Breaking and Entering

Mar 29, 2012 Mariel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: safe men

Recommended to Mariel by: the porridge Goldilocks chose

Shelves: rubber-ring

And you are never lonely with him, are you my dear. And yet it is our duty to be lonely, don't you know? One must strive to be more and more perfectly lonely. The heart grows indifferent, but one must push upward continually, more and more alone, toward the surface, like a blind, wild seed."

My favorite story in Joy Williams's short story collection Taking Care was 'Breakfast'. I didn't want it to end. (I love "Taking Care" so so so so much.) I didn't know that Breaking and Entering was Liberty,...more And you are never lonely with him, are you my dear. And yet it is our duty to be lonely, don't you know? One must strive to be more and more perfectly lonely. The heart grows indifferent, but one must push upward continually, more and more alone, toward the surface, like a blind, wild seed."

My favorite story in Joy Williams's short story collection Taking Care was 'Breakfast'. I didn't want it to end. (I love "Taking Care" so so so so much.) I didn't know that Breaking and Entering was Liberty, Willie, Charlie, Clem and Teddy until I started reading it. I started reading something else and then something else until I asked myself why I wasn't just reading more Joy Williams. They were back! I was happy.

I once tried to talk to an ex-boyfriend about that feeling of being in someone else's life, where they live, sleep. He cut me off before I could finish the thought with "We already talked about that, remember? Like in Chungking Express." (Similar things have happened to me so often.) I probably couldn't have said what I wanted to say anyway. But it was still crawl into a hole dismaying. I hadn't mean going through other people's things, or getting one over them, or seeing how other people live by standing in their routines. Why couldn't I be free to badly say what I wanted to say? I meant feeling like you yourself are someone else and all out of rhythm and out of touch.

In 'Breakfast' Charlie is the drunk who is giving up sleeping with his married girlfriend Janeilla. (In 'Breaking' Janeilla is the girlfriend, not the mom of Teddy. His father is not a baseball player in the novel.) It's not working out after all. He's in love with Liberty. Liberty is married to Willie. Willie talks like he's one of those empty of people and filled with stuff rooms in someone else's house. A what you want to hear Cracker Barn (or is that a restaurant? I have no idea what those overly priced nice house shit places are called) catalogue. Slow talking hypnotizing and, if you're Liberty, instead of the pause that indicates when you can talk, you'd get the expectant sound of the key in the lock that the owner is home and you're the intruder. Liberty never gets to talk. Willie talks it all away. Charlie tries his own persuasion to run away, just him, Liberty, the dog (Clem is the dog. He's a white german shepherd. I love Clem) and little boy Teddy. The idea that they'd really do it made me a kind of happy. Happy seems more real to me when it's over and I can pine for it "Yeah, I was happy then". This was good because it hadn't happened, probably wasn't going to happen. Yet you could still go to Breakfast and never return one day. It can't be stolen. If no one is in there in those other lives you could capture that thing. It won't go away like when someone tells you they love you and it's really nice but at the same time it's like the happy that's better later, alone, when you can say it really happened and can find the right words for what you'd say back. Other people's lives like a future you can't lose. It made me kind of happy in a for later way that they might do it.

Breaking and Entering didn't make me happy. It's a being stolen other people's lives. Little Mermaid voice stealing. You could crawl out of the ocean and get legs and be one of the families in those beach houses and sooner or later the impostor alarm system would go off. It has nothing to do with Willie's insistence on breaking into nice Florida houses. Breaking and Entering like not having the freedom to say what you might want to say if you got to find some nice spot just for you where you're safe from what it all MEANS. Stand outside all those routines and if you're supposed to say anything back. They aren't yours and you aren't theirs, anymore. The shared past gone because it doesn't mean anything anymore by yourself. Their love is work and all the forced expectations of what you have to say back for Liberty. Willie's play for today is... I couldn't ever figure that out. He saves lives. Old people helplessly grateful like infants, a fat lady who loves the void, one guy struck by Willie and from lightning. His saving people as one sided as his gift for gab. Man, I don't know. I had to swallow back a lot of bad feelings that she liked this guy at all. He would kill me. It's a terrible feeling to be on that side of the talk, talk, talk. How can you get a good look around if you're pushed around in someone else's game? Goldilocks can't find any good beds. If I were in their revolving homes I'd get caught in the sheets like in a bad motel that hasn't changed theirs in a long ass time. A recurring childhood nightmare of mine were battles over my failure to master the "hospital corner". Not happening in bed with a slithering tongue like Willie. Would I want to hear, like Liberty? Not happy.

