University of New Mexico Press
Review by Jack Smith
Robert Garner McBrearty’s The Problem You Have is a stunning collection of literary realism, often edgy realism, sometimes bordering on farce, both signature traits of McBrearty’s fiction. This collection tops off a series of McBrearty’s three previous collections. He’s a winner of two prestigious prizes, the Pushcart and the Sherwood Foundation Fiction Award for his collection Episode.
A number of protagonists in this new collection are ordinary people with their rather ordinary problems, troubled by life’s pitfalls and striving to deal with them as best they can. One thinks of the protagonist of “A Morning Swim” with his epiphany after a near-shark attack, wanting to share this life-changing experience with his estranged wife, Jill, and preparing in his mind how he’ll do it. Or consider the protagonist of “The Bike,” who feels he might have saved his marriage if he had only taken up biking when his wife did. But because he didn’t support her in her zeal for this new adventure, he caused an irreparable rift in their already-precarious marriage. Think also of Danny, the protagonist of “Convergence,” a man who has lost his wife and cannot abide sympathy from others but falls for the way his son’s school nurse looks into his eyes and says his name. He finds a possible outlet for his misery in an old avocation—boxing. And, finally, consider Ed in “Holdouts,” a man dealing with the disabilities of old age, looking back on his life, on the tragic death of one of his buddies in World War II and later, the loss of his wife. These stories are the work of a writer who peers deeply into his characters and makes them come fully alive for the reader. We care about them and become embroiled in their lives and their problems.
A few protagonists have had run-ins with the law. With these peripheral characters, McBrearty demonstrates a remarkable ability to deal with a wide range of protagonists, ones we find relatable and sympathetic—or at least empathetic, as with Paul, who flirts with the idea of kicking in an old man’s front door to obtain shelter on a cold winter night. Yes, he’s got a wild streak to him, but after all it’s a freezing night, and he’s desperately in need of shelter. We can easily put ourselves in his place. When he disarms the old man of his shotgun, then holds it on him, the author tests our sympathy—yes, Paul is in the wrong, but we know he’ll never use that shotgun on the old man. When he says “I don’t go around hurting people. I wasn’t raised that way,” the old man says he believes him, and we as readers are also likely to. He’s not dangerous, just not law-abiding. McBrearty makes our response to him complex.
This collection is often tinged with humor, sometimes whimsical and farcical, sometimes dark. “Sarge and Hollings” pits the malicious Sarge against the well-intentioned Hollings, a young man whose near perfection and achievements (“fourth-degree black belt in karate”; “one semester short of a degree in English Literature with a minor in philosophy and a minor in micro-biology”) irritate his military superior. Some passages in this story are laugh-out-loud ones, such as: “No food ever slops down his chin or slips out the side of his mouth, and you only see his teeth, which are glossy white and well-formed, when he is smiling between bites. It is, in fact, an honor and a pleasure to watch Hollings eat.” Given the overall innocence and goodness of Hollings, one might be reminded of Claggart’s malice against Billy Budd. But unlike Melville’s tale, McBrearty’s is a mix of quirky humor and pathos, with a dark end for Hollings, yes, but a death from a duel, with Hollings, a peacemaker to the end, not even loading his pistol.
In another story that is largely humorous, “Smitty on the Mound,” the protagonist is unwilling to face a fact: as a baseball pitcher, he’s washed up. McBrearty captures his persistent determination to keep pitching. The comic portrayal reveals a serious truth: people hang on to their dreams, and this one—to make it eventually to the majors, to the Yankees!—is something that Smitty desperately needs. As readers, we can’t help but root for him.
In the “Bike,” which deals with a marriage gone sour, and a tragic death of their child, McBrearty adeptly blends tragedy and comedy. One example: “He could see them in his mind, the way it might have been—the two of them riding down a country lane, riding through a rain of autumn leaves, side by side, smiles of rapture on their faces. But he suspected that the image wasn’t original, that he might have stolen it from anti-depressant commercials.” This frank admission following a lyrical passage makes us laugh and gives another dimension to his protagonist. And the reader thinks, yes, there surely is some truth to that!
An element of the ironic or comic is often present in this collection, but some of the strongest work is represented by poignant passages that reach an emotional high. Much of this is due to McBrearty’s superb prose style, his capacity through language to go straight to the heart. For instance, in the closing passages of “Holdouts,” Ed is thinking about a Japanese soldier he’d come close to killing: “He even wanted to remember the Japanese soldier, the boots guy. He was glad he hadn’t had to kill him. He hoped the guy made it out of the jungle somehow, went on to live a decent life, with a wife and kids and a car in the garage, or whatever it was he wanted.”
The characterization is brilliant, the style rich, and the depths of emotions McBrearty reaches make this a work of art many readers will treasure.
