Holy living author, Batman! This week, the gang chats what else is a rose, the fine line between empowerment and obsession, horror that refuses to explain itself, and why the best beer names are meal-themed. Plus, adaptation what-ifs, the depth of fences, and fresh evidence that the creepiest things are usually hiding in plain sight! Welcome to Whiskey and the Weird, a podcast exploring the British Library Tales of the Weird series! This season, we're pondering what could have been with our ninth book in the vast collection, Roads of Destiny: And Other Tales of Alternative Histories and Parallel Realms, edited by Alasdair Richmond. In this episode, our featured story is: The Rose Wall by Joyce Carol Oates.
Bar Talk (our recommendations):
Jessica is reading Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke; drinking a PBR Tall Boy.
Damien is reading I Know a Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours by Nat Cassidy; drinking Maine Beer Company Lunch IPA.
Ryan is reading No Ordinary Bird by Artis Henderson; drinking Cynar Manhattan with chocolate bitters.
If you liked this week’s story, watch Requiem for a Dream (2000; dir. Darren Aronofsky)
Up next: "Branch Line to Benceston" by Sir Andrew Caldecott
Special thank you to Dr Blake Brandes for our Whiskey and the Weird music!
Like, rate, and follow! Check us out @whiskeyandtheweird on Instagram, Threads & Facebook, and at whiskeyandtheweird.com
Ryan: [00:00:00] My shelves are filled with women writers I love My thing, my, my thing is
Jess: I don't even care if they write.
Ryan: My shelves are filled with women.
Jess: I've got binders of them.
Damien: Yeah, you gotta clear that out, brother, especially if you're gonna sell your house. Seriously, that's, that's really tacky. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm Jessica Burke.
Damien: And I'm Damien Smith.
Ryan: And together we're Whiskey and the Weird, the podcast that for the past eight seasons has been bringing you unrivaled literary critiques of the best of yesteryear's weird fiction- Yes, we have ... as collected in the British Library's Tales of the Weird series.
Each season, we have journeyed together through one edition of this now voluminous series, and each episode we've turned to one story for in-depth discussion, but never along the table of contents' prescribed path.
Damien: Prescribed
Ryan: path. If you don't want the story [00:01:00] spoiled, make sure you take the road less traveled and read ahead.
Alternatively, our summaries will do the job for you. This season, we were fated to pluck the strings of the multiverse as we take a dimensional left at the corner of reality to trek through Roads of Destiny, and other tales of alternative histories and parallel realms. Edited by Alistair Richmond. But look there, through the fog.
Is that a, a road sign? With an arrow? But which way does it point, and to what time? Time or, or, or place, or where, where am I? Who put this rose in my lapel? Jessica, help.
Jess: Man, okay. Why don't we talk about The Rose Wall by, uh, fan favorite Joyce Carol Oates.
Ryan: What a [00:02:00] fortuitous choice, Jessica. Let us do that, but before we do, we've got some bar talk to do.
Damien, what are you drinking tonight? Okay, first of all, Jessica just went
Damien: into straight scratchy voice mode, which I love- I sure did You were like, "
Ryan: Hey, everybody. It's me, Jennifer Tilly."
Damien: Uh, so kudos on you and, Ryan, mentioning a rose in the lapel, that was very timely and pertaining to a certain play that I was just in, so well, well, well placed.
Okay. Well, thank you for asking. I got you. In my glass tonight is, I'm drinking a beer. I really wanted a beer, and I really wanted to drink it from my Teku glass, which is a little bit of a tulip with a flared out lip that's good for these kind of beers because I think it contains carbonation, it contains aromas and concentrates aromas, and because it's a stemmed glass, it keeps the beer at the right temperature.
And I'm drinking my, one of my favorite IPAs, I would say my favorite IPA, which is- Ooh ... Lunch by Main Beer Co. I knew you were gonna say Lunch. It's scrumptious, because you know me so well. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer Tilly. [00:03:00] And- It was
Ryan: I'm the Bride of Chucky
Damien: and it comes after just a long week and a long day, and I just wanted a good hearty beer.
