Nicholas Fillmore
I'm currently working on Sins of Our Fathers, which I'd describe as a personal historical-fiction. The Story's inciting incident is my father's return from the service—or rather my father's telling of his return—to find a note taped to the front door: "Moved."
"What was he going to do, 21 and his imagination stirred up by the Marines, the Republican Party and god knows what else? How was he going to live?"
"I want to understand my father on this night," I've written, "standing on the near shore of himself, some tentative first thought sunk like a piling into the mud…. And I want to understand him almost fifty years later, having crossed all the way into his life...."
In a sense I guess I'm picking up a fictive thread of my father's making (was there actually a note?) and running with it.
In the course of the book I've had opportunity to shuttle across four generations, probing for those points of departure, coloring summary details with my own imagination, and inventing dramatic scenes that explain underlying truths as I understood them....
I suppose the advantages and disadvantages of this method are one and the same: while constrained by the known, one becomes more highly trained on its significance—drawing out psychological implications from known details rather than imposing them from without; and verging into the unknown, following a kind of logic departing from last known facts. I have a blurry photo of my mother waving a little flag on VE day, for instance. And it must have been my grandfather, an amateur boxer and a troubled drinker, who took those pictures:
Somewhere there’s a picture of my mother, in sepia tones, on VE Day, waving a little American flag on the side yard of the Colton Street house. Just this one picture.—My grandfather squinting through the viewfinder of the little Kodak. Mom, bravely suffering from undiagnosed tonsillitis, squinting back in morning sunlight slanting over his shoulder. And Wanda clutching her apron on the front porch.—
In what other way might we conceive ourselves than in some eternal present in which all past and future moments are crystalized?—
Mom is waving the little flag. Al peering into the camera. And Wanda clutching her apron….
The big willow tree on the side yard moves lightly in a breeze coming up from the river.
“You try it,” he says, holding the camera for my mother and turning the focus ring.
My mother takes the camera as he capers around the yard. Then he stops and puts his hands up: Al Urbanski, 145 pounds and untouched.
My mother looks through the viewfinder and turns the ring until she is looking straight into clear, blue eyes peering between clenched fists.
“Al!” my grandmother says from the porch.
My mother’s finger flutters over the shutter release.
“Al!” my grandmother says.
Then she presses down until she hears the click. And everything goes dark.
The world is whirling around her, the willow tree and her mother on the porch and the little American flag lying in the grass as her father waltzes her about the yard.
She runs to her mother and aims the camera. Wanda smoothes her apron and smiles. It is a mother’s smile, full of worries. She presses down until she hears the click. Then Wanda takes the camera and hands it back to Al; takes my mother in the house and sticks a thermometer in her mouth.
In the little sunlit kitchen they talk in bright tones. Talk of things between a mother and daughter.
Al sorts type in the basement while listening to news reports on the radio. There are great celebrations: A million people on the street in London. And in Los Angeles and Chicago and New York. He goes out to the empty street for a cigarette. Comes back in and putters around some more. Then he grabs his hat and coat.
“I’m going into the shop he says,” jamming his fists down into the pockets.
“Are you sure?” she says.
“I’m sure,” he says.
“Do you have to?” she says.
“Wanda, please!” is all he can think to say.
Then he is on the bus to Hartford; then he dissappears into the crowd.
"What was he going to do, 21 and his imagination stirred up by the Marines, the Republican Party and god knows what else? How was he going to live?"
"I want to understand my father on this night," I've written, "standing on the near shore of himself, some tentative first thought sunk like a piling into the mud…. And I want to understand him almost fifty years later, having crossed all the way into his life...."
In a sense I guess I'm picking up a fictive thread of my father's making (was there actually a note?) and running with it.
In the course of the book I've had opportunity to shuttle across four generations, probing for those points of departure, coloring summary details with my own imagination, and inventing dramatic scenes that explain underlying truths as I understood them....
I suppose the advantages and disadvantages of this method are one and the same: while constrained by the known, one becomes more highly trained on its significance—drawing out psychological implications from known details rather than imposing them from without; and verging into the unknown, following a kind of logic departing from last known facts. I have a blurry photo of my mother waving a little flag on VE day, for instance. And it must have been my grandfather, an amateur boxer and a troubled drinker, who took those pictures:
Somewhere there’s a picture of my mother, in sepia tones, on VE Day, waving a little American flag on the side yard of the Colton Street house. Just this one picture.—My grandfather squinting through the viewfinder of the little Kodak. Mom, bravely suffering from undiagnosed tonsillitis, squinting back in morning sunlight slanting over his shoulder. And Wanda clutching her apron on the front porch.—
In what other way might we conceive ourselves than in some eternal present in which all past and future moments are crystalized?—
Mom is waving the little flag. Al peering into the camera. And Wanda clutching her apron….
The big willow tree on the side yard moves lightly in a breeze coming up from the river.
“You try it,” he says, holding the camera for my mother and turning the focus ring.
My mother takes the camera as he capers around the yard. Then he stops and puts his hands up: Al Urbanski, 145 pounds and untouched.
My mother looks through the viewfinder and turns the ring until she is looking straight into clear, blue eyes peering between clenched fists.
“Al!” my grandmother says from the porch.
My mother’s finger flutters over the shutter release.
“Al!” my grandmother says.
Then she presses down until she hears the click. And everything goes dark.
The world is whirling around her, the willow tree and her mother on the porch and the little American flag lying in the grass as her father waltzes her about the yard.
She runs to her mother and aims the camera. Wanda smoothes her apron and smiles. It is a mother’s smile, full of worries. She presses down until she hears the click. Then Wanda takes the camera and hands it back to Al; takes my mother in the house and sticks a thermometer in her mouth.
In the little sunlit kitchen they talk in bright tones. Talk of things between a mother and daughter.
Al sorts type in the basement while listening to news reports on the radio. There are great celebrations: A million people on the street in London. And in Los Angeles and Chicago and New York. He goes out to the empty street for a cigarette. Comes back in and putters around some more. Then he grabs his hat and coat.
“I’m going into the shop he says,” jamming his fists down into the pockets.
“Are you sure?” she says.
“I’m sure,” he says.
“Do you have to?” she says.
“Wanda, please!” is all he can think to say.
Then he is on the bus to Hartford; then he dissappears into the crowd.
More Answered Questions
Lew
asked
Nicholas Fillmore:
Smuggler. In Part 2, towards the end, I interpreted the multiple uses of "site" should have been "sight". The way you wrote in the first part of the book with some irreverent style (a good thing and very well done) brought me to the conclusion that maybe this was another reference to that style. If not, then I missed it. I can be wrong, but I saw it multiple times. Of course it could have been a misprint?
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