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"Procreate, Generate" by Anthony Doerr
I read Anthony Doerr's book Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World last summer and became a fan of his writing. This story incorporates some of the same qualities that I discovered then. I love seeing through his eyes. He has an excellent awareness of growing things and the land. Some of my favorites scenes in this story were those when Imogene was feeding her birds and Herb was trying to dig the tires out of his property. But, he also presents his characters with a simplicity that allows us to live inside them.In this story, he masterfully portrays the process of the couple first realizing that they won't be able to conceive without help and then the painful and defeating process of the attempts at conception. One of the little strokes of genius was the doctor's Mercedes with the license plate: BBYMKR. Ah, the arrogance....
How did you feel about the ending? Did you want to have a more definitive answer?
Also, Anthony Doerr is a goodreads author and has responded to me messaging him in the past. The first time I wrote in appreciation of his book about Rome and the second time I wrote asking him if he had a short story online that we could use. In both instances, he wrote back in a very short time. So, if we have questions about this story, I'm sure he would respond.
Well, I think it reads like a creative non-fiction piece about problems conceiving. I really didn't/couldn't identify well with the characters, though there were some interesting details and it is a well-written real-life piece. I do wish the ending was more definitive.....like they decide to adopt children or something like that...
I felt nothing for either character. I did not enjoy reading all the technical aspects, especially since there was no reward at the end. Very disappointed.
Interesting that we had such different reactions to the characters, Kenny and Emily. Why do you think it was hard for you to relate to them?
I think it was more of a not being drawn in, made to care about the character's problem. Not sure exactly why. They just seemed one-dimensional, "nothing here to see" Just an average day in the park.
I just finished reading the story and found it actually compelling. It seemed that I could feel the anguish, the doubts, the threats to marriage and ego, all of this was so well presented. Like you Barbara I also liked the nature imagery, especially the many different birds which almost seemed to reflect different emotions.To me, the technical aspects show just how dehumanizing the whole business becomes when a couple decides to enter the "infertility business" in their attempt to have the child they desperately want. This is after all what it takes. It's no longer a simple love story; it's science.
I'm also pleased with the ending. It's true to this world and real life. We don't know what any one couple would do. Doerr doesn't appear to want to deal with the "afterward". He wants to deal with the process of now and these two people and their marriage and their attempts together. The result would be a whole new story.
It's no longer a simple love story; it's science. That's very insightful, Sue. And, science is Herb's place in the world. Yet, now it's betraying him.
Your note has me thinking more about this story, Sue. Do you remember anyone in the clinic who seemed to understand what this was doing to the couple? I know that when professionals do something every day they often forget how demoralizing and scary it is to the participants. I see this in my work with the families of special needs children. But, we are also trained to remember the feelings of each individual family.
I recall thinking that no one at the clinic seemed aware of the toll. There was one person (?nurse) who did say what a sweet couple they were when Herb was sitting with Imogene after the second procedure, I think. But perhaps the tone of that particular clinic was set by the doctor with that license plate.Of course we're seeing this through the couple's perspective, but somehow I think we would know if they were offered some encouragement, support, etc. We certainly hear all the other lacerating comments (though the speakers certainly didn't intend them as such).
Barb:Do you remember anyone in the clinic who seemed to understand what this was doing to the couple?Sue: I recall thinking that no one at the clinic seemed aware of the toll.
Barb and Sue, do either of you remember a relationship between Herb and Imogene? I don't. From the outset they are presented as being aged and decrepit before their time, she with spun-sugar hair and chalky arms, he with bald head and a smile of clumsy mosaic teeth. They knew one another for four months before Imogene's parents died in a strange auto accident prompting her to run away for three years. During that time Herb writes her stirring letters to inform her of "a hike to a lake, a new cereal he liked." He signs the letters Love Herb feeling foolish about it. Six months after her return from Morocco they marry and he says, "I think we'll be married for ever (two words)."
This passionate love affair lifts me off of my feet-- Damn I could fly to the moon! Not to mention the hot sex: Over the next thirty mornings Herb and Imogene have sex twenty times. Each time, afterwards, Imogene tilts her hips toward the ceiling...
Each time they have sex, he draws a little X on their chart
She lies in the bed with her toes pointed to the ceiling and Herb rummages around on top of her and grunts and the spermatazoa paddle forth.
Herb confides in his brother who says, "At least you must be having lots of fun trying, right?"
