All She Ever Wanted
By T.L. Cooper
I
like fiction with a plot that moves quickly, spiky dialogue, humor,
characters who don't take themselves too seriously. I really like
when they make me laugh a bit, whether it is self-depreciating, or
even a bit cruel. All
She Ever Wanted
(ASEW)
is
not on my usual literary menu. For me, ASEW
was
almost a visit to a bizarro Shang-Gri-La world, where everyone speaks
earnestly about mundane things, Southern things, in serious fully
formed sentences from which no satirical irony can be detected in the
least. It is not about the deep South, but the Border South, you can
tell because the Border South is - well on the border - not the heart
of Faulkner's darkness, but Kentucky Horse Country. It is page after
page of descriptions of the paint on the walls, the color of the
carpets, the plait on the dresses, the heels on the shoes. But
unpleasantries between people are avoided like moldy leftovers. The
novel was outside my usual reading comfort zone, but ultimately, and
oddly, if I may say, it was satisfying. It is without question the
most blatant work of 'women's fiction' I have ever read. I needed
to read it. I think it gave me insight into the 'inner workings' of
the women I have known and continue to know. Observing my reaction to
it was a therapeutic exercise. It gave me insight into my own world
view, of its blindspots, preconceptions, and prejudices.
All
She Ever Wanted
is
a slow moving, Southern story about a self-involved, tightly wrapped,
spoiled woman, who achieves worldly success at the price of – well
- everything that is important in life, such as love and fun.
Victoria Caldwell is the product of an upper class, horsey, up-tight
family, where appearances really count, and where the exterior social
trappings - clothes, furniture, hairstyles, - are everything. The
novel begins with Victoria musing about her past and we are taken
back to her college years. She is date-raped by a frat boy, an event
which casts a long shadow on her future romantic life. Then to make
it much worse, she gets no support from her sorority sisters, and so
that sours her trust in women as well. College would have been dismal
but for her only friend, a black man her age, Daryn, who comes from a
prosperous, functional southern family.
Daryn
is demonstrably not gay, but his relationship with Victoria has all
the outward markings of a stereotypical straight woman - gay man
friendship. They never get together in bed, even though Victoria’s
dreams all point to that being what she really wants; but because of
her entrenched southern womanhood 'thing', she can never have it.
That longing is something Victoria would deny until she was blue
in the face, but the evidence - her soapy bathtub daydreaming, and
her constant obsessive need to be near Daryn indicates
otherwise.
Tragic
things happen, and Victoria never really breaks through. She tries to
escape from her self-imposed trap that requires propriety in all
things, and to truly live, but it doesn't happen-not until the very
very end, which is presented as a final breakout for her but - as a
reader, I have my doubts she really makes it. Throughout the 532
pages, she returns to her 'bread and butter' ways of coping –solitude,
hot bubble baths, and long scenes played out in her head that always
seem to justify her cold outwardness, which pushes away everyone and
allows her to deny her own desires. My anger at Victoria eventually
turned to pity.
It
is a book about the modern South. There is a touch of Scarlette
O'Hara in Victoria. She gets possession of her great-great
grandmother's diaries which detail the end of the Civil War and
Reconstruction and we read how her slave and Plantation owning family
dealt with that transformation – and we see that self-pity and
self-involvement is a long standing family trait.
I
have half-southern roots myself and like Chis Rock describing why OJ
murdered Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman, “I don't condone it
– but I understand it.” By that I mean when reading about how
Southerners are trapped by their own history and their devotion to
backward, deluded and feudal romantic ideals and patterns of
behavior, I understand it even if I reject being burdened with it. I
have sat in my maternal grandmother's kitchen and eaten corn bread, home-made jam, honey-combed honey, and fresh eggs, and
grits, and fatty fried ham and listened to the lyrical, half-true
memories of my North Carolina kin and I felt the pull of the family,
of the land and - well kinship - and depending on the day, it is as
strongly imprinted on me as my New Jersey 'fooget-about-it'
side. I do understand Victoria's cold refusal to surrender to her.
own humanity, and her need to 'measure up' to tradition and
expectations that are unrealistic and soul destroying. But I don't
condone it.
I
was angry at Victoria through most of the whole read - but that
doesn't mean I disliked the book. A good book makes you grow and
understand things you didn't understand before. ASEW taught
me some things or rather reflected back at me parts of humanity I
tend to ignore otherwise.
The
book is technically well crafted. Cooper is a fine honer of sentences and
paragraphs. For the reader – it perhaps it should have been more
viciously and brutally edited. But then it wouldn't have been the
flowery, endless search for a perfection that can never be found.
