Resentment

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  “Maybe I’d be an asshole too if I hadn’t gone on leave. If I were graduating early.” But then Lionel didn’t like how bitter he sounded, in part because it felt like giving the host credit or power over him. “Anyway, it’s fine.” The wind through the screen chilled his neck. Charles rested the back of his head against the drawer. “It’s okay to be mad,” Charles said. “Mad about what?” “Your life.” Charles stretched his knee out gingerly and then rubbed it flat with his palm. “Did you hurt yourself?” “Overworked. It’s nothing.” It was easy to see how Charles might have overextended himself. He had the kind of body you could only get at great personal risk. He was good-looking, in a way that seemed incongruous with ordinary life. Like the kind of attractiveness only people on TV or with large social media followings could have. But he looked pained, too. All that body had cost him something. Lionel could understand that. The cost of the life you wanted. The way it could bound back on you. Extract its due. The kitchen tile crackled, and they both looked toward the door. It was Sophie. She looked down at them. Her eyes moved quickly from Lionel to Charles, to his knee. “Do we need to go?” she asked. “It’s all right,” he said. “We can stay.” “It might be better if we iced it at home.” Charles inhaled and then said, sharply, “I’m not a pussy.” “Oh, brother,” Sophie said. She pulled the freezer door open and stuck her head inside like she’d done it a thousand times before. She took out a blue ice pack, offered it to Charles. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?” he asked. Her eyes narrowed again, this time lighting upon Lionel. She dropped the ice pack in the middle of the floor, and it spun around on its back like a helpless turtle. They all watched it come to a stop. “Maybe your new buddy can help you,” she said. “Easy, Sophie.” “You’re so selfish.” “You’re the one who wanted to be here. I’m here.” She said nothing after that, just watched Charles another moment or two. Then she went back into the living room, and Lionel felt he could exhale. All through that exchange, he had been holding his breath. And he’d seen them bare their teeth at each other. Was that what it meant to be with someone? Was that what it meant to care? Charles stood stiffly. Lionel could hear his knee popping. “What did I say about assholes?” Charles said, and then he left the kitchen, too, shaking his head as he went. Lionel drank the rest of his rosé in peace. He brushed the ice pack with his foot, and sent it spinning around again. When it came to a rest, he spun it in the opposite direction. • • •

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  “Okay,” she said, and she kissed his chest and went back to Alek. That poor fool, though. If he got hurt, it was only his fault because he should know the score, and besides, Sophie was an adult, free to come and go as she pleased. She made dates. She messed around. It was known. Alek still resented him, even now. It was obvious in the way he had suggested that Charles had been out rolling in garbage instead of being at home with Sophie. But it was really, truly none of Alek’s business, so Charles put a little smugness in his turnout, let his hips roll and snap as he lifted into the air. He wouldn’t be bullied. • • • At the end of the class, Charles was putting his arms into his flannel when Farnland approached him. “Charles,” he said. “A word.” “All right.” Charles was soaked with sweat. Pins and needles ran down the outside of his leg to his toes. The afternoon light was brilliant through the windows. Their shadows stretched across the floor. “You were late. You smell like a distillery. And you dance like a bowlegged ox.” “That’s more than a word,” Charles said. He did try to look apologetic. “You are setting a terrible example. Think of the younger dancers,” he said, and Charles flinched. “You are a senior member of this program. Don’t make me regret fighting for you.” Think of the younger dancers, Charles repeated in his mind. Think of those young boys in their silk shirts at parties, with no one to look out for them, being given plastic cups of champagne. Think of the giddy high of being with people who understood what you did and what you loved instead of being shoved into a locker by a bunch of lacrosse jerks who got drunk on their dads’ boats and drowned on lazy summer nights. Think of those poor young dancers, aching knees and throbbing feet. Their eyes stinging with sweat. Think of the young dancers. Charles clenched his jaw and squared his shoulders. “I do think of them,” he said. Farnland sucked his teeth, the most ungraceful gesture Charles had ever seen him make. He looked at his fingernails as if Charles were worth less than what prospective dirt might be found there. He deserved that, he thought. Fair enough. “Your knee?” “Can barely feel a thing,” Charles ground out. In truth, he should have listened to Sophie last night and gone home to ice it. He had no business running through the snow after Lionel, and now dancing on it. “You’re listing,” Farnland said. “No way you’re making it through rehearsal tonight.”

