Golden Age: A Novel (Last Hundred Years Trilogy) by Jane Smiley

Author:Jane Smiley
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780307700346
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2015-10-20T04:00:00+00:00

2004

JANET WAS FEELING kind of empty and cold, the way you did in California when the air was damp, the sky was overcast, the holidays were over, and your beloved eleven-year-old had turned twelve and begun to disdain (well, maybe ignore) you, and even though you knew it was essential for his development into manhood that he do so, it still hurt. So, when the phone rang and it was Emily on the other end saying, “Mom! I’m in Pasadena! You have to come!” she called Jared and said she was going to meet Emily in L.A. that evening, spur of the moment, and would he pick up Jonah, and she would be back the next evening, or they could join them…

Jared was no fool. He knew that any invitation from Emily was a big deal, so he said, “Of course,” and she got in the Audi, leaving Jared and Jonah the van, and left, though not without swinging by the barn and taking pictures of both Pesky and Sunlight for Fiona—she was sure that Emily must be staying with Fiona.

California did what it always did in January, get greener and sunnier and more eerie as she drove through the Central Valley and over the Tejon Pass. The Audi was sprightly and quick, and in no way drawn to precipices. It felt safe to be without a horse trailer.

But Emily was not at Fiona’s. She was at a gallery a block over from Fair Oaks Avenue, where she, Tina, and the owner had just installed Tina’s show, which was running from January 18 until March 12, three rooms of works, including the main hall. When Janet came in the door, Emily ran up to her, hugged her, kissed her, and said, “I am so glad you came! You represent the victims!”

Tina was behind her. She was thin, like her dad, Uncle Arthur, and her thick gray hair hung in a kind of waterfall down her back, but she looked not five years younger than Debbie, more like fifteen. She kissed Janet on the cheek and said, “Thanks for coming.”

“You have to see,” said Emily.

The main gallery was full of Tina-ish objects—etched glass, sticks bound together in the shapes of animals, musical instruments that looked playable but were made of papier-mâché. Emily hurried her past them to the last room, long, narrow, brightly lit. The installation was called Autobiography. Emily said, “No, start here. Right beside the door.”

Right beside the door was Tina’s birth certificate, “Christina Eloise Manning, January 19, 1953.” To all of the letters, glitter had been carefully added, and tiny designs had been scattered all over the paper—stars, moon, sun. The art pieces ran away from it in a long row down one side of the room, across the far wall, and back up the other side. Janet began.

She had seen some of the childhood pictures—in fact, she was in one of them—but she remembered them as snapshots. These versions had been blown up and manipulated, painted on, pasted on, torn, layered.

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