“You’re not like other people, Ezra. You’re like me. We’re a certain kind of person.”
“I don’t want to be a certain kind of person,” I said.
“Do you want to be like them?”
“Like who?”
“Everyone else.”
“No, but I couldn’t if I wanted to. That’s what you’re telling me, right?”
She nodded.
“But do I have to be like you?”
“What’s so wrong with that?”
“I’d just rather not, if there’s another option.”
“That’s the point, Ezra. That’s the kind of person we are, the kind who doesn’t get stuck, who can turn things around and go on. We adapt. We can evolve. The answer is yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, there’s another option, but I don’t know what it is. You’ll have to invent it.”
“I can’t save you,” I said. “I can’t save you. You know that.” And I stood up quickly, my erection gone. “I can’t save you.”
I was walking to the door. My mother sat up in bed. “Where are you going?”
“Away,” I said, and I walked out of the room and ran to the door, down the stairs, through the stinking hall, and out into the night.
My mother had opened her bedroom window screen, and now she was leaning out of it. She said, “Ezra, Ezra!” And I looked up at her face lit by the streetlight, her arms long and straight, her body tilted forward. It had stopped raining. She said, “Come here.” And I walked to the spot under her window and looked up at her, buttered in light. “Why,” she said, “why would you need to save me?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Don’t worry about me, Ezra. We can help each other, but we can only truly save ourselves, you and me. Isn’t that right?”
“I guess so,” I said.
“I thought so,” she said. “I’ve always had an escape route, Ezra, a half-hatched idea of how to get out. I’ve always needed one. But it’s tiresome. Isn’t it better to make a stand? They need me, Ezra, don’t they? Mitzie and my mother and Dilworth, too, in his way.”
And I thought, You don’t know the half of how much he needs you, but she would find out soon enough. I couldn’t stomach telling her, not just then. I wanted to get out.
She said, “But you don’t need me anymore, not like that, do you? You’re a man now.”
“No, I don’t need you like that,” I said.
“No, you don’t,” she said. And with that, she gave a little wave. She blew me a kiss. She looked at me sadly, and, for a second, I thought she might jump. I thought she might lift her legs one by one over the sill and jump, her nightgown billowing out like a parachute around her thin legs like Janie’s tennis skirt, and I imagined that I would catch her at last. And then I realized that she wanted to save me, that the reason we were so awful together was that we were each always waiting for the other to fall. But, of course, my mother didn’t jump. She dipped back into the darkness of her room.
As you know, I didn’t go back to school at the end of the summer, to Rudy and Pete and Miss Abernathy, who’d gotten married and changed her name to something plodding and dull like Mrs. Chore or Mrs. Cough, something like Mrs. Clod. I lived in the pool bungalow, staying away from the house and Dilworth as much as possible until school started up, the public one nearby, which isn’t as bad as some people would have you think it is. My mother moved back into our house and my grandmother joined us, too. It was unceremonious, just a quiet shuffling one day, the unzip of her suitcase, jingle of clothes hangers, and rustle of birds in cages. As for Dilworth, he’s still with us. He doesn’t go upstairs. He sleeps in his leather La-Z-Boy recliner, both of his folded arms all bandaged up, hands crossing his chest like he’s lying in a casket. But he isn’t dead. Far from it. Dilworth sometimes talks about his experience, the tunnel with the light at the end and the voice of someone, maybe God himself, saying, “Go back. It’s not your time yet,” as if Dilworth’s failure at dying had more to do with God’s overall plan than it had to do with Dilworth’s inability to get the job done. He can’t do much and so Helga’s here more than ever. She gets him dressed, for example, one foot at a time, zips up his fly for him. Sometimes he wears his golf pants, the yellow ones with the turtles. She feeds him her homemade beet borscht and helps him drink his scotches through a straw. Sometimes my mother will sit on the sofa next to Dilworth’s recliner, where he likes to listen to talk shows about real people with real problems. She’ll say, “What a shame, huh?” about some runaway, some cheater, some paternity case.
And he’ll say, “Yep, some folks get themselves into a mess.” And there’s only a hint of irony in his voice, only the tiniest recognition.
Once, I asked my mother what was going to happen next. It was pretty much out of the blue—her hands in rubber gloves, wrist-deep in a sudsy sink—but it was so out of the blue that she knew exactly what I meant.
She said, “I can imagine myself packing my things up. Sometimes when I’m downstairs doing the laundry, I can smell the cardboard boxes in the basement, the ones stacked in the corner, one inside the other. After a heavy rain, I check to see if they’ve gotten wet, if they’re still intact. I won’t be needed forever.” She turned to me, soapy gloved hand on one hip. “It’s funny to me, though, how we all trade places,” she said. “My mother is now my daughter, right? And Dilworth is the needy one, stripped of his assets like an aging beauty queen,” she said. “I’m finally the mother and the dentist too, I guess. I should take up golf.” And then she went back to her dishes. “I’m taken with the idea of the future, though, aren’t you? It’s a new concept for me.” I didn’t know what she meant exactly, but I was in love with the future myself, and I could see us both leaning into it.