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  but when it is turned awry to evil, or speeds towards the good with more or less care than it ought, against the Creator his creature works. Hence thou mayst understand that love must be the seed of every virtue in you, and of every deed that deserves punishment. Now inasmuch as love can never turn its face from the weal of its subject, all things are safe from self-hatred; and because no being can be conceived as existing alone in isolation from the Prime Being, every affection is cut off from hate of him. It follows, if I judge well in my division, that the evil we love is our neighbours’, and this love arises in three ways in your clay. There is he who through his neighbour’s abasement hopes to excel, and solely for this desires that he be cast down from his greatness; there is he who fears to lose power, favour, honour and fame because another is exalted, wherefore he groweth sad so that he loves the contrary; and there is he who seems to be so shamed through being wronged, that he becomes greedy of vengeance, and such must needs seek another’s hurt. This threefold love down below is mourned for: now I desire that thou understand of the other, which hastes toward good in faulty degree. Each one apprehends vaguely a good wherein the mind may find rest, and desires it; wherefore each one strives to attain thereto. If lukewarm love draws you towards the vision of it or the gaining of it, this cornice, after due penitence, torments you for it. Another good there is, which maketh not men happy; ’tis not happiness, ’tis not the good essence, the fruit and root of all good. The love that abandons itself too much to this, is mourned for above us in three circles: but how it is distinguished in three divisions, I do not say, in order that thou search for it of thyself.” 1. See diagram on p. 241 2. Through the influence of the stars, or by Divine will. 3. Procne’s husband, Tereus, dishonoured her sister Philomela, and cut out her tongue, so as to ensure her silence. The injured girl, however, imparted to her sister the knowledge of what had happened by means of a piece of tapestry; whereupon Procne, in a frenzy, slew her son Itys, and made Tereus unwittingly partake of his flesh at table. On discovering the truth he pursued the sisters with an axe, bent on slaying them; but at their prayer all three were changed into birds. According to Ovid (Met. vi), whom Dante follows, Procne became a nightingale, and Philomela a swallow (see Canto ix). 4. See Esther iii-vii. Ahasuerus, King of the Persians, advanced Haman to high honours, till the latter was accused by Esther of having designs on the life of Mordecai. “So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king’s wrath pacified.” 5. Lavinia, daughter of Latinus and Amata, was first betrothed to Turnus, and then promised to Æneas; whereupon hostilities broke out between the two heroes. In the course of these, Amata (who was opposed to the marriage with Æneas), thinking that Turnus was killed (though, in point of fact, he was not yet slain) hanged herself in a frenzy of despair (Æn. xii). 6. See Canto vii. 7. “Blessed are the peace-makers: for they shall be called the children of God” (Matt. v. 9). 8. A careful study of the Argument, and of the second paragraph in the “Note on Dante’s Purgatory” on this page, will make this important passage clear. See, too, Gardner. rational love = conscious desire, as distinguished from the unconscious trend of inanimate beings [both of which impulses are regarded as “love”]; with these lines cf. Conv. iii and Par. i.—the primal goods, towards God and virtue; the secondary, towards worldly goods.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  “I’ve never denied her anything.” But the truth, Miri thought. She wished she could shout at them to stop, but then everyone in the room would look at her. As if reading her mind, the rabbi said, “Miriam, would you like to speak?” She shook her head no. But there was plenty she might have said, if she’d had the courage. I have a father, she’d say to Rusty. You might not like him but you can’t pretend he doesn’t exist. If you don’t like him you should have thought of that before you got into his Nash with the seat that turned into a bed. Next, she’d look directly at Mike Monsky. You think you can waltz into my life now and everything will be okay? You expect me to trust you just because you and my mother shtupped a couple of times? Trust has to be earned. You know who taught me that? My mother! You’ve never taught me anything, not anything good, anyway. Then, back to Rusty. Stop arguing. Let him put money away for college. You know you worry about how you’re going to pay. You think I don’t know that for fifteen years you’ve done everything? You and Nana and Uncle Henry. You think I don’t know what a family I have? A family I can count on. I don’t need him. That’s true. But if it turns out I want to know him, if it turns out I want to meet his other kids—so what? That doesn’t change anything between us. I love you, Mom. Don’t worry. You’re not going to lose me. Ever. Henry gave her a little nudge and she came back from her fantasy in time to hear Rusty say, “I don’t want his money, Rabbi. I’ve managed all these years on my own.” “But the child is entitled, Mrs. Ammerman. I’m suggesting Mr. Monsky set up a fund for Miri,” the rabbi said, “to help with college expenses. Perhaps the amount can be decided by your lawyers. You are entitled to nothing, Mr. Monsky. It will be up to Miri if she wants to see you or not. At fifteen, she can make that decision herself.” Her feelings for this rabbi just went from cool to warm. “That sounds fair,” Mike Monsky said. Gregg looked at Henry, who nodded, and at Rusty, who shrugged. Then the rabbi asked, “Do you want to see your father again?” “I don’t know,” Miri answered. “I understand,” the rabbi said. “Personally, I think you owe it to yourself to get to know him, even though he hasn’t yet had the chance to show you what kind of father he will be. I hope he’ll be responsible, kind, supportive, but that’s going to take some time, some proving. Maybe a week over the summer? Think about it.” Miri nodded. Rusty blew her nose again. “Mrs. Strasser,” the rabbi said, “thank you for bringing these two families together.” Frekki nodded. “Mr.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  And she’s going to make a swell mother.” He opened his mouth—and took a sip of beer. This gave him countenance—and he went on sipping till he frothed at the mouth. He was a lamb. He had cupped her Florentine breasts. His fingernails were black and broken, but the phalanges, the whole carpus, the strong shapely wrist were far, far finer than mine: I have hurt too much too many bodies with my twisted poor hands to be proud of them. French epithets, a Dorset yokel’s knuckles, an Austrian tailor’s flat finger tips—that’s Humbert Humbert. Good. If he was silent I could be silent too. Indeed, I could very well do with a little rest in this subdued, frightened-to-death rocking chair, before I drove to wherever the beast’s lair was—and then pulled the pistol’s foreskin back, and then enjoyed the orgasm of the crushed trigger: I was always a good little follower of the Viennese medicine man. But presently I became sorry for poor Dick whom, in some hypnotoid way, I was horribly preventing from making the only remark he could think up (“She’s a swell kid …”). “And so,” I said, “you are going to Canada?” In the kitchen, Dolly was laughing at something Bill had said or done. “And so,” I shouted, “you are going to Canada? Not Canada”—I re-shouted—“I mean Alaska, of course. ” He nursed his glass and, nodding sagely, replied: “Well, he cut it on a jagger, I guess. Lost his right arm in Italy.” Lovely mauve almond trees in bloom. A blown-off surrealistic arm hanging up there in the pointillistic mauve. A flowergirl tattoo on the hand. Dolly and band-aided Bill reappeared. It occurred to me that her ambiguous, brown and pale beauty excited the cripple. Dick, with a grin of relief stood up. He guessed Bill and he would be going back to fix those wires. He guessed Mr. Haze and Dolly had loads of things to say to each other. He guessed he would be seeing me before I left. Why do those people guess so much and shave so little, and are so disdainful of hearing aids? “Sit down,” she said, audibly striking her flanks with her palms. I relapsed into the black rocker. “So you betrayed me? Where did you go? Where is he now?” She took from the mantelpiece a concave glossy snapshot. Old woman in white, stout, beaming, bowlegged, very short dress; old man in his shirtsleeves, drooping mustache, watch chain. Her in-laws. Living with Dick’s brother’s family in Juneau. “Sure you don’t want to smoke?” She was smoking herself. First time I saw her doing it. Streng verboten under Humbert the Terrible. Gracefully, in a blue mist, Charlotte Haze rose from her grave.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Maybe it was to save her from having to talk to him. When they got close to Sayre Street she told him to drop her off two blocks away, where there was less danger of Rusty or Irene seeing her in the car with him. He turned off the ignition and faced her. “You should know,” he said, “I changed my last name to ‘Monk’ when I married Adela. My sister doesn’t know and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her. I’d like to be the one to break the news.” “Why are you telling me?” “You know why. Because you’re my daughter.” She bristled. “It would be your last name, too.” “My last name is Ammerman.” “You know what I mean.” He reached for her hand. For one second she looked into his eyes and saw her own. Then she pulled her hand away, jumped out of the car and ran for home. Later, she remembered the way his hand had felt, warm and strong. My father, she thought. That asshole was my father. She reminded herself not to like him. Reminded herself he’d abandoned Rusty before she was even born. She didn’t know if it happened that way, but she assumed it had. He planted the seed, then he flew the coop. She vaguely remembered Rusty telling her that when she was small and asking about her daddy. She had no idea what it meant at the time. She’d imagined a chicken sitting on an egg. Now she heard Irene’s voice in her head. You can’t trust the Monskys. And it was true, wasn’t it? Frekki had tricked her. And who was this guy who called himself her “father,” really? He could be anybody. His stories could all be invented. No, she would not allow herself to like him. —RUSTY AND IRENE WANTED to hear about her day with Frekki. She told them about the restaurant, the show, ice cream at Gruning’s. But she didn’t mention Mike Monsky. Seeing him was her latest secret. [image "Elizabeth Daily Post" file=Image00026.jpg] [image "Elizabeth Daily Post" file=Image00026.jpg] “PARK AND SPARK”JAN. 31 — In this so-called “modern age” of the hot rod and snazzy car, the problem of teenagers parking seems to be a big one for parents. But a smart girl will realize that if her popularity hinges on “park and spark” it will be short-lived. There’s a price to be paid for free and easy necking. Girls know what a horrible nightmare a girl with a bad reputation must live through. 18 [image "image" file=Image00005.jpg] [image file=Image00005.jpg] ChristinaChristina wasn’t thrilled about going on a double date with Mason and Miri. But Jack wanted to do this for his brother, so she would do her best to make sure a good time was had by all. It wasn’t that she didn’t like spending time with Mason and she had nothing against Miri, though she knew her only from Dr. O’s office and as Natalie’s friend.

