Metro Pulse/Pulp/Fran Dorf, Amy Bloom

Comment
on this story

Women probe the essentials of life

by Jeanne McDonald

Most people are fascinated by the idea of Satan, even if they don't believe in him, but Billy Graham, expert-in-residence, says Satan is a palpable force in our lives. Whatever we call him—Lucifer, Devil, demon—the chaos and evil in the world must emanate from somewhere, so we might as well blame it on him.

I think I've encountered Satan at least once, maybe twice, in my life—the first time at an afternoon party where he masqueraded as a physician. When I sat down beside him in the only empty chair in a crowded room, he turned to look at me, and a putrid smell, like something rotting, suddenly filled my nostrils. I rushed outside and stood in the sunlight until my heart stopped pounding, and when, cautiously, I ventured back inside, he was gone. The second time I ran into Satan, he was beautiful, smiling and smelling of Old Spice and desire.

But Satan has many forms, as Fran Dorf illustrates in her Faustian novel, Saving Elijah (Putnam, $25.95). The book's tormentor, whom the author alternately calls "ghost" or "spirit," makes a deal with the narrator, Dinah Rosenberg Galligan, to save her comatose five-year-old son Elijah in exchange for warming himself in Dinah's voluptuous body. And not just once, but for the rest of her life. "Ghosts are always cold," he whines.

When the ghost's dire predictions begin to prove true, she folds. The bargain having been struck, her son not only wakes up, but now has the ability to read people's minds and to heal the sick, simply by whispering in their ears. Dorf's Satan, based on the old Judaic image of accuser and critic of man, turns out to be the incarnation of Dinah's former college lover, Lucien, who secretly filmed their lovemaking to make pornographic films and murdered a fellow student who had warned Dinah against him. Playing on her grief and terror, Satan/Lucien manages to convince Dinah that Elijah's coma has been caused by her own guilt about past offenses in her life, and Dinah's subsequent breakdown destroys both her marriage and her practice in psychological therapy.

When I handed Dorf one of her books to sign for me at a recent writers' conference, she paused, pen in the air. "Are you sure you want to read it?" she asked. "It's disturbing." Earlier, when she said the novel was based on a true experience of hers, I confided that my own son had once been in a coma for six days following a sledding accident. The outcome was much happier, though, than for Dorf's child, and she refuses to talk about the parallels between her own tragedy and the book's.

Although she dwells too long on flashbacks, Dorf has painted Satan brilliantly: "He occupied space but seemed to have no weight or mass, and...I noticed that when he spoke or moved any part of him, his mouth, his arm, his head, the outline of him mingled with the air, as if it were dissolving, then rippled outward in concentric circles. . . ." Some might call Dinah's experience post traumatic stress syndrome; others might believe that evil can indeed make itself visible.

In Amy Bloom's compelling book, A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You (Random House, $22.95), illness is also a frequent theme, but with Bloom's luminous, transcendent style, the stories are uplifting rather than depressing. When I first opened the book, I thought it was a novel, because even though I looked back at the cover and saw the finely stenciled word "stories" at the bottom, the writing felt novelistic, with its detailed characterizations and intricate plots. One particularly moving story, "Rowing to Eden," concerns Mai, a woman who has lost her breast to cancer. Because I was reading this while a beloved friend was experiencing the same trauma, I came to appreciate even more my friend's enduring bravery and cheerfulness. I knew she had lost her hair, I knew she had spent countless days in bed, but I never knew the details of her treatments until Amy Bloom told me: "'Oh, Jesus, the hot packs,' Mai says. This is the only thing that eases the burning of the Taxol. Once they have been through the saline and the Benadryl and the Zoloft, it's time to get down to business, and the business of Taxol is a small well of fire at the point of entry, shooting up Mai's arm like a gasoline trail."

These stories seem extraordinary, but they are things that happen every day to ordinary people—a woman whose baby dies; a mother whose daughter has surgery to change her sex; a young man who falls in love with his stepmother. Ultimately, they are all about love and how we chase after it throughout our lives, sometimes limping, sometimes running as fast as we can.