Mitzie lives across the street at the Worthingtons during the week and with my mother on weekends, as if my mother and the Worthingtons are divorced, and I guess my mother did divorce something like the Worthingtons anyway, something like normalcy, something like the smell of the Pichards’ house, mothballs and soup. I haven’t seen the Pichards since I left Baltimore, probably won’t ever see them again, and I haven’t seen my father since his baseball cap flipped off his head on the train. And Janie, no, not her either, except, of course, when I’m fantasizing.
Sometimes there’s a happy ending, one that you didn’t expect and maybe don’t quite believe, but that you can try to hold on to. Imagine us like this, the last weekend of summer, Labor Day. We’re huddled around an overturned dirt patch near my mother’s rhododendron, the spot where I’d buried Mr. Pichard’s boxed-up buckle shoes earlier in the day, and have since told everyone that it is the dead body of my grandmother’s bird Cheep-Cheep in the Nescafé jar. I don’t know why I chose the buckle shoes to bury except that maybe I’ve given up on something too, the idea that some things never change, never wear out, the idea that you can have a simple set of rules to live by, and they’ll see you through. My mother and grandmother are sitting in lawn chairs in the front yard, Mitzie, cross-legged on the ground in front of the grave, wearing a swimsuit although she hasn’t been swimming. Dilworth is inside, watching from his spot by the window. I say a prayer about eternity and all of us being united in heaven. I say it the way I remember Miss Nebraska does, solemnly, in her Miss Congeniality speech on the reel-to-reel, And God bless you all. I’m standing behind my mother and grandmother, almost the man of the house now—even though it’s bullshit, it feels right—my hands on the backs of their lawn chairs like I’m steering the two wheels of a ship. And soon we’re watching Mitzie dance, an interpretive dance for the long-lost soul of Cheep-Cheep, with sparklers left over from the Fourth of July that none of us remember because it was back before any of this shit happened when we were all kind of blind. She twirls them over her head and spins with her arms wide open around and around until she looks like a carnival ride. We clap for her and this makes her supremely happy because she’s making us happy. She’s just a kid, the sweetest
, so sweet that I could cry, but I don’t. Things will change for her, for all of us, because from now on things will always be different. We’re all aware of what’s around us, like the steam off the street now that dusk is settling in, like the crickets screaming in the thick grass and the lightning bugs rising up, their fragile chests glowing, on and then off and then on again. We clap and clap, and if someone—a neighbor walking a dog, say—passes our house, or Mrs. Worthington pauses in front of her screen door, waiting for Mitzie to be her little girl again, we smile and wave, all four of us together, in unison, our cupped hands swiveling like royalty, Dilworth included, not waving, of course, but nodding from his spot by the window; and it’s as if we’re in motion, traveling into some future, like we’re careening along on a parade float, the perfect American family.
The Miss America Family
Julianna Baggott
A Readers Club Guide
About This Guide
The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for discussion for Julianna Baggott’s The Miss America Family. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Many fine books from Washington Square Press feature Readers Club Guides. For a complete list, or to read the Guides online, visit http://Readinggroups.SimonandSchuster.com/.
Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion
1. In one of the few conversations Ezra has with his father, we hear Russell comment, “I think your mother is unknowable, a beautiful mystery, always.” In what ways do you find this to be true about Pixie? Do you think that anyone, even Ezra, truly knows her? Do you think Pixie knows herself? How does this observation from Russell inform our reading of many of the relationships in this story? To what extent do you think the various characters are trying desperately to know themselves, each other, and their families? Are their attempts successful?
2. Julianna Baggott shows the power that sexuality has to change, alter, and shape human relationships. Although all the characters struggle in some capacity with their views of sex and intimacy, Ezra especially is a true-to-life sketch of a boy coming into his own without much guidance from family or role models. Not only is Ezra introduced to his own budding feelings of desire through his interaction with Janie Pickering, but his father’s homosexuality is tossed in his lap unexpectedly and without ceremony. What did you think of Ezra’s reaction to his father’s sexual orientation? Why do you think he questions his own sexuality to the degree that he does?
3. Discuss the ways that Pixie views her beauty as a weapon of sorts, something that gives her power over men and, in her mind, levels the playing field between the sexes. What do you make of the fact that she sees men as “soft”?
4. The concept of motherhood is a complex one in this novel, and, in the case of Ezra and Pixie, it is often difficult to decipher who is acting as the mother and who as the child. To what degree do you think Ezra’s development has been affected by his need or desire to act as a mothering influence for Pixie? In what ways do you think his intelligence and his acute ability to grasp the emotional complexity of certain situations is due to this dynamic between him and his mother? Is it because he has, in essence, acted as a mother that he seems so adult in his thinking?
5. At one point Pixie states, “Only a good mother knows how to kill; the baby’s born and suddenly there are talons, claws, teeth you never knew were there.” But what else, besides protection, does Pixie seem to value about motherhood? Did you find this quote hypocritical, as Pixie often seems to cause Ezra pain rather than protect him from it? Do you think Pixie would consider herself a good mother?
6. Pixie’s mother washes away the truth about who attacked her in the same way that Dilworth tells Mitzie that Pixie shot him by accident. How do parents facilitate lies, half-truths, and misconceptions in this novel?
