Casual
HEEEEEERE'S DAVID! One night in 1980, I went to see Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining. I liked it: the creepy music, and that classic scene where the Jack Nicholson character, deranged by writer's...
...She's written a bunch of other stuff as well: seven novels, a travelogue, a pair of biographies, a collection of essays...
...Hold on, you say...
...But the car in question is a Toyota...
...Or wait for the Stanley Kubrick version...
...She has gone totally froggy on us...
...Amanda also lives in Paris, having married an extremely French fellow named Jean-Frangois...
...She is "Dinny" to friends and relations...
...You wouldn't want to belong to that family...
...Not that we see each other much...
...my Americanismo act is (mostly) just for fun...
...Sort of...
...This villain's name is— gulp—"Tellman...
...Bwana—my charming mother-in-law, Diane Johnson...
...Home from the mall the next day, Noe's brother Luc sighs about the ride: "Je trouve la voiture de Darcy tres belle...
...We are solid, Dinny and I, sharing all the by-marriage affection one might reasonably hope for...
...He works at EuroDisney...
...Throw in 15 step-siblings, spouses, and children, and this family is a veritable mob of charm...
...My then-companion didn't think it was fun...
...Reach for the skies, French baby," Ollie orders...
...And since I am the designated right-wing weirdo in the family, it naturally falls on me to stand up for the Stars and Stripes...
...We are married because—as if to prove the point through inhuman forbearance—she still hasn't sent me packing after almost 15 years...
...But even with them, for benefit of Grandma Dinny, I do my jokey love-Ameri-ca-or-leave-it routine...
...I count in both categories...
...Le Divorce (Dutton, 309 pp., $23.95) is a beautifully observed novel of manners about the cultural disorientations of the American expatriate community in Paris...
...For last year's visit, Dinny brought along Darcy's sister Amanda and her two sons...
...What a script...
...My wife's family turns out to be pretty nice, too...
...Read it and see for yourself...
...I exult in my child's emerging nationalism...
...Amanda's equally French gargons are absolutely adorable...
...he bellowed...
...back up a sentence...
...she gushed...
...My wife, Darcy, is inhumanly perfect...
...Are we doing The Shining again...
...But the characters are really nothing like us at all, Darcy points out: "It's just fiction, a story...
...Or some such twaddle...
...We talk about the differences between Americans and the French...
...I don't know about that...
...None of this familial jousting, Jack Nicholson and the cappuccino lady notwithstanding, has driven either of us to murder anyone...
...I highly recommend the book...
...It is all enviously distinguished, earning her two finalist nominations for the Pulitzer, another two for the National Book Award, and an armload of subsidiary honors...
...Until now...
...So before we parted company that evening— and we were soon to part forever—I listened to her speculate about the personal sources of the screenwriter's inspiration...
...Her charming stepfather is an eminent physician who so resembles the Great White Doctor of imperialist myth that she calls him, simply, "Bwana...
...Heeeere's David...
...Heeeere's Johnny...
...And Dinny has always smiled back, and has given as good as she got...
...She and Bwana, technically retired, lately spend half of each year in Paris...
...In the end, he goes berserk and kills someone who reminds me of my French brother-in-law...
...And she has just produced her best work yet...
...What's that got to do with anything...
...My wife, perfect as always, sensibly rejects my "paranoia" about this...
...Darcy has three charming siblings...
...Dinny passes through Washington only on rare trips between hometown San Francisco and the City of Light...
...Dinny is a "real writer," unlike some other people in the family...
...Yes, her mother's novel may have a few vague parallels to real-life family circumstance...
...The beauty of Dar-cy's car is due to the genius of Detroit, I explain...
...For chrissakes, said I, it's a horror movie...
...Oh, but it isn't, honey, I still can't help thinking...
...Except for one thing: The villain of Le Divorce is a repulsive Francophobe...
...It's a three-cappuccino oeuvre, a profound metaphor for the pathological narcissism of art...
...Brrrrr," I remember this woman shuddering...
...She praised the script's author for turning a trashy Stephen King thriller into a metaphor for the pathological narcissism of art...
...There have been some rave reviews: a special, boxed notice in Publishers Weekly, for instance, and a big essay by critic Gabriele Annan in the New York Review of Books...
...My boy Oliver plays cowboy with his toddler cousin Noe...
...Even my worst provoca-tions—as when I defend the EuroDisney theme park in suburban Paris—are issued with a smile...
...Great fun...
...David Tell...
...I liked it: the creepy music, and that classic scene where the Jack Nicholson character, deranged by writer's block, busts through a bathroom door to attack his wife with an axe...
...Great fun...
...No, it's a "three-cappuccino oeuvre," my friend insisted...
...She thought it was profound...
...Well, first off, my mother-in-law was the co-author of that screenplay...
...In the psychic center of Darcy's clan sits Mrs...
...I should be glowing with son-in-lawyerly pride...
...It'll no doubt star Jack Nicholson...
...Please take a moment to look at the last two words on this page...
Vol. 2 • February 1997 • No. 20
