THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408300379
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY AUDREY KNOTH
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
GETTING OVER TOM
ABIGAIL THOMAS
Algonquin. 204 pp. $16.95.
In Getting Over Tom, the title tells the tale. Much as with a bodily ailment, the women in this short story collection are all trying to recover from - or at least learning to cope with - men.
The malady afflicts females of all ages. The stories in the book's first section portray young girls who have been damaged by their mothers' fractured relationships.
``Once again our mother is disabled by love. Carmine is back,'' confides the 13-year-old narrator of ``Sisters.''
``Carmine, who came before Henry Gold and then vanished, has reappeared now, after Henry and towards the end of Martin. . . I have nothing against Carmine, he looks nice and serious, it is my mother who drives me crazy, the way she acts around men.''
The narrator of ``Seeing Things'' is also the young daughter of a divorce:
``Tonight our mother is sitting in the living room with the telephone on her lap. She is dialing information for one city after another, looking for Dad. We must be very low of funds. This only happens when we are about broke. Dad left seven years ago. He needed his space.''
The book's middle section recounts the beginning of female adulthood. These stories, set in the late 1950s, center on a college student who has married her boyfriend after accidentally becoming pregnant. She's been forced to leave school. Now, her new identity as a housewife in her husband's hometown is paling in charm.
``It's like Buddy has a whole life here and mine has been left behind. He sowed his so-called wild oats, and now what am I supposed to do? Lie around like some stupid field?''
Middle-aged women people the book's third section. In ``A Tooth For Every Child,'' 46-year-old Louise, a divorced mother of grown children, becomes briefly involved with a 20-year-old man. He eventually, and predictably, spurns her.
This short-lived intimacy contrasts with the ongoing barrenness of Louise's emotional life, which is neatly summed up: ``Louise is of an age now when most of the men in her life are former lovers who fly in from nowhere for a couple of days every six years or so; they sit on her chairs, eat at her table, sleep in her bed, and when they leave they leave a kind of half-life behind, an absence so palpable it is almost a presence.''
Author Abigail Thomas' talent with the pen shows in her quirky and appealing phrases. The middle-aged Louise, for example, is described as ``pushing down the tall grasses near the land of menopause.''
But in only portraying the damage that can come of female-male relationships, the story collection doesn't seem fully rounded. Surely, some women have experienced pleasure, even joy, in this arena. One hopes that Thomas' writing spark will illuminate this other dimension of female life in her next book. MEMO: Audrey Knoth is a free-lance writer and executive director of public
relations at Goldman & Associates ILLUSTRATION: Photo
JENNIFER WADDELL
Abigail Thomas, author of ``Getting Over Tom''
by CNB