• From Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality (2007)

  Think about the parents of a junior high girl who has just hit puberty and all of a sudden her body has changed in some significant ways, and she’s being noticed in ways she wasn’t before and now she’s starting to notice that she’s being noticed. Her parents have to talk to her about all of this. They have to wade into the complexity and confusion and mixed messages that our culture is sending their daughter. If they indulge one way, telling her to use her body to get what she needs and encouraging her to draw as much attention to her body as she can, they’re encouraging her to act like an animal. But if they ignore these changes and hope the whole thing just goes away, they’re sending her an equally destructive message. They’re treating her like an angel. Her sexuality and her body and her beauty are good things. They were given to her by God. Her parents must embrace this and all that comes with it. And they have to teach her how to embrace it in an honorable, dignified way. They must live in the tension and then show her how to do the same. And so Paul addresses this religious group with their narrow and restrictive lists, claiming that they are actually working against God’s purposes in the world. Things that God has made, things that are good, things that God created to be enjoyed, are being ignored and avoided because these religious people refuse to live in the tension. And now for the opposite end of the spectrum. A friend of mine recently interviewed Hugh Hefner, founder of the Playboy empire, for a book she was writing.13 They did the interview sitting on a couch in the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles. As he answered questions about his upbringing, he said, “I was raised in a setting in which [sex] was for procreation only and the rest was sin.” What’s he saying, essentially? He was raised by parents pretending to be angels. He continued later in the interview: “Our family was Prohibitionist, Puritan in a very real sense. . . . Never hugged. Oh, no. There was absolutely no hugging or kissing in my family. There was a point in time when my mother, later in life, apologized to me for not being able to show affection. That was, of course, the way I’d been raised. I said to her, ‘Mom, you couldn’t have done it any better. And because of the things you weren’t able to do, it set me on a course that changed my life and the world.’ ” It isn’t difficult to understand his reaction to an angelic upbringing. He was denied something central to what it means to be human: affection. And so the rest of his life has been a journey to the other end of the spectrum.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  were legion. Feeling the hatred of his subjects, he retired to the island of Capri, where he spent the last eleven years of his reign, almost completely avoiding Rome. He was known to repeat to others in his last years, “After me, let fire destroy the earth!” At his death Rome exploded with celebration, the crowds voicing their feelings with the famous phrase “Into the Tiber [River] with Tiberius!” If you notice resentful tendencies within yourself, the best antidote is to learn to let go of hurts and disappointments in life. It is better to explode into anger in the moment, even it if it’s irrational, than to stew on slights that you have probably hallucinated or exaggerated. People are generally indifferent to your fate, not as antagonistic as you imagine. Very few of their actions are really directed at you. Stop seeing everything in personal terms. Respect is something that must be earned through your achievements, not something given to you simply for being human. You must break out of the resentful cycle by becoming more generous toward people and human nature. In dealing with such types, you must exercise supreme caution. Although they might smile and seem pleasant, they are actually scrutinizing you for any possible insult. You can recognize them by their history of past battles and sudden breaks with people, as well as how easily they judge others. You might try to slowly gain their trust and lower their suspicions; but be aware that the longer you are around them, the more fuel you will give them for something to resent, and their response can be quite vicious. Better to avoid this type if possible. The Expansive (Positive) Attitude Some fifty years ago, many medical experts began to think of health in a new and revolutionary way. Instead of focusing on specific problems, such as digestion or skin ailments or the condition of the heart, they decided it was much better to look at the human body as a whole. If people improved their diet and their exercise habits, this would have a beneficial effect on all of the organs, because the body is an interconnected whole. This seems obvious to us now, but such an organic way of thinking has great application to our psychological health as well. Now more than ever people focus on their specific problems—their depression, their lack of motivation, their social inadequacies, their boredom. But what governs all of these seemingly separate problems is our attitude, how we view the world on a daily basis. It is how we see and interpret events. Improve the overall attitude and everything else will elevate as well—creative powers, the ability to handle stress, confidence levels, relationships with people. It was an idea first promulgated in the 1890s by the great American psychologist William James, but it remains a revolution waiting to happen. A negative, constricting attitude is designed to narrow down the

