“Face Time”
by Lorrie Moore
from the September 28, 2020 issue of The New Yorker
Lorrie Moore is back in the pages of The New Yorker. The last story she published in the magazine was “Referential,” back in 2012; “Referential” was a gloss on Nabokov’s “Symbols and Signs,” and I loved it (though other commenters did not).
In “Face Time” Moore seems to be addressing current horrors of dying remotely due to the coronavirus. Here’s how it begins:
I asked my father if he knew where he was and he said, “Kind of.”
“You are in the hospital. Your hip surgery went well. But there is a virus and you have been found to have it. You are contagious. No one can get near. It’s happening all over the world. You caught it in your assisted-living facility. The chef had it.”
I’m not sure I’m interested in a story about all of this at this time, so that’s all I’ve read. I have faith that Moore isn’t simply writing an emotional tale about something we’ve at least seen in the news if we haven’t lived through it ourselves, so I certainly am interested . . . just not on this particular day.
I’m definitely interested in your thoughts at any time you wish to leave them, though. Feel free to comment about the story below.
Clearly this story has put others off. I admired her honesty here, she’s certainly a good stylist and she does find some gallows humor at times. Altogether, this seems to pretty accurately capture the sort of numbed, confused manner in which one deals with a dying parent. I kept thinking about how Moore makes a big point out of the father being a “greatest generation” member which she must be saying somewhat tongue-in-cheek as this notion is a bit overused and overly simplistic. But…the thought occurred to me that it’s those who live long and pretty well (the dad here would be in his mid-90s) whose rather sad, lonely, quiet deaths are the price for basically “succeeding.” In other words, he didn’t die in the Philippines in combat at age 18. He had children, grandchildren, presumably did o.k. and then this death. Of course the extra cruel wrinkled is he died during Covid-19 when his family could not be present at his death bed. I admired this but it is certainly understandable some would not want to read it.
Terrible story. Not worth reading. Badly done. Just taking advantage of this terrible time. I’m annoyed that she had nothing better to do than write this. Trite.
I’m pretty much in agreement with J Alexander. With regard to what Ken wrote, look through his comments — e.g., “Altogether, this seems to pretty accurately capture the sort of numbed, confused manner in which one deals with a dying parent.” — and ask yourself: what does any of this have to do with interacting via Face Time? Nothing.
My analysis:
This story has two parts:
1 old man dying in hospital
2 daughters attending virtually on screen
Seems to me that the “old man dying in hospital” part is pretty ordinary, commonplace. Nothing new or notable here.
So the main question is – What does “daughters attending father via Face Time” add to story? I don’t think it adds anything. It just makes it topical. “Oh boy, I’m the first person to get a short story published in the New Yorker that refers to the coronavirus pandemic.”
Ken wrote: “Of course the extra cruel wrinkle is he died during Covid-19 when his family could not be present at his death bed.” But is that a cruel wrinkle? Certainly Moore does not show this. There is one place where Livvy forces the narrator to join her call to the dad. Livvy turns the screen around so the father can see Narrator. .Narrator says: “I see the fireplace. This is too strange.” That’s the extent of the awkwardness caused by virtual visiting. Not worth a whole story.
1/
And whence the negativity on nurses:
“Even if they were frightened birds, eager to get out of there. Even if they were terrified of their tasks.”
“performing the role of saintly nurse. . . Surely her loving kindness would vanish as soon as the iPad went dark, and her demeanor would reveal an eagerness to be rid of this COVID-ic old guy.”
What I’ve read about frontline health care workers during the pandemic doesn’t fit with these characterizations
2/
Also, what justifies the Narrator’s sense of superiority and condescension?
“Later, I would accuse my quite comfortable friends of appropriating the illness from the disadvantaged etc.”
“Well-to-do white families in large suburban homes claiming the pandemic for themselves.”
I’m a materially comfortable white person with comfortable white children and grandchildren. How is it “appropriating the illness” if I am careful not to get infected so that I don’t pass the virus to my grandkids?
3/
Lots of sloppy writing:
The three sisters’ interactions sound so irrelevant. “Delia, the baby, was beloved. Much more than Livvy or me.” A version of “Dad always liked you best.”
“Now I had questioned her authority. There was always a crisis of expertise with Livvy.” Trivial, petty. Reminds me of one-dimensional versions of Regan, Goneril and
“Who knew what the dying felt at the end? Thy didn’t return calls.” Pointless cleverness.
Mere smarminess: “The pastel monotony of the flowering shrubs”.
“And then we were disconnected and a dial tone buzzed in my ear, like a message from the universe.” It was saying, “Stop magnifying your own importance.”
“the lights came slyly, silently back on”: Pathetic fallacy from an English professor?
4/
Finally, at the end she invokes a major natural phenomenon, a derecho, as a sign from nature of the magnitude of her fathers’ death. Now, I’m sure she felt sad. And that the death of her father was a major loss to her. But this is like the “message from the universe” – giving her life exaggerated importance. And not particularly well written. Perhaps she was imitating Auden’s poem on the death of Yeats, which begins this way:
“He disappeared in the dead of winter
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a cold, dark day.”
Now that’s good writing, brief and powerful. And the magnitude of the imagined impact mirrors the loss of a talented poet.
end/
Sorry, I left out Cordelia above.
