The central characters in Thomas Benz’s thought-provoking, offbeat, and often hilarious new story collection, Home & Castle, experience several varieties of alienation–from neighbors, from casual acquaintances, from co-workers, and sometimes from their own romantic partners. Not infrequently, this alienation derives at least in part from their own mistakes and disgruntlements. Yet in their resistance to this isolation, or to its consequences, the characters can’t help but earn our empathy–and, sometimes, even our cheers.
“Life Jacket” captures a fraught time in the life of a young father, Brett, who has taken his son Charlie on a before-dinner outing to a local park. While Charlie amuses himself in the play area, Brett is left to stew over a variety of misfortunes: a failed transmission in an aged car, an underwater mortgage, and, most troubling, the uncertain future of his job, which he sees as “one step up from a coal mine–maybe,” and where his boss “never gives him a break and only seems to notice when something goes awry.”
In the park, just as at work, Brett isn’t big on socializing: “Like his own father, he knows he doesn’t have the knack for offhand banter and is always struggling to navigate the shoals of incidental relationship.” His discomfort with such banter becomes all too clear when a mother who is also visiting the park mentions that her son can count to five hundred:
The tensions in the story come to a head after an ice cream truck pulls into the park, playing “the stale chorus of an old jingle [Brett] can’t place.” At first, the song is a minor irritation. But by the time Brett and Charlie make it to the front of the ice cream line, “the tune is driving Brett crazy and makes it impossible to concentrate. It is somehow like his own mind, with its perpetual echo of mistakes.”
When the ice cream truck driver refuses Brett’s request to shut off the music for just a few minutes, Brett can no longer contain his frustration, and he seems to be on the edge of violence–until another parent distracts him with a disarming gesture of kindness. Through this scene and the inner turmoil in Brett that leads up to it, “Life Jacket” escalates the not-uncommon tension between private troubles and preoccupations and public social norms, a tension many of us have been on either side of in our own lives. In this way, the story invites us to examine our own reactions and judgments under similar–if less dramatic–circumstances. It also underscores the value of checking negative first reactions to what we perceive as rude or unseemly behavior in strangers or acquaintances, and if possible, extending them the benefit of the doubt. After all, they may be facing difficulties we can’t imagine. And at some point, we may depend on that sort of understanding ourselves.
In “Early Retirement,” the central character, Neal, becomes a virtual outcast after making an early departure from a longtime job, thanks to a frugal lifestyle and, more significantly, “a big bet on a security” that has paid off handsomely. Instead of expressing genuine pleasure for Neal’s good fortune, most everyone in his social circle seems put off by it:
In addition to facing alienation from friends and family–and, increasingly, from his girlfriend–Neal struggles to find ways to meaningfully occupy his newly free time. At the height of his despair, he comes to a troubling conclusion:
It turns out that a tragedy isn’t necessary to remedy Neal’s situation. Although I don’t want to give away his clever solution to his troubles, I will say that it suggests how vital a role deceit can play in maintaining social connections. We may not like to admit as much, and we may never go as far as Neal does to hold on to such connections, but his story rings uncomfortably (and hilariously) true.
In “Home & Castle,” the title story of the collection, the main character, Drew, also finds himself judged by others and, consequently, socially isolated. But in Drew’s case, the cause is his layoff from a longtime job. Since the layoff, Drew’s appearance has become more and more slovenly, which definitely doesn’t ease his isolation:
Drew’s wife, Zoe, remains on his side, but he detects in her “a certain wistfulness, as if she felt the scope of her dreams contracting.” The fact that her freelance illustration business is now their sole means of support adds another layer of complication: It is as if the disparity in Drew’s and Zoe’s “relative usefulness had upset some arcane marital equilibrium.”
Still another layer of complication is the fact that Zoe has a chance to interview for catalogue-design work with Home & Castle, a seller of fancy furnishings whose executive vice-president just happens to be an old fraternity buddy of Drew’s, Martin Langford. “Buddy” is a generous description given that back in college, Martin (wrongly) accused Drew of coming on to his girlfriend, leading to what appeared to be a permanent rift in the men’s relationship.
But a recent email from Martin, inviting Drew to an alumni dinner, suggests that bygones may have become bygones, and Drew considers asking Martin if he might be able to give Zoe a leg up on the Home & Castle job. Ultimately, he decides not to, out of discomfort with exploiting his old connection to Martin, possibly reducing it to “a base transaction.”
The drama of the story comes to a head when Drew, wearing his “customary tramp costume,” arrives at Home & Castle headquarters to pick Zoe up from her interview. I don’t want to say more than that Drew isn’t exactly welcomed in H&C’s swanky lobby, even after a brief appearance by Martin, who seems to view Drew as either an off-kilter stranger or an embarrassing and unwelcome relic of his past.
An uncomfortable truth threads through this and other stories in Benz’s collection: that the misperceptions, misunderstandings, and prejudices that divide us from others can be incredibly difficult–perhaps impossible–to overcome or dislodge. Through his thoughtful, darkly funny, and moving stories, Benz gives us many opportunities to examine the limitations of human understanding and empathy, and to consider how we might develop more of both.
Another uncomfortable truth underlies the stories: If we’re on the receiving end of others’ misperceptions or prejudices, we may be left on our own to push back against them, retreat to safety, or try some combination of both strategies (as Drew ends up doing in “Home & Castle”). If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to find comfort from those we’ve come to love and trust.
In an artist’s statement at the start of the collection, Benz observes:
Indeed. Home & Castle definitely encourages this type of empathy, and it also makes for a rewarding and enjoyable read.
Would My Pick be Your Pick?
If you're interested in ________, the answer may be "Yes":▪ Stories about outsiders (and about the consequences of outsiderdom)
▪ Stories about being in conflict with social expectations
▪ Stories that balance tales of struggle with humor