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Our empathy must be visceral—we can feel when members are losing respect for us. As part of the dynamic, we need to realize that when we show our respect and trust toward those below us, such feelings will flow back to us. The members will open up to our influence. We must try as much as possible to engage people’s willpower, to make them identify with the group’s mission, to want to actively participate in realizing our higher purpose. This empathy, however, must never mean becoming needlessly soft and pliant to the group’s will. That will only signal weakness. When it comes to our primary task—that of providing a vision for the group and leading it toward the appropriate goals—we must be stern and immovable. Yes, we can listen to the ideas of others and incorporate the good ones. But we must keep in mind that we have a greater command of the overall details and global picture. We must not succumb to political pressures to seem fairer, and so dilute our vision. This vision of ours is beyond politics. It represents truth and reality. We have to be resilient and tough when it comes to realizing it, and merciless with those who try to sabotage this vision or work against the greater good. Toughness and empathy are not incompatible, as Queen Elizabeth I demonstrated. When leaders fail to establish these twin pillars of authority— vision and empathy—what often happens is the following: Those in the group feel the disconnect and distance between them and leadership. They know that deep down they are viewed as replaceable pawns. They sense the overall lack of direction and the constant tactical reactions to events. And so, in subtle ways, they begin to feel resentful and to lose respect. They listen less attentively to what such leaders say. They spend more hours in the day thinking of their own interests and future. They join or form factions. They work at half or three-quarter speed. If such leaders, sensing all of this, become more forceful and demanding, the members become more passive-aggressive. If the leaders become pliant and plead for more support, the members feel even less respect, as if the group were now leading the leader. In this way, the members create endless forms of friction for leaders, who might now feel like they have to drag the group up a hill. This friction, caused by their own inattentiveness, is why so many leaders get so little done and are so mediocre. On the other hand, if we intuitively or consciously follow the path of establishing authority, as described above, we have a much different effect on the group dynamic. The ambivalence of the members or the public does not go away—that would violate human nature—but it becomes manageable.

• From The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (2023)

  Nearly every negative question she has regarding Norman and her lifestyle is countered by a broken-record answer from her inner Mona. Marriage 101, by Mona: “Make his interests your interests. Make his friends, your friends. When he’s in the mood, you’re in the mood. Dress to please him. Cook to please him. What else matters? A happy husband is the answer to a happy life.” As Sandy’s dissatisfaction grows, her mother’s voice in her head gets louder. “Was she wrong to want more out of life?” Sandy wonders about herself. “She wasn’t sure. If he beat her, she could complain. If he drank, she could complain. If he ran around, she could complain. But Sandy had no real reason to complain… Nobody loves a kvetch [whiner], Mona had said. Remember that, Sandy… especially not a man who’s worked hard all day. ” In rejecting Norman, Sandy has no choice but to reject her mother, too. “Is this what my life is all about?” she thinks to herself one afternoon. “Driving the kids to and from school and decorating our final house? Oh Mother, dammit! Why did you bring me up to think that this was what I wanted?” Sandy’s mother-in-law, Enid, is even worse. While Mona clearly loves her kids, Enid expresses nothing but resentment toward her two daughters-in-law. Norman’s brother is married to a woman named Arlene, who Enid casually describes behind her back as Miss Piss. When Sandy goes against Enid’s wishes and names her own daughter Jennifer, instead of Enid’s choice of Sarah, Sandy gets her own nickname: Miss High and Mighty. “To me she’ll always be Sarah, no matter what Miss High and Mighty calls her,” Enid says of her new grandchild. Stubbornly, she stays true to her word. Years later, Jennifer is spending the summer at sleepaway camp and Enid still addresses her letters to Sarah Pressman, much to Jennifer’s annoyance. Enid is also the source of one of Sandy and Norman’s biggest challenges—their house in Plainfield, New Jersey. The couple bought it from Enid after Norman’s father died. But the neighborhood is becoming predominantly Black and now Norman wants to sell it before property values plummet. The problem is, Enid won’t let them sell her former home to a Black family. She has her own made-up epithet for Black people, too—ductla —which she uses instead of the Yiddish slur schvartza , claiming her version is sneakier. Enid’s unapologetic racism aligns Sandy and Norman, although they come at the issue from different directions—Sandy is bothered by the moral implications, while Norman’s concerns are financial in nature. The Pressmans’ all-white social circle is almost universally racist, and Plainfield’s demographic transition gives them all plenty of opportunities to out themselves. “They’re still different no matter how hard you try to pretend they’re not,” a woman at the club says of the Black families who are moving into the area.

