Paddock’s Pick: The Lake Shore Limited

Editor’s note:  Anita Paddock’s review of books we should read are scheduled to appear on the second and fourth Friday of each month. Enjoy.

review by Anita Paddock
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I’m going to have to think a little bit about how to explain this to you: First of all, the novel is real good. Second, Sue Miller is a writer who knows how to flesh out her characters. Third, the novel contains a play within the novel, and the characters are all mingled together. It sounds so complicated. But it’s so much fun to read because it’s like doing something joyful for the first time.

The main character, although not the most likable, is Billy. She’s a playwright, a topnotch one, who has a play opening in Boston. Billy is very small in stature, but she’s a formidable person who is driven to succeed. She meets men, beds them, uses them, and goes on to the next one.

Leslie is married, not unhappily, but not happily either. She mourns the loss of her brother Gus who was killed in one of planes on 9-11. Gus was Billy’s lover, and Leslie imagines that Billy will never recover from the loss of Gus. She and her husband invite a friend, Sam, to go along with them to the play Billy has written. Leslie feels a loyal friendship to Billy because her brother loved Billy and she loved him.

Rafe plays the role of Gabriel in the play. In his real life,  his wife, Lauren, is an invalid with Lou Gehrig’s disease. Following a night of lovemaking with Billy, Rafe goes home to his invalid wife, feels remorseful, and the next night gives a superb performance in the play Billy has written that turns out to be loosely based on Gus’s death.

They all meet up for a drink after the performance. Sam questions Billy about the play. Was it autobiographical? In the play the husband, Gabriel, doesn’t know if his wife, Elizabeth, is killed when the train she is riding (The Lake Shore Limited) is taken over by terrorists. While Rafe waits to hear if his wife is dead or alive, he wonders (aloud to his mistress, Anita) if he really hopes she safely returns to him.

Are you following me? I hope so.

The whole theme of the book is about loss and how it is played out in life, as well as on the stage. It’s how we view sorrow in life as well as in art. And how seeing something performed on stage can awaken the viewer to an understanding of himself that he didn’t know existed.

And there are some beautifully erotic love scenes that nobody under the age of 100 can read without breaking out in a sweat.

“The Lake Shore Limited” is superbly written. You’ll want to write Sue Miller a fan letter.  I did after I read her first book, “The Good Mother.” She wrote me back, and her note card is in my cache of treasures kept in my top dresser drawer.

•••

Since this novel involved theaters and plays and actors and directors and producers, I went to the Grand Dame of Fort Smith’s Little Theatre, Katy Boulden.

Katy has been a driving force in the Little Theatre since the days of its first location down on “O” Street.  When playing in “Steel Magnolias,” she fell off stage and broke her arm. She finished the Sunday afternoon performance and then went to the hospital.  She performed the rest of the shows with her arm in a cast. They call her “One Tough Broad” for a reason.

Katy says she can’t remember not reading, so it was only natural that she would one day own a book store. Vivian’s Book Shop was THE PLACE to gather and talk about books. Plenty of us mourned the day in the late 1990’s when she locked its doors and retired.

She prefers non-fiction to fiction. E.B. White was one of her favorite writers, and when he died, Katy was as sad as if a member of her family had died.