Haunted Houses

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Lynne Tillman: Well, I finished the first three chapters, one for each girl, and I said to myself, now they’re supposed to meet. Uma história sobre três raparigas na transição da infância para a idade adulta e as inerentes turbulências - amor, sexo, drogas, a relação com os pais, etc. beautiful prose and i can recognise how important this novel with 3 young, flawed female protagonists must have been for american literature, being published in the 80s. It makes a lot of sense to me that I live with a bass player, since time and rhythm are extremely important to my writing. Lynne Tillman’s writing is effortless, and she sails along at a steady clip with spare prose that is complex in its simplicity — fully loaded with gritty reality.

Jane has violent father and a dead best friend, Grace is hazed by her peers into rebellion, Emily is withdrawn and considered "not normal" by her parents, and none of them can be described with a single quirk or characteristic like I have just attempted to—they are complex, confused, real people; not conclusive and not reducible to types. When Haunted Houses came out to little fanfare (“I think there was one positive review”) Tillman decided to make peace with the fact she was never going to be a bestseller. She prided herself on her ability to separate neatly body from mind, self that was hers from self that she gave away. They observe the world, gain experience in it, make friends, feud with their mothers, and get on with their lives as you and I might: not with ambition, and not necessarily without. Haunted Houses is about the past within the present, the inescapability of private memory and public history.

When the author released her work in the 80s and 90s apparently it wasn’t very popular, this was because (especially in Haunted Houses) her novel follows mundane women, they aren’t especially powerful or groundbreaking, they are just young women in America discovering their place in their world, and people didn’t care about these kind of women at the time. There's an omniscient narrator train of thought thing going on, somewhat rambling, but the prose is sharp. this coming of age novel follows three girls separately; Jane, Emily and Grace, who navigate childhood through to adulthood through various themes of gender, family and relationships. I think she was just as good, if more overt, in portraying the tribulations that paint/taint the various stages of womanhood. They are each a haunted house impressed upon by their own memories, traumas, histories, and experiences; if their stories seem sometime to blur together and feel like they represent something, it may be because they are so defiantly singular.

It’s a book that doesn’t have a particular story line, there is no stereotypical format and each of the women’s stories don’t have a strong conclusion, the chapters simply end. Despite this, Tillman’s book is an accomplished and meaningful feat, representing women’s internal and external quandaries, while also exploring darker sides of human nature. Haunted Houses is about the past within the present, the inescapability of private memory and public history. Like you said, it’s a novel about the interiority of girls, and at the time that wasn’t a subject that was broached much in fiction. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

All three striking out on their own, losing their virginity, losing themselves, gaining experience, growing up, moving on — making that comfortable distance from uncomfortable pasts — square pegs escaping the monotony of fitting in the security of round holes left open for them to drop into, it would be too easy for them to do the expected.