So that's the Maine Beer Company's Lunch. If you haven't tried it or you can't find it, give it a go. It's delicious. Typically found retail shelves in a bomber bottle, so you get a full pint. They
Jess: sometimes have it at my local
Ryan: Trader Joe's. I've never heard of it or seen it. Yeah.
Damien: Well, here's the bottle.
You'll notice it's a very or- I like the basics of the name ... ornate label. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's a double IPA version with the same ingredients called Dinner, of course.
Ryan: Fair, yeah.
Damien: So, uh, that, that one's very rare. But Lunch is pretty easy to find in local taps around where I live in Boston. It is not as easy to find outside greater New England.
Ryan: Inquiring minds wanna know, Damien, do they sell a Breakfast?
Damien: No Breakfast.
Ryan: No Breakfast, okay.
Damien: No Breakfast. Breakfast beer? What are you, a rube? No, it sounds delicious actually. Coming up on the weekend. Uh, cool. As far as [00:04:00] what I've read recently... Okay, so I happen to really like Nat Cassidy's books. I read When The Wolf Comes Home, uh, read Mary.
I just finished that. When The Wolf Comes Home? Yeah. I haven't
Ryan: read any of his. I feel behind.
Damien: Oh, you are behind. Mary, Mary. Mary's good too. I had some issue, I think, as many of his critics said, "Why is a, you know, like, a cis white man w- writing about, you know, perimenopause and, like, menopause?"
But I think that was a portion of the story, but it wasn't the, the larger part. I really like his writing. I like the darkness of his tales. He released... I really wanted to read this novella of his called Rest Stop, and it was always sitting in my TBR pile. But then a recent collection came out called I Know a Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours.
Hmm. So it was the novella plus a number of short stories, and I thought, "What a great way to kill-" Perfect ... two literary birds with one stone. So I picked that baddy up, and I [00:05:00] gotta say, as we all know, I'm a huge fan of short fiction by Nathan Ballengette, by Paul Tremblay. I still feel to this day that Paul Tremblay's short fiction is better than his novels, you know, by volume, by weight.
And I will now add Nat Cassidy to that list because this was a fantastic collection of truly original, very, very, very dark and well-written stories. Rest Stop was- Is it brand new? Like, did it just come out? Yeah, I believe it just came out, I would say within the last six months. So again, that's I Know a Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours by Nat Cassidy.
I, normally I would say, "All right, there was a story about this, there was a story about that," but I'd rather you go in blind and just really truly be taken aback by some of the turns and how some of these pieces of short fiction with s- in such tight space can build up to a really nice reveal. And it didn't happen once, it didn't happen twice, it happened multiple times in this collection.
[00:06:00] So pick it up, give it a read. I think Nat Cassidy's a very talented author, and I truly, truly enjoyed this collection of short stories and one novella, I Know a Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours by Nat Cassidy. What about you, Jess? Cool.
Jess: I'm also having a beer because I feel like I've, you know, gotten in the habit of just like buying some random stuff and they're either good or weird or good or weird or both.
So-
Damien: I'd say your beer to whiskey ratio or your beer to other beverage ratio is about six-
Jess: Well, I think part of it is I have a child in daycare and so now buying novelty bottles of whiskey is suddenly less fun because they also sit on a shelf in the room where like the pack and play is. Right. Yeah. So as I'm looking at my child, I'm also looking at the hundreds of dollars I've spent on whiskey that I-
Ryan: Not to mention the empty bottles that serves as like a-
Jess: Oh yeah.
Mobile ...
Ryan: mobile over the nursery. The daycare sends notes home to Jessica's family, "We need more diapers." She's like, "That's, that's tough." Sorry. "That's, that's a lot of your [00:07:00] problem."
Jess: Sorry. I needed a little f- I need a little funny bottle of whiskey. So yeah, buying beer is just slightly more reasonable at this point.