• From The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (2023)

  It was almost as if they’d forgotten I was there.” But in the weeks that follow, Frank adjusts to the family’s new normal while Thelma continues to spin. In her eyes, Deenie’s brace clutters up her tidy organization of their family. How can Deenie be the beauty if she’s confined to an ugly piece of medical equipment for the next four years—a period of time she views as critical to Deenie’s burgeoning modeling career? That’s why Thelma treats the brace like a misfortune that’s happening to all of them. “I had to fight to keep from crying,” Deenie says when she first sees it. Meanwhile, Thelma holds nothing back. “Just when I thought I was going to be okay Ma started. ‘Oh my God,’ she cried. ‘What did we ever do to deserve this?’ ” She blames Deenie for slouching, despite the fact that the professionals are clear with the family that idiopathic scoliosis is an inherited disease. The problem, Blume seems to be telling us, isn’t just that Thelma’s insensitive—she’s immature. The feminine mystique has left her ill-equipped and puerile. She can’t even drive: a symbol of her dependency. Frank has to act as her chauffeur, or she hitches rides with Aunt Rae, her best friend whose kids are grown up and “has nothing better to do” than to cart Thelma around. Aunt Rae—who is not actually related to the Fenners—is almost as invested in Deenie’s modeling as Thelma is. At one point in the book, Deenie comes home and finds Thelma and Aunt Rae doing each other’s hair like schoolgirls. By the age of thirteen, Deenie is positive about one thing: she wants more. “She spends hours and hours cleaning the place,” Deenie says of Thelma’s role as a homemaker. “One thing I’m sure of is I don’t want to spend my life cleaning some house like Ma.” Deenie confesses that sometimes she’s jealous of Helen’s brain because it means that she’ll grow up to have the kind of demanding job that keeps her too busy for things like washing the floors until you could eat off them, like her mother does. Modeling isn’t a sure thing, nor does it seem like the kind of skill that guarantees lifelong independence, Deenie muses. Toward the end of the novel, she thinks to herself that she might like to become an orthopedist. The crisis ends up freeing Deenie, loosening her from the grips of a controlling mother. And while Thelma doesn’t quite see it that way, she’s also forced to admit that she’s been living out her own dreams through her girls. Helen and Deenie are hard on her near the close of the book, when it comes out that bookish Helen has been skipping her study dates to go hang out with her secret boyfriend. Helen, it turns out, doesn’t like being labeled, either.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  “You were loved from the moment you were born.” That was the last time Miri asked her mother about her father. Because what was the point? At least no one said he was a no-good son of a bitch, the way she’d heard Cousin Belle describe her daughter’s husband. They didn’t say anything, which in a way was worse. “This talk has to be a secret between us,” Henry had said that night last April as they’d walked to his car, each of them with an ice cream cone. “Okay?” She didn’t tell him how much she hated secrets. Hated them with a passion. Were adults ever honest with kids? Aside from Henry, none had been honest with her—not Rusty, not Irene. They lived in a world where children, even teenagers, were protected from the truth for their own good. That’s how they got out of saying anything. Ever since she could remember, the adults would stop talking when she walked into the room. They’d smile at her, then change the subject. Now here was Henry telling her she had to keep this a secret from Rusty and Irene. With pleasure, Uncle Henry. “I’d be in big trouble for breaking their rules. Who am I to say you have the right to know about your father? I don’t have kids. I don’t know how I’d feel if I did.” “Thank you, Uncle Henry.” She didn’t ask any of the hundreds of questions already forming inside her head. She’d save them for another time. She wondered where Mike Monsky was now. Maybe he’d been a passenger on the plane to Miami yesterday. Maybe Dr. Osner would have to identify him by his teeth and dental X-rays. Rabbi Halberstadter would pray over him, even though there would be no next of kin for the rabbi to comfort. Who’s to say Mike Monsky hadn’t bought a huge insurance policy on his life before he’d boarded the doomed flight and once they discovered she was next of kin, she would get the money? Would she take it? She didn’t have to think twice. Yes, she’d take it! For Rusty and Irene and Henry, who had raised her without a dime from him. Just don’t expect her to visit his grave, Rabbi. She’d give him the same thing he’d given her. Not a second thought. Even if he’d bought that policy she knew it was just because he’d felt guilty for all the years he’d neglected his daughter. If he even knew he had a daughter. HenryHadn’t Rusty told her anything? She had a right to know. It was her life, her history. He may have been young then, but he remembered how Irene had argued with Rusty over calling Mike’s family. Rusty wouldn’t hear of it. “He’s gone, Mama. He’s probably on a ship in the Pacific by now.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  My sister had friends she’d met at Miss Laughton’s School for Girls who came home to play with her some afternoons. They all belonged to a club my sister had started. She was the captain. Her success as a leader could be attributed to the methodical way she worked out her ideas: her approach lent an adult, step-by-step orderliness to projects that otherwise might have seemed wild and incomprehensible. One afternoon she ordered each of her team members to steal a belt from her father that night and bring it with her tomorrow. Of course every girl must be clever in stealing and hiding the belt; if caught, she must be even more resourceful in denying the real reason for filching it. The next afternoon the girls gathered in the hollow and presented their booty to my sister, who lashed each girl with her own father’s belt. In one case her zeal left welts, which led to parental questions and eventually exposure of the whole drama. My sister, at that time a tall, taut platinum blonde who didn’t like grown-ups, answered my mother’s furious questions with indignant yeses and noes, lowered eyes and a set jaw. She was afraid of my mother, the interrogation alarmed her, but not for a moment did she feel guilty or question what she had done. She was the