I just realized that “Delia” = Cordelia. Both are their father’s favorite and both abandon their fathers, in a sense: Cordelia refuses to suck up to Lear and Delia declines to do virtual visits with her father. But I can’t get beyond those surface similarities to any deeper significance for the story. Moore is just a superficial writer, I conclude. Someone please point out if I’m missing something.
I’m sorry that I don’t have time to do any type of real critique or review — I’m busy at work and I have a meeting tomorrow. I would like to say however, that I enjoyed reading this story a lot. But I’m a fan of Lorrie Moore’s short stories. So a high rating from me as a reading experience but I don’t have anything at hand to challenge the negative feedback.
Pauld:
No need to write anything special to “challenge the negative feedback”. A high rating as a reading experience is an adequate comment. I suspect many readers agree with you. She is a popular author.
Regarding the negativity on nurses– maybe the narrator is in pain, and lashing out irrationally. There is a difference between the narrator and Lorrie Moore. And it’s not Moore’s job to make the narrator “likeable.”
William, thanks for your comments. D is my middle initial. My first name is Paul. I just accepted the defaults for my identity. Glad to hear your and everyone else’s contributions.
William, I don’t know whether I’m being too literal with your comments but surely you can’t conclude that Moore is a “superficial writer” — only that her writing is superficial (in your opinion) in this particular piece. I recommend “People like that are the only people here.”
OK. To defend Moore–I just commented on your bright comments on O’Neill’s story, William which made me realize I should throw something back at you here–I’d say the addition of face time only compounds what is obviously plus the Covid is relevant here because it’s what caused him to get sick after what would have been a routine hospitalization for a hip replacement and then that disease’s nature is that the patient is isolated and thus the Face Time is needed. I’d say it all adds together. I don’t think the story is brilliant or innovative but I still had a respect for its emotion and seeming honesty.
Dan — Just to be clear, I didn’t attribute negativity toward nurses to Moore. The narrator might be in pain, but I don’t see it. In fact, I don’t see any believable strong emotion in the story.
Paul —
Yes, you are right — all I can say is that Moore’s writing is superficial in this piece, in my opinion. I’ve read “People like that”, but I’ll reread it.
Ken —
I’m ok with your comments. Except for a technical detail — given the father’s age and his pain, it’s more likely that he had surgery for a broken hip than a hip replacement.
For some reason, I thought the story said it was a hip replacement but my memory could be wrong obviously.
That’s what I thought at first, too. But when I talked with my wife about the feasibility of doing a hip replacement at age 90+, she said it was more likely a broken hip. I don’t think the word “replacement” is in there.
I liked this. There are quite a few references to King Lear here, more than just Delia/Cordelia. The old man is a king from a golden, lost generation, and, as with so many old men, this is hard to give up as he declines – hence the rather pompous demands for Brahms. The two older sisters, echoing Regan and Goneril in Shakespeare’s play, are deliberately coolly independent, and could be seen as selfish, self absorbed and irritated by their father. Delia is pure, set apart from them, and the story, by her goodness. Their FAceTime dislocations echoes the way Shakespeare’s sisters are remote with their Lear, and come to pass him between them, as happens with the phone calls, and then, in the play, hate him. The final storm echoes the storm on the heath in Lear, which is actually a cleansing madness, as the old man returns to nature. It’s not her best story, but it is memorable for me, because of the way the agonies of aging and parenthood are explored.
Helen —
Very nice explication, especially how the derecho resembles the storm on the heath. Not sure this sheds any light on the covid effect, however. Have you read Jane Smiley’s “Thousand Acres”?
Paul — Thanks for recommending “People Like That”. A powerful story, much more so than “Face Time”. Why the decline (as Hamlet said: “O! what a falling off was there”)? Certainly she was way more invested in the Baby than in the father. Also, she’s 23 years older.
First, I think it’s super lame that mookes could not be bothered to read the story, what’s up with that? Second, these are complicated times that have made reading, and I assume writing, more difficult. As the pandemic drags on, I find myself distracted when I’m reading contemporary fiction, which is what I reach for most. But stories of people traveling, meeting strangers in bars, throwing parties, attending conferences, dropping off kids at school? It’s another world right now, and I’m a fan of realism, not escapism to better times. I think “Face Time” is a solidly terrific addition to Ms. Moore’s body of work. Covid plays a crucial role in the story, but I thought the issues facing seniors in Assisted Living, and the different ways guilt and sorrow and other feelings manifest for their family members, resonated apart from the virus. I found it moving and thought-provoking.
Yes, William, I read that and enjoyed it. The more I think about this story I wonder if actually the Face Time is not what it’s about but what it’s a metaphor for – ie the timeless dislocation of children from their old parents. Perhaps even without the virus they’d not have had much time for him. Our narrator seems rather disgusted by him, his decline and physicality as well as his boring repetitions: ‘His bottom teeth were as dark as teak and twisted in his mouth.‘ She’s not a bad person, none of hte daughters are, but as in Lear these elderly males are tiresome to their children, particularly the daughters, because stripped of their earlier protecting power we are left with drifting controlling impulses and pomposity. Just a thought!
“These are complicated times that have made reading…more difficult.” No, for me, it’s the exact opposite. I work from
home now because of Covid so I have no commuting time and I don’t need to change into a suit etc. so I have far more reading time than in less “complicated times.”