Illness and illusion, refracted through the novel
It's a chicken-or-the-egg kind of argument -- do you need to know about the writer's personal life to appreciate his or her work? Or, as many literary purists feel, should the writing stand alone and unvarnished by biographical detail?
In the case of Stephanie Williams's remarkable first novel, ''Enter Sandman" (McWitty, $22), I think knowing her true story makes her fictional one all the more compelling. Three years ago, Williams had a bright, shiny apple of a life. Young and gorgeous, she had a successful career as a magazine writer, an adoring boyfriend, close family, and a stalwart circle of friends. And then, two months after her 30th birthday, Williams felt a lump in her breast and all her happily-ever-afters faded into fairy tales.
The diagnosis was terminal breast cancer. Stunned and depressed, Williams was nevertheless determined to leave something important behind, to make the most of the time left her -- and what she wanted to do was write her first novel. Writing when you're healthy can be daunting enough, but when you're fighting for your life, and undergoing surgery and chemotherapy, it can be almost impossible. But Williams had friends to help, and one of them, Adam Fawer, made a pact with her. Both of them would write every day and finish their novels.
Fawer sold his book, a thriller called ''Improbable," to William Morrow. Williams, though, didn't have the luxury of time to wait for traditional publishers. Enter colleague, friend, and guardian angel Ellie McGrath, who used her own money to form a publishing company, McWitty Press. Williams was its first author, and a third of the profits from sales of her book will go to breast-cancer causes.
''Enter Sandman" starts with a bang. It's 2010, and the art world is abuzz about a recently deceased artist's mysterious painting, featuring a woman who could be in ''agony or ecstasy," an image so intoxicating that, like the ''Mona Lisa," she could ''live forever." Then the novel returns to the past to tell the story of Trisha Portman, an art curator, and her friend James Morales, an artist who's both emotionally and physically scarred from a childhood fire. Bitter and suicidal at times, James rejects both his talent and any feelings he harbors for Trisha.
The opening of the novel is deceptive, almost like a smarter, better-written ''Sex and the City." It's feisty and engaging enough, but then Williams suddenly veers into autobiographical territory, wrenching the ground from under your feet, and the novel takes on a new depth and importance. Trisha finds she has breast cancer, and as her battle grows more difficult, she reaches out to James. Part of the brilliance of the story is that the expected never happens -- Trisha and James don't fall into clinches like a ''Love Story" couple. Their relationship is far more complicated and real. As Trisha is increasingly devastated by her disease, James grudgingly lets her into his world, forging a connection that will have repercussions for him, his art, and her. Dreamlike, disturbing, and at times very, very funny, ''Enter Sandman" turns the stuff of Stephanie Williams's life -- and death (tragically, she died in July) -- into real and enduring art.
Like Williams, novelist Cathy Day propels her novel with her life. The descendant of circus people (a great-uncle was an elephant trainer), she came of age in small-town Peru, Ind., where the circus used to winter. Growing up on big-top tales seemed normal to Day, but when she went to college and saw how fascinated others were by her stories, she began to write them down, subsequently producing one of the most sublimely imaginative and affecting novels I've read in years: ''The Circus in Winter" (Harcourt, $23). Filled with archival photographs and meticulous family research, Day chronicles the rise and fall of the fictional Great Porter Circus from 1884 to 1939, crafting a living, breathing world where the past is always keeping company with the present.
Knowing about Day's life gives the book a kind of radiant authenticity. Through interrelated short stories, we get to know three generations of indelible characters, from clowns to lion tamers to fake freaks, all poignantly pondering the meaning of their circus way of life. In ''Jennie Dixianna," we meet a dazzling acrobat who lures men with her ''spin of death." In ''The Circus House" a lonely, neglected wife hires the painter she lusts after to illustrate the walls of her home. As the circus hits harder times, so, too, do the people and their town, and a haunting melancholy begins to soak into the pages. ''The Bullhook" shows us a retired clown, devastated by his wife's chilliness, who struggles to find solace in a new business, Clown Alley Cleaners. The circus may be gone, but the myths, the magic, and the restless need to move on remain.
Can you separate the writer from the work? And should you? Would I have loved Williams's book as much if I was unaware of her fierce courage in the face of her dying? Would I be so fascinated by the Day novel if I knew she didn't come from circus folk herself? Certainly, this all adds an extra, resonating dimension to the novels. And too, when two young writers write about what they know or have experienced intimately, when they detail what matters to them, that passion, that obsession and interest, can't help but capture -- and captivate -- us as well.
Caroline Leavitt is the author of ''Girls in Trouble." She can be reached at her website, www.carolineleavitt.com.