queen of her tribe of girls. My sister resented the interest some of the girls took in me and banned me from the meetings held beside the empty swimming pool choked with dead leaves. When I disobeyed her and toddled smilingly into the assembly, she spanked my bare legs with a hairbrush. My father, resolved that his son should hold his own, pinioned my sister’s arms behind her and ordered me to switch her on the back of her legs with a stinging branch. But I knew that soon enough he would disappear again, my mother drive off, the maids look away; I dropped the branch, howled and clattered up the stairs to my room. I think I also knew that my father preferred my sister to me and that his interest in me was only abstract, dynastic. My sister was his true son. She could ride a horse and swim a mile and she was as capable of sustained rages as he. Still better, she was as blond as his mother. My grandmother had not wanted my father; as she told him, she’d pummeled her stomach with her fists every day while she was bearing him.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  O looked for a permanent place. Miri hoped it would be better than this one. Irene kept Natalie busy, kept her away from Rusty, who was pregnant but not yet showing and suffering from morning sickness that sometimes lasted all day. It disgusted Natalie to learn Rusty was pregnant. “So, you’re not going to be the only child anymore,” she said to Miri. “So?” Miri was equally shocked to learn Rusty was pregnant, but she wasn’t going to admit it to Natalie. “So, you won’t be the center of attention anymore,” Natalie told her. “I’ve never been the center of attention.” But the truth was, it had occurred to Miri that she would have to share Rusty’s love once there was a new baby. And maybe Irene’s, too. “I hope you like dirty diapers,” Natalie said, “because they’re going to expect you to be the babysitter.” “I like babies.” She’d never lived with a baby, had never wished for a sibling, like some only children. “I’m just warning you.” “Thanks for the warning.” “You have to admit it’s embarrassing that she’s pregnant at thirty-three. And he’s eleven years older. I feel sorry for their baby. Think of it—when the baby is our age your mother will be almost fifty and my father will be sixty. They’ll be more like grandparents than parents.” But Miri didn’t want to think about that. Some mornings Natalie and Fern rode horses together, and Miri would go along to watch. Dr. O drove them to a ranch twenty miles out of town. Fern named her horse Trigger—no surprise there. Dr. O encouraged Natalie to name a horse, too. Natalie refused, saying he was just trying to buy her love, and her love wasn’t for sale. Miri knew from Dr. O that Steve had enlisted in the army the day after high school graduation. Natalie said it was her father’s fault. If her parents had stayed together Steve would be going off to Lehigh with Phil Stein. Now Steve would probably be sent to Ko-fucking-rea. Miri had never heard Natalie use such language. Nobody cared what Natalie did or didn’t eat. She developed a taste for the whites of hard-boiled eggs dipped in salt water, like at a Seder, and on some days ate that three times a day. Dr. O was more concerned about Rusty’s constant nausea. The doctor assured them the nausea was a good sign, a sign that it was a strong pregnancy. Eat whatever you can keep down. Rusty told Miri she was hardly sick when she was pregnant with her. Miri said, “Maybe it’s a boy this time.” “Maybe,” Rusty said. Irene and Ben took the three girls on a daylong trip to Hoover Dam, including a guided tour that Natalie yawned through, though she had to admit the place was impressive, if you happen to like wonders of the world. The tour guide, a friendly western type, was a different story.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  There ensued a long and ear-splitting discussion of autobiography versus fiction, in which I mentioned Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Boswell, Proust, and James Joyce—all apparently to no avail. “You can damned well publish your filthy books posthumously,” Randy screeched, “if they contain a word about any character who ever remotely resembles me!” “And I assume that you are going to kill me so as not to delay publication.” “I mean after we die, not after you die.” “Is that an invitation to a beheading?” “Stuff your literary allusions up your ass. You think you’re so goddamned clever don’t you? Just because you were a grub and a grind and did well in school. Just because you’re ambitious and go fucking around with creepy intellectuals and phonies. I had as much talent to write as you and you know it, only I wouldn’t stoop to revealing myself in public the way you do. I wouldn’t want people to know my secret fantasies. I’m not a stinking exhibitionist like you, that’s all…. Now get the hell out of here! Get out! Do you hear me?” “This happens to be Jude’s and Daddy’s house—not yours.” “Get out! You’ve already given me a splitting headache!” Holding her temples, Randy ran into the bathroom. It was the old psychosomatic sidestep. Everyone in my family dances it at every opportunity. You’ve given me a splitting headache! You’ve given me indigestion! You’ve given me crotch rot! You’ve given me auditory hallucinations! You’ve given me a heart attack! You’ve given me cancer! Randy emerged from the bathroom with a pained look on her face. She had pulled herself together. Now she was trying to be tolerant. “I don’t want to fight with you,” she said. “Hah.” “No, really. It’s just that you’re still my little sister and I really think you’ve gotten off on the wrong track! I mean you really ought to stop writing and have a baby. You’ll find it so much more fulfilling than writing….” “Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of.” “What do you mean?” “Look, Randy, it may seem absurd to someone with nine children, but I really don’t miss having children. I mean I love your kids and Chloe’s and Lalah’s, but I’m really happy with my work for the moment and I don’t want any more fulfillment just now. It took me years to learn to sit at my desk for more than two minutes at a time, to put up with the solitude and the terror of failure, and the godawful silence and the white paper. And now that I can take it…now that I can finally do it…I’m really raring to go. I don’t want anything to interfere right now. Jesus Christ! It took me so long to get to this point….” “Is that really how you expect to spend the rest of your life? Sitting in a room and writing poetry?” “Well why not? What makes it any worse than having nine kids?”