"Perhaps your Liberty is trying to make an object of her life. It's very difficult, you know, far more difficult than merely longing for what comes after- to try to make one's life into an object for a sort of knowledge."
This ugly old lady who finally catches them says this. I didn't like Poe. She talks and talks herself and tries to steal someone else's truth by declaring it in some pompous silencing way that people have when they actually think they know everything about someone else. Stealing like how Willie says he saves people by surrounding them with his shadow. No, they are the eclipse. How the hell would she know? Poe also says the passage at the beginning of this review. I think she's got it wrong. Loneliness is already there. What you strive for is avoiding a Hans Christian Anderson tragedy of selling all for a dream. Breaking and entering into another fake life. Not that I know how to do that, other than do the lonely thing, which isn't much of a step as it is always there anyway.

Something was pounding, beating at the edges of her mind. She was with Willie, trying to tell Willie something. It was about the bread, the bread she did not want to leave behind because she feared the birds would find it. The birds would come and eat it and then they would not be able to fly over the dark waters they must cross. They would avoid the waters and then the waters would become more frightening than the birds."

I have fallen in love with Joy Williams. I know I had my petty complaints about The Quick and the Dead (and I liked that book a lot). None of that matters. Hey, it's like Williams herself said (I'm in the fangirl interview reading stage): "Still, the critics didn't like it that much." Long story, but a bad review "silenced" her 1978 novel The Changeling for thirty years! How does that even happen? 'Dead' was nominated for a Pulitzer, the critics sang "Baby come Back" with boomboxes on their backs, etc. But I did! I know I had probably said something about feeling like someone was writing too pretty sometimes to be too pleasingly pretty, and that at the same time you could see the pattern markings on the outfit and maybe blood where the party girl cut her finger in a consoling blood, sweat and tears way that made the trying too hard pretty damned endearing. Okay, I probably didn't use those words (I shouldn't have now). It's like her freedom. No one is gonna cut her off as she's feeling around for what she really means. See what works. (It might be weird to say that pretty is rough. I hate myself if I try too hard to pretty up my words. Maybe pretty doesn't equal fake. Like gold digging...) I like that sometimes she does sound like is looking for those right words. It means a lot to me to read that. You know, some place you aren't going to be shut up? Okay, I suck at this review. I'll try again tomorrow for Taking Care. I don't want to fuck that one up because it's my favorite. The freedom even though you fuck up tongue tied is better than not saying anything. It'll help I feel more hopeful about those ones. Breaking and Entering is Joy Williams freedom. Me? I relate to Liberty waaaaaay too much.

P.s. Liberty "babysits" the local kids, until they'll move on to other people's lives of their own, anyway (borrowed mother and son). Teddy would have been about my age in 1988 Florida. I like that. Little Dot is pretty haunting too. Joy Williams books are big places to live.(less)

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Jan 06, 2009 Matthew rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Pure Joy Williams. The book starts out with an amazing premise--Liberty and Willie, wife and husband, are living life in other people's homes. Not burglarizing them, simply living in them for a time while their owners are away. The descriptions are mindblowing. Williams is a master of defamiliarization and her matter-of-fact style smolders, searing images into your brain. And the characters! A parade of lonely, fearful, ecstatic freaks. A security guard. An alcoholic. A boy whose mother enrolls...more

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Jun 09, 2012 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Williams writes in placidly beguiling sentences that measuredly trace their passing like fingertips across your chest and stomach until, with the suddenness of an onrushing doom, they form of such stunning imagery and stark poignancy that those digits clench into a fist that hammers straight on down into your heart.

Man, Breaking and Entering has soaked itself into my bones. Not the Old Testament sin and stain, concussive secrets, and sour mash sunshine that enkindled and enraptured me so in Stat ...more

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May 13, 2008 Adam rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror-disguised-as-literature

Welcome to the lunatic asylum. Epigraphs from Kafka and Breton indicates what kind of reality is being essayed in this book and it has nothing to do with K-mart. Two drifters float into the ghostly lives of various characters who speak like hypnotized psychoanalysis patients or piss covered prophets on their fortieth day of locust eating. Really terrifying and unsettling but somehow incredibly funny at the same time. Are there characters more bizarre and memorable then Poe (the 75 year old weigh...more

