“The Bunty Club”
by Tessa Hadley
from the October 28, 2019 issue of The New Yorker
Yes! I love Tessa Hadley’s work, so I’m thrilled to see another of her stories appear in The New Yorker. Like Jane Gardam and Alice Munro, she has helped me understand some of the complexities experienced by girls as they grow up. I hope some of this understanding has helped me be less judgmental and more empathetic. Of course, this is just one part of my admiration for her: her stories are always well written and interesting in their own right. She is also a joy to listen to, so if you have the opportunity I’d recommend you listen to her read “The Bunty Club.”
I say all of this without having read “The Bunty Club” yet, so I may come back here to say that she disappointed me this time. I don’t think that will be the case, but I’ll be sure to let you know. I certainly like the opening paragraph:
Serena was out in the garden in the early morning, before her two sisters got up. It was the best time. Reflected off the estuary water, the light seemed a blond powder, sifted through the summer air onto grass that grew waist-high, its mauve seed heads heavy with dew that soaked her skirt. She dipped to wash her arms in it, even her face—she was fanciful and ecstatic, and she loved long grass. Earth smells and the pungency of privet and balsam were still acute at this hour, unmingled; the shadows were as bold as in a child’s picture book; swifts and house martins tracked across the pale sky overhead, shrilling in thrilled anticipation. Everything was to come! This unknown day! The garden was so much more lovely now, Serena thought, than in the past, when it was scrupulously cared for. A crimson rambler rose, unmoored from its trellis, had flopped fatally forward into the grass, where it bloomed copiously but mostly unseen; flower beds were knotty with convolvulus and bramble; the dense hedge of blackthorn and holly had grown too thick and high for her to see over the top. She was alone, enclosed with everything enchanting, hidden.
Ah, that’s a compelling, mysterious opening.
So how did you feel about “The Bunty Club”? About Hadley’s work in general? Please comment below.
I’m busy with job interviews right now and don’t feel like I have the time to respond in detail. It’s one of their better stories, I think and I like the author a lot.
My main question is this: Is there a way to find a ranking list (perhaps 1 through 10) of short-story authors who have been published the most in the magazine? I wasn’t able to find this information via Google. Of course, such a list would be greatly biased in favour of older (or dead) authors but it would be interesting nonetheless.
Thanks,
Paul
I have not read this story yet, but I did just finish Hadley’s Bad Dreams last week, and if this week’s entry is as quality as the stories from that collection, this will be a good fiction week for TNY.
To answer Paul’s question, I don’t know if there’s any list of the most published authors in the magazine, but I suspect Alice Munro, Johns Updike and Cheever, Ann Beattie, William Trevor, and Mavis Gallant would all rank very highly.
I don’t know of any official list either, but I do remember reading that only a few writers have had over a hundred stories published in The New Yorker: John(s) Cheever, Updike and O’Hara, Mavis Gallant and Emily Hahn (a name I wasn’t familiar with).
This is an interesting article in The Millions from 2010, breaking down NYer fiction by the numbers, going back to 2003:
https://themillions.com/2010/01/new-yorker-fiction-by-the-numbers.html
Sadly, William Trevor has since passed and Alice Munro is now retired, but it gives a sense of the most-published contemporary writers: Tessa Hadley, TC Boyle, George Saunders, Haruki Murakami, etc. Hadley is probably the most ubiquitous active writer. She was only first published in the magazine in 2002, and has been featured almost every year since, which is impressive.
I’m generally not a huge fan, but I hope to read this story soon!
Although the fiction by the numbers TNY article mentioned by Archer looks like good overview between 2003 and 2010, you could get factual list together by physically compiling a list of all the short fiction from Oct. 2009 to 2019. Out of that list there could be one list of all writers having appeared at least once, who had the most stories published by which we have one gauge of which ones older and younger have been the most popular. There is 1 million circulation so that is many different kinds of readers to please. Most readers like or don’t like a particular story from the first sentence and often have a favorite writer and are wary of any new writers. And odds of getting a debut writer’s story published is TNY are as unlikely or even more unlikely than getting a writer’s first novel’s screenplay made into an indie or Hollywood film. Good think is readers are likely to see a least one great story a year and TNY is one the last popular venues for short stories and best of all, if it is great, it will probably noticed as such by a Mookse reader. So we are two times lucky to have TNY and our Mookse reader lookouts.
I liked this story, as I do all her stories but can someone more literate explain the references to freemasonry? There are several and I’m wondering how they fit into the themes of the story. Otherwise, I identified quite a bit with the story because I am fortunate at my age to have my 2 older siblings in my life to share memories of our now deceased parents and our childhood.
Harriet,
Everyone, including Mookse readers interprets literary symbols in New Yorker short stories differently just as they interpret what each story means differently. Various posted comments often unlock a story as someone who may have read “The Bunty Club” may post a comment explaining the Freemason symbols. Some of these critical analyses are just as good as those found in literary guidebooks. There are even readers from different professional disciplines who recognize symbols or the use of words or phrases who feel literarily inexperienced but seen to have fully understood what others missed. So I found a web article that explains 15 common Freemason symbols the actual meanings of which most people are unaware of: https://m.ranker.com/list/common-freemason-symbols/jacob-shelton. You might read the explanations on the symbols and like a literary detective, go back into the short story to see how Tessa Hadley might be using these symbols. Or you can wait to see if someone posts a comment explaining them. Some writers will provide a footnote or glossary to explain terms, symbols or phrases in their books but never in short stories. Most Mookse commenters are very generous in explaining, decoding or just passing along their expert understanding of a story. But any good short story resonates and provides greater enjoyment to the extent the reader can find out what certain words, events or symbols actually mean if it is worth the time and trouble for them. Thanks for your post because it makes me want to go back and look at a story where the first sentence shut down my interest for not sparking any but from what you write, there is more there.
Larry B.
Hadley has several stories with fugue states embedded in them, where the narrator and reader are no longer sure that the continuation of the story is really the same story or a fairy tale or a dream. Here she does it with the line, “Then Pippa became absorbed…” and she falls asleep and when the doorbell rings she (by the description of the hallway) is now in a castle, with emeralds, topaz, rubies and a heron, kingfisher, and swan. And a handsome peasant at the door. There is no other way to read her description of Sean! So the three princesses …. and later, “Her question couldn’t be answered without invoking the whole fabric of everything.” And the ending, back to the fugue state. The Bunty Club is there standing in for our wonderful capacity as humans to make our own realities? The three women in recalling the Club are making it anew, but Gillian doesn’t want to or can’t until, alone with the call for the hospital, she recreates a quite different Bunty Club, very solitary, with just her in it. I love how Hadley seems to generously invite the reader to fill in so many holes in the lives of these three women (and Sean too!).
Harriet,
I’m not sure the references to freemasonry were meant to be read as literal, but rather they signified that both Serena and Sean were outsiders in this community and on a similar wavelength. Then again, I could be wrong.
Anyway, this is the best story I’ve read in the magazine since having re-subscribed several months ago. Psychologically rich, poignant, and with enough character development to span a novel, Hadley puts many other contemporary writers to shame.
I was surprised that the NHS didn’t take care of Sean’s front tooth.
Also that the hospital where the mother was dying was a 45 minute drive for the sisters, and none of them chose to find lodging nearer to the hospital and mom at the end of life.