Belief and Betrayal in Fiction: Four Original Stories

The ability to cope with disappointment when people, places or institutions fail to live up to expectations, might be considered one of the hallmarks of maturity. For the observer, the alteration of a personality, denied the softness of his illusions, can be intriguing. Keats wrote: "Tread softly because you tread on my dreams." Such an entreaty is a vain hope for the central figures in these stories, since it is their reaction to seeing their dreams demolished which forms their connecting link. In my collection, the initial narrative "Joe Clancy" deals with the tragedy which ensues when an ignorant, romantic man attempts to grapple with the realization that his lifelong love is an ephemera. In his inability to accept her duplicity, three lines are twisted irretrievably. The painful results of an impulsive teenage marriage provide the framework of the next story, "The Prodigal Niece." Ten years after her initial mistake, a now mature girl confronts the fact that, if she chooses to remain in the once-romantic marriage, it is her children who will pay the price of the mesalliance. "The visitor" treats yet another aspect of illusion. A staunchly Catholic mother, unable to accept with equanimity her grown daughter's adoption of 1985 sexual standards, appeals to the clergy for assistance in persuading the girl to return to traditional mores. This, of all four stories, reflects my personal quest for understanding a church, which in transforming itself into a socially relevant body, has left its older members with a sense of abandonment. "Welcome Home, Elliott" describes the love affair of one man with the City of New York, a concept difficult to grasp for someone who has not lived in Manhattan for an extended period. A returned traveler finds his beloved city crippled by the violence of the drug culture and must decide if loyalty or pragmatism will prevail in his choice of a permanent home. It has been my experience that denied illusion can evoke widely varying responses, ranging from stony refusal to admit that love objects have proved unworthy, to surprising strength in the face of unpalatable situations. These stories offer no happy endings. They indicate instead that compromise can come in many forms.