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Oct 21, 2012 Daniel rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really wanted to like this book because I could tell that such care went into the writing of it. Every sentence sparkles with Joy Williams' wit. The problem for me is that the sum was somehow less than the parts. Williams begins the book with a premise: a young couple, Willie and Liberty, break into Florida vacation homes and squat there while the owners are away. It's a good premise, and the tension of it carries the book for awhile, as it becomes obvious to readers (and maybe to the characte...more I really wanted to like this book because I could tell that such care went into the writing of it. Every sentence sparkles with Joy Williams' wit. The problem for me is that the sum was somehow less than the parts. Williams begins the book with a premise: a young couple, Willie and Liberty, break into Florida vacation homes and squat there while the owners are away. It's a good premise, and the tension of it carries the book for awhile, as it becomes obvious to readers (and maybe to the characters themselves) that this little habit will end in trouble. But Williams is less than thorough about drawing the premise through to its conclusion. The hint of trouble never truly materializes, arriving instead, somewhat comically, in the form of a seventy year-old female bodybuilder. The book is no doubt intended as serious literature, so I imagine Williams was wary of wandering into the territory of a police procedural. The themes in "Breaking and Entering" are undoubtedly sincere: child neglect, religious fundamentalism, teen pregnancy, attempted suicide. They are dark themes, and help to explain how Willie and Liberty have found themselves as drifters at such a young age. Unfortunately the revelations come too far along in the story. By that point I had wearied of the characters and mainly wanted to be finished with them. Part of the problem the author makes for herself is creating a character, Liberty, who has no real interest in talking to other people or revealing anything about herself. Yes, of course these people exist in real life, but I'm not sure we want to read about them. The effect is of a watered-down character, one we can't really invest in. But this is not such a serious dilemma either. The real issue I had with the book was its cleverness, which became exhausting. The characters--drifters, alcoholics, security guards--spoke to one another in hyper-literate David Mamet-style dialogue. Opening randomly to a page from the book, I find this example: "You understand that lurking in the heart of each pure, pretty day that is given to us is a snaky, malevolent, cold-blooded, creepy, diseased potentiality." This a father tells his young daughter. This constant, artsy speech has the unfortunate effect of making the characters and, by extension, the story, merely whimsical. It dissolves any impact the weighty events might have had. I really saw this book as a response to Thomas McGuane's "Panama," another meandering Florida tale of people adrift. In "Panama," at least the economics of the existential wandering were explained. That book's protagonist made his fortune as a rock star. But in "Breaking and Entering," Willie and Liberty drive around in a pick-up, eat in restaurants, even rent a place of their own--all this without a discernible source of income. Just as Willie and Liberty wandered, so did the story, which seemed to end as it began, with the characters displaced and unable to form any true connections.(less)

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Dec 18, 2009 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Warning: there are spoilers in the following review.

One of my favorite books by Joy Williams. She starts the book with quirky vignettes of Willie and Liberty's nomadic life together breaking and entering the homes of wealthy people off on vacation. Willie spends more and more time apart from Liberty in his hobby of "saving people" although it becomes increasing clear that something ominous is going on. Willie is saving people in compensation for a past misdeed, something committed long ago that...more Warning: there are spoilers in the following review.

One of my favorite books by Joy Williams. She starts the book with quirky vignettes of Willie and Liberty's nomadic life together breaking and entering the homes of wealthy people off on vacation. Willie spends more and more time apart from Liberty in his hobby of "saving people" although it becomes increasing clear that something ominous is going on. Willie is saving people in compensation for a past misdeed, something committed long ago that has put the couple in their current situation. They both have tenuous grasps on life and seem to belong nowhere, as suggested by their nomadic lifestyle. Of the two, Liberty desperately wants a stronger hold on life, and takes care of two children who are otherwise neglected by their own dysfunctional families.

In the latter half of the book, we learn more about Willie and Liberty's past, and how they came to the current situation. This is my favorite portion of the story: the depiction of Liberty's pregnancy and her internal struggle before and after telling Willie (her ultimate act of self-sabotage), and the aftermath of the tragedy in which Liberty is committed to a psych ward and both teenagers are disowned by their parents...it's a suckerpunch of a storyline, and just marvelous writing. In the hands of a lesser writer, it would have been butchered, over-sentimentalized, an ordinary Lifetime TV drama. Instead, in Williams' breathtaking prose, it is extraordinary storytelling, beautiful in its sensitivity and understanding.

I'm not sure why others have disliked the latter half of the story. For me, that is when the book finally comes to life, and we can truly understand the depth of Willie and Liberty's tragedy. Joy Williams, for all of her style, her wit, her surrealist aesthetic, has told the story of Liberty and Willie with great sensitivity and insight, such that the reader must wonder if Williams' herself experienced something similar.

I hate to make generalizations, but I have a feeling female readers will be able to appreciate and understand this book more than male readers.(less)

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Jun 08, 2007 Jenna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this novel while sitting on my backporch, amongst the impatiens and half-empty birdbath my super had recently installed on our small patch of urban green. Sometimes I looked up and remembered where I was, sometimes I stayed in it and the surroundings matched those in the book. Weird. Very sad, with beautiful details. I agree on the Badlands comment. What kind of dog is Clem, anyway?

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Sep 26, 2010 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Why is my favorite novel by a living writer out of print? Am I hopelessly out of touch? Two young married drifters break into vacation homes in Florida. Ferocious and perfect. Find it.

