the Writing Circle (2010) by Demas Corinne

Author:Demas, Corinne [Corinne, Demas,]
Format: epub
Publisher: Hyperion
Published: 2011-01-14T19:18:17.984000+00:00

Adam

ADAM HADN’T PLANNED ON GOING HOME FOR THANKSgiving, but Kim had invited him to spend the holiday with her family, who lived nearby, and he needed an excuse to avoid going. He was afraid if he stayed in his apartment he might feel so sorry for himself he’d end up accepting Kim’s invitation, or worse, she’d discover he was alone and arrive on his doorstep with a platter of stuffing, gravy-soaked mashed potatoes, and turkey smeared with cranberry sauce, covered in tinfoil.

It was too late to get a plane reservation, so Adam drove out to Western Pennsylvania, calling his folks to let them know he was coming when he stopped for gas along the interstate. His parents still lived in the brick farmhouse where he’d grown up. They’d chosen to live out in the country, rather than in Pittsburgh, where his father worked, because they felt it was healthier for children, but the farmland around them had ended up being strip-mined. As a kid Adam had been fascinated by the excavation project, and sorry when the land was finally restored. But he’d taken a different view of strip mining when he began working on his new novel, which was set in the area. Though the hills had been returned to something resembling their original gentle contours, the landscape had been irrevocably altered. He’d first described the coal as a cancer that had been hollowed out of the earth, the skin then folded back over the incision. But that metaphor made the mining seem curative rather than exploitative. Coal was an intrinsic and ancient part of the earth. And though the fields had been reseeded, they were like scar tissue, covering the place where a vital—and in this case healthy—organ had been removed. Driving through these hills now, he felt as if the landscape he had been conjuring in his mind had been waiting for his return. It was vividly corroborating the sorrowful past he’d been trying to document.

When he arrived at his parents’ house, Adam made his way through the gauntlet of relatives and deposited his duffel bag on the twin bed in his old bedroom. While the room his two sisters had shared had been turned into a study, his bedroom had been preserved intact, a shrine to his adolescence. The wall over his desk displayed a mortifying collection of documents testifying to his supposedly exemplary youth: his science fair award, his commendation from the youth symphony orchestra, his literary contest honorable mention. He thought he’d stack them all in the closet, but when he lifted the first framed certificate off the wall, it left a rectangle whiter than the wall surrounding it, a ghost of his achievement. At the family dinner, he bore up as well as he could under his parents’ undiluted approbation, their enthusiasm for his girlfriend, Kim, whom they had seen pictures of, and their admiration for his job. He made more money than either of his parents ever did—a source of embarrassment for him and pleasure for them.

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