Review: Making Maxine's Baby

There’s something preternaturally “New Yorkish” about the poems in Caroline Hagood’s collection Making Maxine’s Baby that I can’t help but think I’ve passed her main character on the sidewalk. At least once. And if I’d spoken with her, I’m sure I would have both liked her and wanted to help her, though I’m not sure I’d have been capable. Indeed, I might have had those feelings and still followed my own path.

The highly readable collection follows the mental meanderings of the nomadic Maxine. Though the character is clearly well read and intelligent, she chooses to live on the streets and in the subways of the city, sleeping on rat-pee-saturated mattresses. Within the collection, images of mermaids, horror movie intestines, and zombies are interspersed with real-life horrors of murders, sexual abuse, and gore.

While at times it is hard for me to believe that a creature like Maxine could exist – how could such an insightful, intelligent woman choose to live such a life of instability? – I suspect it says more about my ignorance of the thorough damage that abuse and neglect can deliver. At times, the collection reads like a fast-paced novel, and I needed to slow down, as there was so much going on that even now I feel insecure and inadequate to describe. Hagood’s deft writing takes classical and contemporary imagery and weaves a poem in danger of being a page-turner.

Beneath everything is lust

for the slurp and suck

of changing molecules,

extreme makeover shows,

the lure of the beyond. It’s why

Maxine hitchhiked America the summer

after freshman year, but now she lives

in a subway tunnel, simultaneously seen

and unseen, an undetectable horse leaving

mysterious tracks in the mud.

She used to be on the honor role

but now she does Dante in different voices,

had to go down, ask the dead for answers.

Throughout the collection, Hagood sprinkles common images, themes, and mythologies. Mermaids, internal organs, blood, bees, duality, horror movies, trauma, and, of course, children populate her world of ideas and metaphors.

Perhaps my dual comfort and awkwardness in Maxine’s presence is summed up in Hagood’s description of her as

the kind of person

who’s always ripped open.

…

She knows no other way.

Indeed, if I had passed Maxine on the streets of New York, I’d have felt guilty for both looking to see if I recognized her and for avoiding her; I’d pray the poor creature could find solace and safety and I’d hate myself for being incapable of offering any. And had she read my mind, perhaps she’d have spewed scorn upon me for thinking any of her troubles were about me, per se.

Screw you and your credentials.

I have an MFA in vapor and urban

reek, have been featured in anthologies

of knock-knock jokes and engine

sounds, have a degree in failing

spectacularly, won a Pushcart Prize

for blowing a man in one of the last

subway bathrooms. Oh the faces

he made, like a Halloween mask.

To me, Maxine is not an every woman. Whether the quest for motherhood is universal among women is not a topic of debate in this collection. Rather, Maxine explores herself, her world, her desires. It may indeed be hell this “Sorceress, scullery maid, poor excuse for a mer-thing” walks through, but her story draws me into a quest that may be my ruin.

I look forward to more from this talented writer.

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Novelist

As a runner, a writer, and a fan of Haruki Murakami, I was pleased to find an essay he wrote for The New Yorker. I've only read a smattering of Murakami's work -- The Elephant Vanishes and perhaps a couple stray stories from other collections. One of the things I like about his characters is that they come across as people I can relate to despite my being an American; Murakami is Japanese. I don't know if that means the image of the average middle-class, suburban male is universal or that I naturally gravitate to such characters. Not every personality trait needs to be over analyzed.

But even in this essay, I find myself rooting for the guy, as though Murakami is one of his own invented characters (though, aren't we all...).

As a casual Murakami reader, I wasn't aware of his personal history. For example, I didn't know he just kind of fell into writing one day, literally at the moment a baseball player hit a shot down the line. (Again, something I can relate to.) I had no idea that he used to run a jazz club, nor that he became a runner. He describes himself as a natural runner, despite not really being much of an athlete. It came relatively easy to him, though he had to give up smoking and build his endurance; he's since completed several marathons.

One of the points he made that struck a particular chord was his observation that, when he was running a bar, his goal was that 10 percent of a night's customers should be or become regulars -- an approach he took to his writing as well. Such a simple model, yet probably a difficult goal to attain. Do stock investors expect a 10 percent return? I don't know. Maybe that's why I'm not much of an investor.

I hope I can generate that type of return -- and not feel guilty or like failure for the 90 percent of readers who think I'm full of crap. I think Murakami's model provides the proper perspective to writing, and to running.