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At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf by Tara Ison

Cover of novel, At The Hour Between Dog and Wolf by Tara Ison

I had the great fortune to get to know Tara Ison when I was a student at the Antioch Los Angeles MFA program, where she taught. (I’ve written previously here about Tara’s work.) Tara’s classes and workshops were always compelling, as is her writing. Tara’s new novel, At The Hour Between Dog And Wolf is an incredibly nuanced and humanity-deepening book—told through the deceptively simple view of a teenaged girl, but containing the grace and texture of Virginia Wolf…for instance, page 62 begins a stunningly long passage of interiority while the protagonist is sewing, and four pages later we are gently reminded of the work (literally) in her hand with the following, “Or—this has never occurred to her before, the needle paused in the cloth—what if her mother didn’t go Underground at all? What if it was a lie?” This intrusion of the needle in the fabric exquisitely reminds us we are embodied, reading a story that is embodied…simply gorgeous. I didn’t write down a lot because I wanted to give over to the reading.

Tara’s novel contains a modern understanding of trauma and what makes a person do what (some would argue) they must, in order to survive. How trauma and necessity can shift an identity so fully that the twists of what is right and who we are ends up looking like light through a prism…anyway, here’s a passage ripped from context, but to illustrate how powerful, suspenseful, breathtaking is the text:

p. 214:

“Pray, keep the faith. God is with us. Everything will be fine.

But she still always looks out the door, first. There’s that old feeling of an end rushing at her, again, the threat of another, bigger end, the kind that drops from the sky or bursts into your room without knocking, or grabs the back of your head and twists. And though you clutch and squirm there’s nothing to hold onto, no matter how hard you pray you still feel flung through the air and to the ground somewhere else, where nothing and no one is the same, the same is what ended, is gone forever. But maybe if she looks first, she’ll see the end in time, marching up the road toward her. Maybe this time she’ll be able to take the right action, keep it from happening, shut and bolt the door closed. Maybe she’ll be able to keep it from coming in.”

What a fine treasure this book is, and a call through dark times toward understanding of what hatred can yield, and how we might better fight its harms.

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Lunch Ticket Interview with Tara Ison

TaraIsonHeadShot06
Tara Ison

My friend Melissa’s interview with the fabulous writer, Tara Ison (whose essays I blogged about here), is up on Lunch Ticket. What a great interview! Read the interview here. Cheers!

(p.s. Not sure I got the commas right in what I wrote above. Not going to overthink it.)

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Tara Ison’s REELING THROUGH LIFE

 

reeling through life

When I write about books on my blog, I aim to write smart, insightful posts. I want to sound like someone with important things to say, to say them with wit and economy, to sound casual yet sophisticated. This desire often stops me from writing anything, defeating me before I’ve tried. (The better I know the book’s author, the more pervasive this pattern and my anxiety.) Operationally, it goes like this: Read a (great) book, smile and glow and lovingly put the book on a pile in my office that I will write about some day. Sometimes I do write about the book. Sometimes the book just sits there waiting until I clean my office, and because it seems too much time has passed and no one in the blogosphere really needs or wants my opinion, I put it back on the shelf, and recommend the book to anyone I think would like it.

This dance has become unwelcome and leaves me with stacks of books, shame, guilt. But my inner story (that I am a lazy Literary Citizen, etc.) is no longer serving me, so I’m letting it go. From now on, my intention is to just write something, anything, about the books I want to tell you about.

**

I want to tell you about Tara Ison’s book, Reeling Through Life: How I Learned To Live, Love, And Die At The Movies.

I love this book.

I owned it for months before I read it. Though I was busy, I was also intimidated by the idea of not knowing all the films inside and out, and by how much I admire Tara and her work. Excuses, excuses! (Tara was among the fabulous core faculty at Antioch Los Angeles MFA program when I was there at school, and is an exquisite teacher and human. And since then, she’s become a friend.)

At night when I’m reading, it’s often in the last hour before sleep, and sometimes I’m so tired that I just fade out. I never faded out while reading this book. As I read it, I felt an urge not only to stay up too late, but also to eat the book—it was tasty and decadent and full of unexpected spice.

I know Tara, so I have the pleasure of hearing her voice as I read these essays. I’ve seen some of the films she mentions, not all, but for those I didn’t know, or didn’t quite recall, she gives context in graceful strokes. The experience of reading it was therefor not in the least disorienting. Nor did she overload on context. The balance was graceful and perfect.

Of the million gems between these covers, I marked a section on p. 107 (in “How To Be A Jew”): Tara’s writing about the film The Chosen (which I have not seen).:

“Next up for the boys, a movie house, for some Van Johnson musical confection; Danny is unimpressed, bored. But then the newsreel begins: The ‘Nazi Murder Mills,’ with documentary footage of American troops liberating the concentration camps. Here we go, I think, begin the parade of those brutal, brutal images I have seen so many times by now. Again, really? I do not want to watch them again, I do not want another fix—or want to trigger the need for another fix—but I find myself shaking, my heart quickening. And I realize what is moving me, here, is Danny’s reaction to them. It is his first time seeing these images, and his horror is newborn and unfiltered, uncynical, raw. There are tears in his eyes, his jaw is both tightened and slack, his face seems to lose its shape; he is disappearing into these images, the way I once did, and watching his pain both shames me and reawakens my own. This image of Danny, a fictional character in a fictional movie, does not detract from what’s real, or from what’s true; it brings me back to what is real and true, an essential part of who I am, as a human being and a Jew, and for that I am also grateful.

I will never forget.”

(This, this, is how fiction matters.)

So for anyone interested in how the cinematic image can inform, bend, and shape our lives, I recommend this book. But the book is not just about film. The generosity, the humanity on the page affirms life, makes me feel more human. Tara is willing to air her frailty. While she never seems to obscure a corner of her messy inside story, none of it feels gratuitous. Her acts of humanity in this work are evident and unvarnished. It’s deeply satisfying as a memoir and a study of (capital S) Story.

If you are interested in writing sentences, read this book, because Tara’s sentences will help you learn about writing tight, gorgeous sentences.

And on a larger level: how she weaves film with her life story is a model in hybrid models…the form she’s made feels so inventive. I haven’t read anything quite like this. To me, it seems that Tara has created in these pages a new form.

**

So there it is. I could have agonized and shaped this post more, but instead I’m going to go smile at Reeling Through Life, and then hold it in my hands for a few moments before I shelve it where I can find it when it’s time to reread. (And try not to eat it.)

(And I’m grateful, because I still have Tara Ison’s story collection, BALL, to look forward to!)