Well, not exactly. Herb and Imogene are not exactly fun material. Herb cries a lot. Why, because he has no kids? No. There is something bleak and barren (sorry) about Herb and Imogene living in hardscrabble, Wyoming, USA. Their professional world is high-tech but tumbleweeds blow across their front yard like something out of a John Ford western. There's lots of awesome nature (the incredible bird-life) that is too intelligent to hang around such a dump. Imogene has her bird-seed (heavy handed) and Herb has his tire-garden. Would it kill them to grow a tomato or two?
In the very center of the story a line jumps out: Things between Herb and Imogene go quiet. I thought, when has it been anything but quiet? Do they ever speak? Maybe during commercials watching Jeopardy. Are they sitting in that Buick rushing headlong into oblivion?
After ten years of misery, Herb and Imogene have a party in the driveway, smashing her last empty bottle of birth control pills. We'll be happy! We'll have a baby! Yeah, that's the ticket!
Herb and Imogene may not be fun material, but does that mean that they don't have the same problems that fun infertile people have, who live in pretty houses with attractive neighbors. Those fun infertile people will also have to have the same mechanical, passionless sex and mark the calendar and check temperatures and will also likely cry if/when the IVF isn't successful. After a while, this is not a bit about romance. It's about getting a baby pure and simple. Sex for procreation not for recreation.We don't know much really about Herb and Imogene except very bare essentials. This story is about their situation as a couple, a couple that badly wants to have a baby.
I haven't been in this position, but I can only imagine the pain when others joke about getting pregnant, etc. Then the blame games, etc.
Kenneth, how do you know that Herb and Imogene had 10 years of misery? You seem to have found something in the story that I missed. They are obviously having misery now and are perhaps not"beautiful" people. But are you labeling their life miserable because of these bare bones of the story you mentioned.
Just my reading Sue. I was trying to suggest that Herb and Imogene have deeper problems.
I can see that as a possibility too Kenneth, but I wonder if that is really part of this story. I remember Imogene's comments about all those years of using birth control for no reason, so they obviously had a physical relationship for those years. It didn't sound forced but natural as written. The two of them seem like rather odd duck eccentrics. Maybe I'm romanticizing this one part of it a bit myself though I don't see their lives as rosy at all. Somehow I do see them as a couple.
I've just read and heard stories like this one, both fact and fiction, many times, related to infertility and the treatments and their effects on people. The stories become happy if the outcome is happy but there;s no denying the procedure is not easy on anyone. That's what I think Doerr has caught so well.
Good points Sue. Maybe I missed the whole point of the story. I just couldn't sympathize with these characters, couldn't see them as victims.
Kenneth and Sue, it's great to see your discussion here! I think that Doerr purposely drew these people as sort of "everyman" and "everywoman." Herb is a scientist. Imogene has early trauma repressed inside her, loves her birds and works hard at her job. But, they both want to create new life, like many of us. When it doesn't happen naturally, they expose themselves to the dehumanizing process of letting science try its best for them. Maybe one of the points of the story is that it's very possible that science is going to let them down too? And, if they do manage to "procreate, generate", the process will have let them down as well?
Barbara, I like your use of "everyman" and "everywoman" because in some ways that's what Herb and Imogene seem here. They are the young couple everywhere, who want to do that ordinary thing...have a baby. Except for them it's not ordinary. And in our day, they can learn exactly why, let the chips, or blame, fall where it may.I remember when I was a child many of my parents' friends were childless couples. I wonder what they would have thought of this modern lottery for child bearing, the additional hopes and possible losses. Another fact in all this is that it's only available to those who can pay or it and the cost will stay with them whether they are successful or not. Herb will not get his 401K plan back if BBMKR doesn't provide him with a baby.
Those are excellent points about the expense, etc., Sue. I have two teacher friends who have gone through this recently. One has done it twice...and I know they don't make a lot of money. However, they are both extremely happy with the results. One other excellent point Doerr made was the loss of work time. Most people are not going to even get as much leaveway as Imogene got.As I was looking back over the story, I was thinking about the contrast of, seemingly, everyone around Herb and Imogene. Their friends are effortlessly procreating. The students that Herb is teaching are young and fertile, including the student who is infatuated with him. And, of course, there is that lifelong feeling that one has to be relentless about birth control, only to discover that you can't get pregnant when you finally want to try.
