Resonant 'Mending' sews together the threads of family drama
The Art of Mending
By Elizabeth Berg
Random House, 237 pp., $24.95
So often, the details of Elizabeth Berg's novels leave my memory just weeks after reading. Asked what a book was about, I tend to hem and haw, utterly failing to remember the plot's narrative or even anything substantive about the characters. However, what I do remember is the keen sense of satisfaction of being in the moment with Berg's characters as they uncover little kernels of truth, as they experience those small epiphanies or moments of connection that make all of us feel less alone. The pleasure, the resonance of Berg's novels, is in the process.
In Berg's new "The Art of Mending," quiltmaker Laura Bartone, a happily married mother of two living in a ramshackle house in North Dakota, has a life of quiet contentment. She is not prone to introspection or self-doubt but tends to take each day as it is offered. "This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead . . . it's like quilting, a thread surfacing and then disappearing into the fabric of ordinary days. It's not always visible, but it's what holds everything together."
However, the threads of Laura's days begin to unravel when her younger sister, Caroline, comes to a critical juncture in her life and reveals a long history of covert psychological abuse by their mother, abuse that Laura, her brother, and her father either did not see or did not want to see. Caroline's accusations become the catalyst for remembering and soul-searching. In the process of uncovering her mother's cruelty, Laura begins to examine and come to terms with her own culpability -- the subtle undermining, big-sister bullying, and simply looking the other way. In so doing, she lays the groundwork for familial healing. "I think it's a good idea to take the time to fix something rather than throw it away. . . . You'll always notice the fabric scar, of course, but there's an art to mending: If you're careful, the repair can actually add to the beauty of the thing, because it is testimony to its worth."
"The Art of Mending" is one of Berg's most low-key and elusive novels. It is often lyrical, veering toward the poetic. Other times, it is effectively cryptic, letting a single short punch line of revelation sit confidently on the page without backup remarks or explication. Every few chapters are preceded by descriptions of photographs from the family album. Written in italic, these little literary "interludes" are some of the most telling moments in the book, recalling vivid memories and describing in detail a picture that perfectly captures a personality, a relationship, an attitude, a dream. In one photo, all you can see of Caroline are the tips of her shoes as she waits on a staircase for someone to notice she is there.
Disappointingly, the characters in "The Art of Mending" are not as vivid or sharply delineated as many of Berg's characters. However, they occasionally offer insights that shed brilliant light on the human condition. Laura's explanation to a child about the coping mechanisms of grief during a wake -- the wealth of food, the chatty conversation, the welcome structure of busywork -- is stunningly incisive. And her recollection of the first time she saw a dead man, keeled over in a shopping mall, reveals the kinds of survival skills people cultivate in order to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. "As soon as I turned away, I'd told myself to forget about him. And I had. I'd gone into a store three doors down and looked at bath oil, and then I'd bought some. All the way home, I'd imagined not the sudden loss of another soul on earth but rather how nice it would feel to be submerged in warm water, breathing in the scent of white gardenia. It had been so easy to erect my barricade against fear, against pain, against knowing." With tragedy knocking at her own door, self-protection was not so easy. "Now it seemed that my house had blown down. I was about to meet the wolf.
The book's anticlimactic ending actually seems just right. After chapters of buildup, one might expect a huge traumatic confrontation. But the culminating moment, with all its ambiguities and rough edges, has the satisfying richness and complexity of real life. Instead of closing a door, Berg simply lets the characters open one.