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  Pierre de la Brosse5 I mean: and here let the Lady of Bradant take heed, while she is on earth, so that for this she be not of a worser herd. When I was free from all those shades whose one prayer was that others should pray, so that their way to blessedness be sped, I began: “It seemeth that thou, O my Light, deniest expressly in a certain passage, that prayer may bend heaven’s decree;6 and these people pray but for this. Can then their hope be vain? or are not thy words right clear to me?” And he to me: “My writing is plain and the hope of them is not deceived if well thou considerest with mind whole. For the height of justice is not abased because fire of love fulfils in one moment the satisfaction which he owes who here is lodged: and there where I affirmed that point, default could not be amended by prayer, because the prayer was severed from God. But do not rest in so profound a doubt except she tell it thee, who shall be a light between truth and intellect. I know not if thou understand: I speak of Beatrice; thou shalt see her above, on the summit of this mount, smiling and blessed.” And I: “My Lord, go we with greater haste; for already I grow not weary as before, and look, the hillside doth now a shadow cast.” “We with this day will onward go,” answered he, “so far as yet we may; but the fact is other than thou deemest. Ere thou art above, him shalt thou see return that now is being hidden by the slope, so that thou makest not his rays to break. But see there a soul which, placed alone, solitary, looketh towards us; it will point out to us the quickest way.” We came to it: O Lombard soul, how wast thou haughty and disdainful, and in the movement of thine eyes majestic and slow! Naught it said to us, but allowed us to go on, watching only after the fashion of a lion when he couches. Yet did Virgil draw on towards it, praying that it would show to us the best ascent; and that spirit answered not his demand, but of our country and of our life did ask us. And the sweet Leader began: “Mantua,” … and the shade, all rapt in self, leapt towards him from the place where first it was, saying: “O Mantuan, I am Sordello7 of thy city.” And one embraced the other. Ah Italy, thou slave, hostel of woe, vessel without pilot in a mighty storm, no mistress of provinces, but a brothel! That gentle spirit was thus quick, merely at the sweet name of his city, to give greeting there to his fellow-citizen; and now in thee thy living abide not without war, and one doth rend the other of those that one wall and one fosse shuts in.

• From The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (2023)

  That book, by Upper East Sider and Vassar graduate Sue Kaufman, follows New York City mother of two Bettina Balser in the throes of a nervous breakdown. Balser, thirty-six, is a Smith College–educated former artist who can quote Baudelaire and Proust, but whose life now revolves around shopping, decorating, cooking, and throwing parties. It’s all at the behest of her husband, Jonathan, a former activist turned nouveau riche social climber who demands that his wife head up their home life to his exacting standards. With no outlet to express her anger, Balser—who shakes uncontrollably when Jonathan issues his unreasonable orders—takes to drinking, smoking too much, and writing in a secret journal. She also starts having an affair with a piggish playwright named George Prager. He isn’t very nice, but the pair share an explosive sexual connection. Prager is dominant in bed, and Balser finds that she likes it. For a while, that uncomfortable truth scares her. But then she begins to understand that what she’s acting out with her lover is just another angle on her relationship with Jonathan. “Why should I be disturbed by the sado-masochistic aspects of that relationship, when I have another one going?” Balser writes in her diary. “Why not face the truth: it’s an enormous relief to have that sort of thing out in the open and act it out, instead of having to deal with it in a disguised form, all veiled and gussied up with domestic overlay as it is with Jonathan and me.” Although Balser can’t stand who her husband has become, she understands she’s trapped—after all, he controls the money. At one point, her period is late and she believes Prager has gotten her pregnant. Her options, or lack thereof, flash before her. “Without a cent of my own, without a checking account, the only other way [ beyond asking Prager for cash] I could have paid for an abortion would have been to try and get the money secretly from my father, and even I shied away from all the filthy implications of that,” she realizes. Luckily, her period shows up and she doesn’t have to debase herself. But even that relief doesn’t solve the problem of the larger social constructs that frame her marriage, in which she has to be the “submissive woman,” the “obedient wife” to the “forceful dominant male” breadwinner. Blume nods to Diary of a Mad Housewife in Wifey , when Sandy’s sophisticated best friend, Lisbeth—who lives on the Upper West Side and who is experimenting with an open marriage—slips her a copy. Sandy wonders if she should be offended: “Did Lisbeth think she was a mad housewife too? Was that why she’d given her the book?” The novel doesn’t come up again until Sandy’s husband, Norman, mentions it during a fight, when Sandy is trying to express why their relationship leaves her unsatisfied. “Have you been reading that book again?” Norman snipes.

• From The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (2023)