Barbara, I too love Doerr's writing. I read The Shell Collector years ago, and 4 Seasons in Rome just recently. About Grace, his novel, had beautiful sentences but didn't work for me, because I didn't care enough about the characters. This short story absolutely worked for me. I thought it was amazing--the setting, the bird feeders, the tires, the eggs and the sperm. I loved the pieces of the story, the way it moved backwards and forwards in time, the vignettes that added up to a whole. I felt the hugeness of Wyoming's landscape, and the microscopic landscape of Imogne's ovaries. The cliches about sex and fertility that Herb and Imogene have to endure match the cliches we all know about infertile couples. I was completely convinced and cared that it was happening to these two. There was something bleak about Imogene's physical reality and her biography. Her parents death in an unexplainable car crash..no ice, no snow...and the randomness of Imogene and Herb's inability to conceive. And how it matters to couples. I bought it completely.
This kind of writing doesn't sustain me for three hundred pages, but it utterly grabs me in a short story. I think having read 4 Seasons in Rome, knowing how much Doerr's two sons mean to him, heightened my own response to Herb and Imogene's longing for children. I imagined the towheads in the airport are Doerr's own boys, Owen and Henry. I felt so moved as the story closed that I wept. Doerr's writing seems to be much larger than character and plot. I think he gets at something enormous when he describes relationships and longing. The scene where Imogene and Herb drive through the white out past overturned semis (remember Imogene's parents) is a small miracle in itself. I loved this story.
Thanks for your input Jane. I've readMemory Wallbut I still have The Shell Collector and Four seasons in Rome on hand to read. I find Doerr amazing to read and I'm looking forward to those 2 collections.
I think I understand what you're saying Kenneth, but to me that's really a different story. This is the story of the process and the wearing down. Why Herb and Imogene waited to have a child isn't part of the scope of this story...they did, as do so many couples for many different reasons. We see a little of their past and the effect of this decision on their present.All your questions could apply to the subjects of so many stories or books. I do take exception to your comment "there are more important things than having a kid." for those who are wrapped up in this quest it is the most important thing in the world until it is achieved or lost.
It seems to me that this story simply isn't what you want it to be. You would like a character study which would be a completely different story. One can certainly dislike a work, but can you name it unsuccessful if its goal is not the same as yours. I guess that's a question that I don't know how to answer completely. This is something I think about when I read and struggle with at times.
As a P.S. to the above, I don't know why I'm reacting so strongly to this story. I've never lived the situation though I've known some people who've been through aspects of it. But aspects of the depersonalization of this scenario in modern medicine are just so hard to reconcile with what is supposed to be a "happy" time for a couple, preparing for a child.
Kenneth, I read your comments last night and thought they were perfectly reasonable. Discussion gets lots better when there are some dissenters, particularly when reasons are given for the opinions which you always provide. It makes me think, a very good thing. But, after I thought about what you said and came on to post my thoughts this morning, your post is gone and I'm assuming you deleted it. Please stick it out with us. I like hearing your reactions.Your comments made me think some more about these characters. Since every word has to be meaningful in a short story, there is some reason why Doerr gave us the information that he did. He spends 5 precious paragraphs in a flashback telling us about the death of Imogene's parents and her subsequent reaction. It tells us a little about the character. When a parent dies when you are still young, you feel that you can lose anyone. If you can't count on your parents being here, what can you count on? So, Imogene escapes to Rabat. By the way, I've been to Rabat. It's a beautiful place but I can't imagine going there alone as a woman, no matter how much Morocco was romanticized in the 60's. Did Doerr have her do that to illustrate a desire to take on the worst and see what else could happen to her? Then, she comes back and commits to Herb, but hedges her bets by becoming involved with and mothering the birds in her backyard -- not much of an emotional risk. When she finally decides to make the big leap and expose herself to the pain and joy of mothering a child, it doesn't happen. Okay, I'm just thinking out loud here, but I'd welcome reactions.
And, Kenneth, I totally get why you don't want everywoman and everyman. I can understand wanting more meat in my characters than that.
Well, yeah, see my comments. :) I just wasn't very impressed at all with this...but that doesn't mean others might not get more out of it. TEHO.
Thanks Barb. When I re-read my post it just seemed out to lunch, that Sue was right and that I wanted the story to be what it wasn't. But I should've left it.
I went back to comment again and missed your post too Kenneth. It seems you have us really thinking about this story. There must be something there to keep us so involved. And I'm glad for your comments as they have really led me to think about this so much, and then to re-think and re-think. I haven't done this to this degree for a long time. Sometimes perhaps I do see "my way or the highway!"So thanks for the debate.
Thanks and I will return the compliment for joining in this discussion. I'm looking forward to more. I really have to join in the short story discussions more. Wow I have so much reading planned ahead of me. It's both scary and exciting. But I know in the end it will be so good.
There's a reason why I spend 90% of my internet time on Constant Reader. I was glad to find everyone back here talking.I just messaged Anthony Doerr to see if he had time to check in here and let us know if he has any answers or comments to add. I hesitate to bother busy authors, but you never know....
What I like in the story are some phrases--"the line of descendancy is not continuous but arbitrary" "Nothingness is the permanent thing. Nothingness is the rule. Life is the exception"--that universalize Imogene's and Herb's particular predicament. Even with access to scientific breakthroughs, they are still testing the lottery ticket of luck. Another phrase is Herb's pretending, "In a parallel world...I'm a father of nine". With everything possible through know-how and imagination, an act of will(s) though is insufficient to create the miracle of life. I also noticed uses of swimming in different contexts and also of sharp, lifeless extremes of black/darkness and white-out in faces and in nature where awareness and life have yet to shine.
I hoped for a positive turning point when the couple leave the clinic in the sunshiny day with the nurse's endearing remark of their cuteness and the clinic phoning them about the "brood" of embryos. Imogene jokes, "I'm an old woman in the shoe", agreeing to implant all three viable embryos, enthusiastically embracing and affirming life. It seems that if Herb's students could study to pass the midterms, then he and Imogene's efforts and science could bring about a baby.
By the end, when Herb requests Imogene to say she loves him, it's unclear to me what message the telephone call is bringing. He needs that reassurance from her before learning whether they'll be parents from the clinic. One remembers the clues about "the last leaf on the family tree", their long marriage, and their hobbies and careers. Either way is plausible.
Barbara, thanks for being the moderator too. This particular story and discussion has been very interesting for me in so many ways...a learning experience perhaps in several ways.
Asmah wrote: "What I like in the story are some phrases--"the line of descendancy is not continuous but arbitrary" "Nothingness is the permanent thing. Nothingness is the rule. Life is the exception"--that unive..."I really like your analysis Asmah.
Asmah, you're so right about the "swimming" motif. Spermatazoa are constantly swimming upstream as is Herb's student (who's calves are just too long).
Asmah, I'm glad to see you here on the short story conference. Doerr does use almost poetic language sometimes, doesn't he? Do you all think that Doerr meant for us to draw our own conclusions about the ending?
I think he did intend for us to draw our own conclusions Barb, otherwise why leave the story as he did. These conclusions include the possibility of a baby and what happens within the marriage.
Barbara wrote: "...Doerr does use almost poetic language sometimes, doesn't he? Do you all think that Doerr meant for us to draw our own conclusions about the ending?..."Kenneth P. wrote: "Asmah, you're so right about the "swimming" motif. Spermatazoa are constantly swimming upstream as is Herb's student (who's calves are just too long)."
Sue wrote: "I really like your analysis Asmah..."
Thank you, Sue. I hope I didn't overanalyze the story as my objective was to lose myself in Imogene's and Herb's experience. A close attention and a few notes while reading is usually rewarding.
The swimming parts, Kenneth P, by the spermatozoa and by the character Misty Friday are exactly those which I meant. I wonder whether there are any more? Driving through the blizzard?
Barb, there is a kind of poetry in the natural environment and in the scientific descriptions and terminology, a "parallel" way of looking at the world touched with a hint of mystery. The open ending doesn't give away clues.
I thought that Doerr wanted us to draw our own conclusions about the ending and that Asmah is right about no clues. However, I'm an incurable optimist so I think that they got a baby and that the marriage survived.
I too got a buoyant uplift from the promising results of the second procedure that implanted three embryos, as if Herb and Imogene literally plowed through the blizzard of their despair to try again. If you waited long enough, the sun would eventually shine. Barb's optimism is justified, because how a reader interprets a story is as much a part of a story as what an author intended it to be.
I hope you both are right for Herb and Imogene. (I'm afraid I didn't get that lift though I wasn't totally without hope.)
Sue wrote: These conclusions include the possibility of a baby and what happens within the marriage."With that sentence, Sue, I think you put the focus just where it belongs. There are two areas of concern here:
1. success or failure in conception
2. success or failure in a relationship
I've always seen the conception theme as being subservient to the marital theme. Sorry, but a childless relationship beats the hell out of a failed, loveless existence. Herb is a kind of weepy romantic "of no special courage" who is enamored of the "L" word. I'm not sure if he knows, after ten years, if his love is requited. He'd be satisfied, I think, if Imogene gave him a "back-atcha dude." When they begin to quarrel Herb's eye begins to roam. Considering the level of stress this stuff is just natural. But it's fair to say that the relationship could be foundering.
For me the ending is conclusive-- not about a possible baby, but about the relationship. Herb wants the "L" word, and in the final sentence of the story, he gets it.
I still don't read the marital history quite as you do Kenneth, but maybe that's part of the unknown Doerr left there for each of us. I don't make any assumption on the weakness of Herb or Imogene or their marriage...don't feel I have enough to do so. All I have is the minimalist information of earlier times and much detail of attempts at conception and what happens between them and their friends, family and co-workers. For me the latter far outweighs the former.Hopefully, though, that profession of love at the end does cement the relationship for Herb and Imogene no matter what happens, although it seemed a bit forced and strangled to me.
Kenneth P. wrote: "For me the ending is conclusive-- not about a possible baby, but about the relationship. Herb wants the "L" word, and in the final sentence of the story, he gets it. ..."Tha's true--whether they can produce offspring is one of the biological facts of life, but their lives will still go on and presumably meet more of life's challenges. It's important that the other person is there and is strong to help see them through.
"Hopefully" it cements the relationship but it seemed strangled. Ouch! Are you saying,Sue, that, in the final analysis, Imogene does not love Herb?
Sue wrote: "...Hopefully, though, that profession of love at the end does cement the relationship for Herb and Imogene no matter what happens, although it seemed a bit forced and strangled to me..."Quite a pregnant moment he chose for her to reaffirm her feeling for him--when the phone is ringing with important news.
Not about RE-affirming. Herb's a needy guy who wants to hear it just once. As a reader, I was kind of curious myself.
Love your word choice Asmah!No Kenneth, I'm not saying Imogene doesn't love Herb. What I'm saying is that it's such a terrible, intensely emotional time that it's difficult for her to even express herself or maybe even to know herself anymore. She's so caught up in what's happening in her body; her hormones are playing horrible games with her. And she doesn't know what is going to happen next. And she has one more question to answer from the man she likely does love. But she's tired. ( my interpretation of why I labeled it strangled)
Well said Sue. But here's poor ol Herb, ol stick in the mud Herb wantin to be loved, wantin to hear it. This is Mr. Doerr giving us a classic relationship conflict with both barrels.
I just received this very gracious reply to my message to Anthony Doerr about "Procreate, Generate".Dear Barbara,
Thanks for the note and for encouraging folks to read and talk about short fiction! That's a wonderful, vital thing. I'm on my may to the airport and don't have enough time to read through all the comments, but I did see many of them and was gratified to see that the story engendered so much discussion.
When I was researching "Procreate, Generate" I came across a statistic--I can't remember what the number was exactly--but a startlingly large number of marriages that experience infertility end in divorce. So I wanted to tell a story about the science of IVF, but also about the wear and tear repeated cycles of treatments can have on a marriage.
And I knew I wanted to set it somewhere rural, because folks without ready access to fertility clinics, and in states where state governments don't mandate health insurance coverage for fertility treatments, are put at a huge financial disadvantage.
Of all my stories in _Memory Wall_, this one has generated the most email from some readers because of its ending, which some feel is inconclusive. For me the narrative was more about questioning and then resolving Herb and Imogene's marriage, rather than resolving the question of whether or not they get pregnant.
Anyway, thank you all for being readers!
Yours,
Anthony
Constant Reader
Books mentioned in this topic
Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (other topics)The Art of the Story: An International Anthology of Contemporary Short Stories (other topics)
Memory Wall (other topics)
Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World (other topics)
The following short biography is from Doerr's webpage at
http://www.anthonydoerr.com/biography/
Anthony Doerr is the author of four books, The Shell Collector, About Grace, Four Seasons in Rome, and, most recently, Memory Wall.
Doerr’s short fiction has won four O. Henry Prizes and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, and The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Fiction. He has won the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, the Rome Prize, the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, the National Magazine Award for Fiction, two Pushcart Prizes, the Pacific Northwest Book Award, three Ohioana Book Awards, the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award and the 2010 Story Prize. His books have twice been a New York Times Notable Book, an American Library Association Book of the Year, and made lots of other year end “Best Of” lists. In 2007, the British literary magazine Granta placed Doerr on its list of 21 Best Young American novelists.
Doerr lives in Boise, Idaho with his wife and two sons. He teaches now and then in the low-residency MFA program at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. His book reviews have appeared in the New York Times and Der Spiegel, and he writes a regular column on science books for the Boston Globe. Though he is often asked, as far as he knows he is not related to the late writer Harriet Doerr.