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Feb 09, 2007 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: terrence malick

Shelves: recently

this book is really awesome. it's like badlands told through the eyes of sissy spacek if she was more jaded and more like virginia woolf in florida in the 80s.

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May 30, 2012 Rich Gamble rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: vintage-contemporaries, 80s

This is not really about breaking an entering as much as it is a slow, lingering study of certain characters existing in sunny Florida..you know like your standard arhouse cinema fare but in book form! I think i was expecting too much here. Florida is in my top 3 dream holiday destinations thanks to Miami Vice and whilst there are plently of big mansions, swaying palm trees and other exotic fare..I wish I read it on a beach not commuting on a train. Joy is a unique writer and the story was punct...more

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Mar 07, 2013 Christine Bernadette rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own

To be honest, I just put this on my read list but I haven't actually finished reading this.

It was way back 2011 when I bought this on ukay-ukay but I just can't find it in my heart to finish this. I really don't understand why. I've attempted to many times to read this, but really - I just can't. Weird.

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Aug 06, 2011 Alan added it · review of another edition

Willie and Liberty, lovers since age 15, break into vacation houses and live in them in the absence of their owners. Events seem to happen to them, but they have no control. In some ways, Death seems to follow them. Strange Book.

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Mar 21, 2011 Stephanie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What skillful writing. She's very serious and very funny... irresistable combination. Karen Russell mentioned her in an interview, so on that excellent recommendation I tracked her down.

Simply wonderful.

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Aug 08, 2010 Mark Vallianatos rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

illuminates characters via traces (things left in empty vacation houses), monologues, semi-socratic dialogues, types, and revealing summaries by those too close to you.

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May 27, 2011 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Fans of Steppenwolf and/or Chuck Palahniuk

Shelves: fiction

There is more than just good story here. Joy Williams transcends story and creates life.
Don't take my word for it. Question everything.

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Jan 22, 2009 Patrone rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Great example of strong style with little else. OK, I get it's part of the whole Beattie/Homes/Mcinnerny "The 80's = shit" aesthetic. That supercilious, meandering tone just doesn't have the same allure it did when I was 19.

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Apr 12, 2009 Philip Bardach rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There are numerous moments & episodes of flat-out brilliance & originality here esp. seen in Williams' eye for detail & in its characters. The book starts out with great promise but unf. gradually peters out by the last third. The supporting characters are far more interesting than the book's protagonists, plus there's an aloofness to it all & doesn't quite hold together as a novel. While I cannot back this up since I haven't read any of her other work, I have the feeling from re...more

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Apr 27, 2010 Pamster added it · review of another edition

Shelves: abandoned

I can't deal with this book. I was really liking it for a while, and now I have to give up.

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Nov 11, 2010 Ani Smith rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Intriguing characters and a sense of quotidian magic, like life's a fairytale but no one knows. Of the characters, I am most intrigued by Joy's children, magical smartass little creatures with suffered lives and a strange innocence.

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Apr 25, 2010 emily rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

3.5. vivid and melancholy.

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Aug 16, 2011 Dianne Murphy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Her best novel...

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Jul 04, 2008 Kate rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2001, age-adult

I'd had this book for a long time before I finally read it. I think I picked up it from the library book sale when I worked there in high school, and it sat in my drawer (I had a drawer of my bureau dedicated to books) for years. Probably at least 6 years. The premise interested me--people who wandered around breaking into people's summer homes and living there for a while. It was okay once I finally decided to read it... but it didn't make much of an impression on me.

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Feb 20, 2013 Matt rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Original review:

This tells its show, through and through. Horseshit dressed in wrapping paper.

[0 stars for wishing I'd never bothered. MFA programs & associated writers need to fuck off with the bullshit already. Read something interesting - actually interesting - instead of something that tries too hard to be interesting.]

Review after more thought:

I don't understand what people see in this. At all.

[Still 0 stars.]

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Apr 14, 2013 Laurel Beth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

the three novels joy williams published between 1973 and 1988 are all very good books about young women without agency. the women all try to gain independence in different ways, but all of them try to break through by caring for children, with varying degrees of success. i love them all.

it's much harder to write a book review for a five star book.

first read: may 23 - 28, 2012
shelves: ILL, from the library

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Mar 01, 2013 Wesley rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have a deep affinity for Williams and though it lost me a bit in the third act I responded strongly to this one. I found myself amused and moved in unexpected places and rereading passages two or three times to explore every corner of the language.

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Jul 16, 2012 Beatrice Van rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

strange but engrossing and thoughful.

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Jun 06, 2010 Aras rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

http://wtiw.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/...

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Sep 06, 2011 Richard Chiem rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

one of my favorite novels.

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May 11, 2013 Stuart rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Great read.

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May 25, 2013 Karim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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