That Parmesan Cheese Grater and Other Reasons to read “American Innovations”
BY SHELBY VANDER MOLEN
Rivka Galchen’s “American Innovations”
It seems kind of stupid to say I loved a story because of the part about the parmesan grater. But if you read Rivka Galchen’s latest collection American Innovations, maybe you’ll know what I mean. In fact, do it. I want to know if I’m the only one.
This bit about the parmesan grater comes early on in the story “The Entire Northern Side Was Covered With Fire.” Trish is a writer who’s just sold the movie rights to her book. Also, her husband just left her.
“I came home one day and a bunch of stuff was gone. I thought we’d been robbed. Then I found a note: ‘I can’t live here anymore.’ He had taken quite a lot with him. For example, we had a particularly nice Parmesan grater and he had taken that. But he had left behind his winter coat. Also a child. We had a child together, sort of. I was carrying it—girl or boy, I hadn’t wanted to find out—inside me.”
Trish looks for a replacement grater online; finds none with the same mill features, the same comfort grip. Finally, she locates an identical model. She wonders if it’s too early to repurchase.
Do you see what I mean? Talking about separation in terms of anguish, loneliness, grief— I don’t know. I’m a little over it. But when you can talk about divorce using a Parmesan grater, suddenly everything makes sense.
Let me give you another example. In the first few pages of the story that kicks off the book, we’re taken up with a recently unemployed mold-litigation lawyer. She’s talking to her Boo on the phone.
“We hadn’t always conversed in a way that sounded like advanced ESL students trying to share emotions, but recently that was happening to us,” the ex-lawyer narrates.
It doesn’t come off irreverent. It’s just sort of—true. Galchen doesn’t circle around descriptions of a relationship in limbo. She cuts to that quirky metaphor, then snuggles it up to some telling dialogue. Boo is saying things over the phone like, “I’m so sorry, my love… I really do love you so much. You know that, right? You know I love you so much.” His wife listens. And so do we. Once again, Galchen’s totally got it.
It’s right there in a single paragraph, richer than if she’d explained it to us. So rich, the next time I hear myself saying those things to my own significant other, I’ll be thinking of that dang story—Galchen’s “The Lost Order.”
It’s like asking an actor to be scary. Nine times out of ten, they’ll do something physical—something that shows dominance, intimidation, a physical roar. Watching them in a game of charades, I could place the intent immediately. Am I scared by it though? No, not really. But when a writer like Harold Pinter writes a play with a character named McCann who slowly, menacingly rips newspaper into long strips? Watch an actor do that, and it’s completely terrifying. I had bad dreams for a week after reading The Birthday Party.
Galchen is like that. Not terrifying like Pinter’s plays, but ingenious at finding ways to express a feeling without using the common trigger words. Like the angst of divorce, all wrapped up in a cheese grater. Like the fascination of a young girl for her first crush, all wrapped up in the description of a single, pulsing vein. Like the complications of a mother-daughter relationship, all wrapped up in the jargon of a property purchase.
Galchen’s work is sneakily beautiful, really unabashed and matter-of-fact. And not to crack open the gender can, but reading a plethora of female characters written so un-stereotypically that only a real woman would be likely to do it— I love it.
From a mold-litigation lawyer caught taking orders for take-out Chinese food, to a tenant with—literally— straying furniture, Galchen’s characters are bright, distinct. The book is whirring with an almost –magical-realism that runs off the brain as if it’s totally unremarkable. It’s a sweet combination.
Anyway, I’ve already lent out my copy, but go find one and read it. Galchen’s debut novel Atmospheric Disturbances is already on my nightstand.
