My thought ou this crticism, it seems to me picayune to grab onto something like that about the nursing home in such a well crafted book. Sort of like complaining about a misplaced landmark, get over it and absorb the real genuius of the story.
Like what the hell do people think anyway that you’re supposed to live up to their version of perfection?