  Hinton, because her publisher thought no one would believe a girl wrote it. The novel focused on white-on-white grievance in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Its protagonist, fourteen-year-old Ponyboy Curtis, identifies with the “greasers”: a group of underprivileged and all-but-unsupervised kids who overcompensate for their low social status with style and swagger. The greasers can’t stand the “socs”—snotty rich kids who drive Mustangs and wear madras shirts—and the feeling is mutual. Late at night, the town becomes a war zone, fueled by class resentment. Among all the typical high school trip-ups, including drinking, depression, and teen pregnancy, the greasers have to worry about getting slaughtered by their rivals after the sun goes down. The Outsiders pushed the envelope with its gritty subject matter, but still adhered to the industry’s unwritten rule that books for young readers had to teach morals. For all its thundering violence, The Outsiders has an obvious, virtuous heartbeat. “Don’t be so bugged about being a greaser,” Johnny, the novel’s much-abused sacrificial lamb, tells Ponyboy in a letter. “You still have a lot of time to make yourself be what you want. There’s still a lot of good in the world.” For books that dropped the moral pretense, you have to look somewhere else, somewhere surprising: Harriet the Spy . Today, Harriet is probably best known for the cute movie she inspired in 1996, starring future Gossip Girl pot-stirrer Michelle Trachtenberg, or more recently, the hip Apple+ cartoon voiced by Beanie Feldstein. But when Louise Fitzhugh published Harriet the Spy in 1964, she was testing boundaries of what was acceptable in books for kids. Harriet M. Welsch was a girl-detective, but she wasn’t pretty and popular and polite like her predecessor, Nancy Drew. No, Harriet was opinionated and curious to the point of being unpleasant at times. She was bossy with her friends, and single-minded in her desire to unearth people’s secrets. “Harriet the Spy was transgressing all over the place,” said Roger Sutton, who was editor in chief of children’s literature magazine and website the Horn Book from 1996 to 2021. “The adults [in the book] weren’t always right. Sometimes you have to lie. She committed all kinds of felonious deeds that did not go punished.” Fitzhugh’s next Harriet book took even bigger risks. In 1965’s The Long Secret , Harriet and her attractive but reserved friend Beth Ellen take their spy games to Southampton, where Harriet’s Manhattan-based family is spending the summer. Harriet and Beth Ellen are on the cusp of adolescence; they daydream about what their lives will look like when they become women. The fingerprints of nascent Second Wave feminism tap across the pages (Fitzhugh herself was a queer feminist intellectual, drinking her way through Greenwich Village). Early in the book, Harriet asks Beth Ellen what she wants to be when she grows up. Shyly, Beth Ellen confesses that she doesn’t “want to be anything at all… I want to marry a rich man.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  After Randy’s Arab and Lalah’s Negro and my first husband’s conviction that he was Jesus Christ, my parents were actually quite relieved when I married Bennett. They had nothing whatsoever against his race, but they greatly resented his religion: psychoanalysis. They suffered from the erroneous impression that Bennett could read their minds. Actually, when he looked most penetrating, ominous, and inscrutable, he was usually thinking about changing the oil in the car, having chicken noodle soup for lunch, or taking a crap. But I could never convince them of that. They insisted on thinking that he was looking deep into their souls and seeing all the ugly secrets which they themselves wanted to forget. That only leaves Chloe Camille, born in 1948 and six years my junior. The baby of the family. Chloe with her sharp wit, sharp tongue, and utter lassitude about doing anything with it. Plump, beautiful Chloe, with her brown hair and blue eyes and perfect skin. With the only really gorgeous set of knockers in a fairly flat-chested family. Chloe, of course, married a Jew. Not a domestic Jew, but an import. (Nobody in the family would stoop to marrying the boy next door.) Chloe’s husband, Abel, is an Israeli of German-Jewish ancestry. (Members of his family once owned the gambling casino at Baden-Baden.) And Abel, of course, went into my father’s tzatzka business. To a business dominated by former Catskill Mountain comedians, he brought lessons learned at the Wharton School. My parents rebelled at first and then virtually adopted him as everyone got richer. Abel and Chloe had one son, Adam, who was blond and blue-eyed and obviously the favorite grandchild. At Christmas reunions, when the whole family regrouped at my parents’ apartment, Adam looked like the sole Aryan in a playground of Third World children. So I was the only sister ohne kinder, and I was never allowed to forget it. When Pierre and Randy last visited New York with their brood, it was just during the time my first book was being published. In the midst of one of our usual noisy fights (about something unmemorably idiotic), Randy called my poetry “masturbatory and exhibitionistic” and reproached me with my “sterility.” “You act as if writing is the most important thing in the world!” she screamed. I was trying to be rational and calm and well-analyzed about my family that week so I was painfully withholding the explosion I felt coming. “Randy,” I pleaded, “I have to think writing is the most important thing in the world in order to go on doing it, but nothing says that you have to share my obsession, so why should I have to share yours?” “Well I won’t have you putting me and my husband and my children in your filthy writing—do you hear me? I’ll kill you if you mention me in any way at all. And if I don’t kill you myself, then Pierre will. Do you understand?”

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  The void of the street, revealing nothing of my wife’s departure except a rhinestone button that she had dropped in the mud after preserving it for three unnecessary years in a broken box, may have spared me a bloody nose. But no matter. I had my little revenge in due time. A man from Pasadena told me one day that Mrs. Maximovich née Zborovski had died in childbirth around 1945; the couple had somehow got over to California and had been used there, for an excellent salary, in a year-long experiment conducted by a distinguished American ethnologist. The experiment dealt with human and racial reactions to a diet of bananas and dates in a constant position on all fours. My informant, a doctor, swore he had seen with his own eyes obese Valechka and her colonel, by then gray-haired and also quite corpulent, diligently crawling about the well-swept floors of a brightly lit set of rooms (fruit in one, water in another, mats in a third and so on) in the company of several other hired quadrupeds, selected from indigent and helpless groups. I tried to find the results of these tests in the Review of Anthropology; but they appear not to have been published yet. These scientific products take of course some time to fructuate. I hope they will be illustrated with good photographs when they do get printed, although it is not very likely that a prison library will harbor such erudite works. The one to which I am restricted these days, despite my lawyer’s favors, is a good example of the inane eclecticism governing the selection of books in prison libraries. They have the Bible, of course, and Dickens (an ancient set, N. Y., G. W. Dillingham, Publisher, MDCCCLXXXVII); and the Children’s Encyclopedia (with some nice photographs of sunshine-haired Girl Scouts in shorts), and A Murder Is Announced by Agatha Christie; but they also have such coruscating trifles as A Vagabond in Italy by Percy Elphinstone, author of Venice Revisited, Boston, 1868, and a comparatively recent (1946) Who’s Who in the Limelight—actors, producers, playwrights, and shots of static scenes. In looking through the latter volume, I was treated last night to one of those dazzling coincidences that logicians loathe and poets love. I transcribe most of the page: