THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 6, 1995 TAG: 9509060036
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY ANN EGERTON
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
THERE IS AN irony in the title of Tricia Bauer's amusing collection, ``Working Women and Other Stories'' (Bridge Works, 204 pp., $19.95). Most of the women in these stories work, but they are so caught up in their personal lives and the personal lives of their co-workers, family and friends, that their jobs are almost secondary. Feminism, regardless of age, doesn't drive these women; they're too busy nurturing.
The strongest example of this repeated theme is in ``Pot O' Gold,'' in which the protagonist, a sometime college student who works at a seedy contest magazine, quits rather than investigate the magazine - as her reporter boyfriend has urged - because an investigation might undermine the jobs of the company's employees, who probably couldn't get a job anywhere else. In the title story, ``Working Women,'' a newspaper society editor is transfixed by the delicate dilemma of placing the photograph of her mother, a night nurse, on the right (socially desirable) page.
In this, her first collection, Bauer, whose stories have been published in many literary quarterlies, has created three types of female heroines: the young employed woman who is learning to juggle a job and personal life; the young woman whose life has unraveled; and the middle-aged or older long-married woman adjusting to a retired, aging husband, her own aging and the absence of her grown children. There are no children under the age of 16 in these 14 stories. That a number of the characters are married but childless seems to make a kind of sociological statement.
Indeed, in ``Sauna,'' the author, in explaining the success of one marriage, comments, ``the real reason (Liza) and Wes remained childless was to ensure that they would be complete in themselves.'' Bauer's characters are both compulsive and reluctant nurturers.
Many of those whose grown children have moved away are floundering for something to take their place. In ``Nocturne,'' the wife is hoping, unrealistically, it appears, for a professional singing career. In ``Dogs,'' an aging couple devotes its time and energies to a pet bulldog. In ``Graveyard,'' a more chilling tale, the wife has tried to replace her absent and uncommunicative children and other losses with an array of tacky lawn ornaments, ranging from flamingos to leprechauns:
``Each of the statues marked something that had been lost to her - daughters, grandchildren, a decent education, the shoes she couldn't afford for her senior prom, the sister who had died at birth, the pencil case that had been stolen from her on her first day of school, her mother.''
Property is important in many of Bauer's stories. Acquisition and disposition of property often take on a context that is uniquely contemporary.
In ``Gypsies,'' about a gypsy moth infestation, the characters' ``possessions had grown so numerous that Lynn felt not nestled but cemented.'' Suburban sprawl is so widespread that one man wonders ``about the animals that have been displaced and forced to flee to confusing new surroundings.'' Bauer seems to see a pinched and confused quality in modern American lives, regardless of age, sex, position or species! ``The Blue Room,'' in which the main, very lonely character feigns a violent attack on herself in an attempt to get attention, is a sad example of this condition.
A few of the stories fall a little flat, but generally, Tricia Bauer's collection is both original and wise. She has the ability to make fresh commentary on modern times in a gentle, oblique fashion. MEMO: Ann Egerton is a free-lance book reviewer who lives in Baltimore. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
MEG HARTIGAN
Tricia Bauer creates three types of feminine heroes in her new
book.
by CNB