Just Look at All of You By Christine Pinella A creative project submitted to Sonoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF THE ARTS in ENGLISH (Creative Writing) Committee Members Stefan Kiesbye, Thesis Chair, First Reader Anne Goldman, Second Reader May 1st, 2017 Copyright 2016 By Christine Pinella ii Authorization for Reproduction of Master’s Project Permission to reproduce this thesis [project] in its entirety must be obtained from me. Permission to reproduce parts of this thesis [project] must be obtained from me. Date: May 1st, 2017 Christine Pinella iii Just Look at All of You Creative Project by Christine Pinella ABSTRACT Just Look at All of You is a creative project containing a collection of short fiction stories. Thematically, the pieces as a unified whole aim to explore the intricacies of human relationships, trauma and recovery, and loss and grief. The collection title is a nod to the complex nature of human existence, the chapters of memory which make us who we are as people, how we relate to each other, and how we navigate through the world. MA Program: English Sonoma State University May 1st, 2016 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to Stefan Kiesbye, for your insight, your humor, and your willingness to be patient with me as I realized my own potential. Thank you for your friendship, and of course, for the beers. Thank you to Anne Goldman, for your positivity and for being so generous with your time. Thank you for your direction, your selfless dedication to the program, and your confidence in me as a growing writer. Thank you to all of my friends who have read my work, and continue to trust and believe in my voice. Thank you to N.W. for showing me how it easy it can and should be, to really love someone. Two grains of salt. Thank you to Great Aunt Jessie Blackwell, whose generosity made it possible for me to pursue higher education in the arts. Just Look at All of You is dedicated to my parents – to my mother who taught me how to trust myself, my intuition, and my capabilities. And especially to my father - an original journalist - whose life-work was spent telling stories which were true, insightful, and honest. Without you I would not have picked up a pen in the first place. You passed your love for story-telling down to me, and for that I will be forever grateful. v TABLE OF CONTENTS WORK Unmitigated Lunacy: A Critical Introduction VII Just Look at All of You 1 Hemlock 8 Ink 18 Funhouse 32 Jenner 35 Toad 53 Shanghai 59 Buffalo 62 Paradise 82 Scraps 87 Sugar 92 vi Unmitigated Lunacy A Critical Introduction to Just Look at All of You Last year I went to Lisbon in July to participate in the DisQuiet Literary Workshop. I was placed in the group of Padgett Powell – a literary veteran, first known for his 1982 debut novel, Edisto. He is a self-proclaimed narcissist, asshole, and pit-bull rescuer. He lives with his puppy, who he refers to as his “adopted black child”, and a woman who remains unnamed and he remains “untethered” to, in a house on wheels somewhere amid the swamps in Gainesville, Florida. He has a shed full of guns and has been sober for twenty years. He told me this over lunch at a restaurant in Baixia-Chiado. The restaurant was a sign-less sparse room, with folding chairs and folding tables with red checkered table cloths. The woman who owned it was short and round, and she showed us a glass case with fish on ice and said, “Which you want?” I picked a long silver one, he did too, and we sat at the table by the front door. There was a blue, metal fan attached to the wall and a rail-thin, ancient-looking woman sat at the table under the fan, and chain-smoked Marlboros and drank Coca-Cola out of the bottle. “Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I talked to you like that. It’s not you, it’s just something sparked me and I couldn’t let go. I get that way from my dog, I think,” he said to me. The waitress brought a plate of olives and hard cheese. I took a sip from my beer and sat back in my chair. It was quiet, save for the hum of the fan, and as I studied his face for some sign of a lie, a twitch of his eyebrow or a blink of his sagging eye, I realized that I believed him. vii An hour ago, I was in the classroom with him and twelve other writers. He had read “Jenner” and “Hemlock”, and was meant to give me constructive feedback. I went there for constructive criticism, and to listen to what successful writers had to say about my own style and craft and composition. I went there to hear what my twelve other classmates had to say about it too. Instead of that, he barked at me. “Miss Pinella, Miss Pinella, Miss Pinella…,” he started from the front of the classroom, while shaking his head, “I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you have no place calling yourself a writer with this mediocre bullshit. This is bullshit and I’m betting you know it. For example, in “Hemlock” you go on and on for six pages before you tell us what is wrong with this narrator! It’s not until page six that you reveal, oh, ah-ha! She has cancer! That’s why she’s such a narcissistic bitch. If I knew this woman in real life, I would slap her across the face. Don’t play coy with me, Miss Pinella. Look, you can all learn from Miss Pinella’s oversight here. Repeat after me: DO NOT PLAY COY. Tell me what is going on and I’ll trust you, but don’t drag me along through this whining slop for six goddamn pages before you tell me. Because by the end of page one I was already bored. Now I’m just pissed. You’ve lost me completely.” “But her problem isn’t that she had cancer, her problem is that- “ “Miss Pinella. It doesn’t matter what her problem is. It matters that I don’t care. That should bother you. You should want me to care.” He kept pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his large nose and taking long, sniffling drags of air through his nostrils, the sound of which reminded me of a dog just before it lunges for the first bite of something it should not be biting. “Do you have any last words, Miss Pinella?” he asked me. I shook my head – hell, no. viii I don’t think we can talk about writing without talking about embarrassment. There’s a shoebox under my bed which includes every overdone, overthought, drippy, syrupy-sweet, thing I wrote during middle school and high school. It should be taken out back and burned until it’s nothing but the ashes of teenage angst gone awry. I’ve embarrassed myself with my writing almost daily since I started. There’s a problem I’m guilty of, that I think many young writers are, which is trying way too hard to get your feelings out on a page. We think, if we can just force the reader to feel the same way this character does, then I’ve done my job. This kind of blatant desperation is nauseating and entirely obvious to the reader, most of the time. But, there’s no such thing as a first draft that isn’t embarrassing. This art we’ve chosen to pursue makes us vulnerable by it’s very nature. It’s like having your chest open and your head split apart for all to see. We get used to it, though. As I’ve become more confident in my voice, my writing has become less insecure and less desperate for readers to love me. Or so I thought. Because there’s a different kind of embarrassment I’ve felt now that I’m older. It’s the kind of embarrassment that turns you back into that little kid, after all this work to grow up. It’s that embarrassment which comes from asking for advice, and getting a response that is nothing more than, you shouldn’t be doing this in the first place. How was I supposed to handle the truth that I was nowhere near where I thought I was? And not only was I hearing this for the first time, but I was hearing it from someone I respected, and in front of twelve other established, working writers. After the session with Padgett, I didn’t hesitate to leave. There was a phone both just outside the front door, and I leaned against it and tried to catch my breath. I spent two thousand dollars to come here and listen to a man tell me I wasn’t good enough. ix Padgett found me. He looked legitimately concerned as he told me he was sorry and he didn’t know what happened and could he take me to lunch, please? Could he buy me a beer, or some ice cream or a soda, whatever I wanted? I let him. I don’t know why. “You’re an asshole,” I said to him at lunch. “That wasn’t helpful at all.” “I know.