7. How do the “rules” that open the chapters inform your read of the novel itself? As an exercise to better understand what they may represent, write out the chapter titles separately from the chapters on a sheet of paper, separated by character. Do you see these rules as a kind of distillation of the themes that each chapter focuses on? How do Ezra’s rules differ in nature from Pixie’s chapter titles? How are they similar?
8. Look at the way Ezra interacts with the different men he encounters in the story. The dynamic he shares with them seems so strained, yet there are moments when he connects with them in ways that he can’t with women—think of the scene between him and Dilworth after the Janie Pickering incident and after Dilworth’s attempted-suicide scene. In what ways do men seem to occupy spaces in this novel that women can never enter? How does the dynamic between males seem to be different than the dynamic between women?
9. We get the sense that Pixie cannot and will not ever let a man, with the exception of Ezra perhaps, into her emotional world. For her, they are utilitarian: people who can provide her with status, goods, and material well-being. Are there instances in this novel where women and men seem to be truly connecting on a deeper level? Does this seem impossible due to the societal restraints placed on male-female relationships?
10. Early on in the novel, Pixie says, “Life, as far as I could tell, was as much about faking things as it was anything else.” In what ways does this quote ring true as this story plays out? Do the characters ever free themselves from the roles that they are expected to play?
11. Russell is a somewhat elusive but fascinating character. Do you think that Ezra reaches some kind of peace regarding his father by the end of the novel?
12. Do you think this novel ends on a positive note? What do you envision for the characters ten years down the road? Where do you see Ezra?
A Conversation with Julianna Baggott
Q. You do an amazing job delving into Ezra’s thoughts, fears, desires, and emotions in this novel. He grapples with sex, growing up, sexuality, and parental insanity with surprising wit and intelligence. Was it a challenge for you to write from the point of view of a young man? Did you toy with any points of view other than Ezra’s and Pixie’s?
A. It’s a relief to write from a male perspective. I’ve found it particularly hard, in our society, to write a funny woman—it was one of the greatest challenges of writing Girl Talk. A floundering man is perceived as funny, but those same readers would say that a floundering woman is irresponsible; she’s putting herself at risk, and that isn’t funny. Also, I’ve found that writing from a male perspective isn’t as politically charged as writing from a female perspective. The decisions of a woman somehow take on the weight of a feminist argument, but the decisions of a man in a novel seem to be taken more easily as the decisions of one man, an individual. So Ezra allowed me to write with a lot of humor. That being said, I wanted to explore the pressures on a boy coming of age in our culture, the rigid guidelines of manliness that boys in our society are forced to follow. I pushed Ezra to a point where he felt there were only two options: murderer or faggot. Ezra allowed a balance for Pixie, who, despite her claims to the contrary, is the most deeply feminist character I’ve ever written.
Originally, the novel was to have five points of view, but Ezra and Pixie made it clear, early on, that the story really resided with them and was theirs to tell.
Q. The struggle between different age groups (like the Pichards versus Richard in this novel) is central to much of your work. Talk about the tensions that you see between younger and older generations in America. Do you think it is possible for families to find peace in light of generational differences?
A. I think that multigenerational living is one of the greatest advantages I’ve had in my life. It’s the primary reason that I live in Delaware, where my children are being raised by three older generations. It’s one of the ways that we know who we are, where we come from, and the great strides that need to be made into the future. I worry about the trend toward long-distance family relationships, all of the history that is being lost. Loc
ally, I’ve set up memoir-writing workshops for older adults. And my conviction about the importance of preserving oral history has certainly fueled the writing of my third novel, The Madam, which is based on family stories.
I love Mr. and Mrs. Pichard, the failed attempt at denying their love of Richard, and how he knows the truth of their love. I was raised in a family where it was a struggle, but ultimately accepted and encouraged, to be openly gay. I adore Richard for not pretending, for being who he is, and for his acceptance of his parents’ sad limitations.
Q. Ideas of female beauty, strength, and power dominate this novel, often in contradictory forms. Pixie, someone who may not appear particularly strong from the outside, shows herself to be a commanding presence and an unstoppable force by the end of the story. Even though Pixie does not consider herself a feminist, do you consider her to be one? How do you feel about beauty pageants?
A. Pixie is an ultra-feminist but, like many American women, has felt excluded by the term. Why . . . because she’s a housewife, because she’s an ex—beauty queen who still puts a lot of effort into her appearance, because she’ll feign weakness to get what she wants for herself and her family. Pixie dislikes feminists because she feels misunderstood by them, and yet Pixie is a militant feminist, really, one who believes all women should be armed.
Before I started interviewing beauty-pageant contestants, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was aware of the obvious stereotypes, but instead, again and again, I found these women to be smart, witty, savvy, and ultimately powerful.
Q. What inspired you to write The Miss America Family?
A. In doing the research for Girl Talk, I came across the first Miss America protests. The clash intrigued me. I also had three short stories, “Ogden Stocker’s Back Yard,” “Finding Janie Pinkerton,” and “Issie Pitkoff’s Moon Women.” I found that I wanted to further investigate those characters and situations.