So anyway, I'm having a PBR tall boy because, uh, why not? Why not drink- Yes ... something you like and you're happy with? And this is my preferred beer for, , gardening, and it is garden season. My garden's looking great already. So- Nice ... that's what I'm drinking. I also just read Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke- Okay
which is has been kind of a hot and trending book for the past couple months. It's a, it's a pretty new release, and it is about basically like a trad wife influencer who is suddenly transported back to like the 1800s, so is s- suddenly forced to like live a life So
Damien: gets everything they want.
Jess: Yeah. It, yeah, it's, it's...
Right.
Damien: Except, except high bandwidth Wi-Fi.
Jess: Right. So that's, that's the, you know, the biting satire of the story [00:08:00] is ha ha, you got it. And it's getting like mostly good but slightly mixed reviews, and I understand, you know, why people don't like it. But I had a, I had a good time with it. I'm, I'm endlessly fascinated with like trad wife fundie influencers who make millions of dollars with their job while telling women they shouldn't have jobs and having kids for content and that kind of stuff.
And this book is a good... It's, it's not the most like in-depth, thoughtful thing, but it's kind of like, you know, the Barbie movie where like if you're- Sure ... if you're a pro at feminism, like you- Mm-hmm ... might be like, "Yeah, okay, it's a little surface-y." But also like there's a lot of people who that was the first, you know, the Barbie movie- Right
was the first time they've ever heard anyone complain about how hard it is to be a mother. You know, like, so you meet people where they are, and I think this does a really good job of, of introducing the like unlikable hypocrisy and hollowness of just sort of [00:09:00] like what goes into this bajillion dollar industry of people running a fake cattle farm for content.
Damien: That's not a real, that's not a real number. There's no such thing as a bajillion.
Jess: No, the, this one's real. It's a bajillion.
Damien: Okay. All right.
Cool.
Jess: Hey, Ryan, what are you drinking?
Ryan: Hey.
Damien: Ryan, are you tradwifing these days
Ryan: or what? I'm not tradwifing, no. I, I'm drinking a delicious drink tonight.
I'm, I've actually been excited to talk about this, uh, during all the pre-show. So, He has four drinks ... I'm drinking a, I'm drinking a, a Ch- Cynar Manhattan. Cynar? Nice. Yeah. Cynar? Yeah. So this is something that I've read a lot about recently. This is an amaro liqueur, an Italian amaro liqueur that's got artichoke as its base- Yeah
along with a lot of other herbal influences in there.
Damien: Don't get much more bitter than artichoke, that's for sure.
Ryan: It is. It, it is, does have a bitter touch to it, but here's, here's the secret to this Manhattan. So you're, you're gonna use a rye whiskey, three parts rye, half part sweet vermouth, half part [00:10:00] Cynar.
and then you're gonna use chocolate bitters, which the sweetness- Ooh ... of that chocolate smooths out the bitter edges of, of the Cynar and creates a- Okay ... a luscious, indulgent, rich, desserty Manhattan- Oh
uh, which- My goodness ... if, if we were live right now, you could see the depth of, of the, the- And we could ... the color
Damien: and- That is a mahogany if I've ever seen one.
Ryan: Yeah, it is a beautiful mahogany. My stars. And there are two beautiful cherries down there in the bottom of that glass just waiting- What's your brandy cherry of choice?
on me to find it. Amarena. I like Amarenas.
Jess: Okay.
Ryan: I also have an enormous jar of them, so I think I'll like them for a while. Well, my-
Damien: What's available, that's my favorite.
Ryan: I, I also have a bottle, uh, somebody gave me a bottle as a gift of the Woodford Reserve brand, uh, brand of cherries. Okay, yeah. They're different.
I like them because they're, they're sort of big and meaty cherries- Okay ... but they don't have a ton of flavor like Amarenas or Luxardos do.
Damien: Cool.
Ryan: As for what I've been reading [00:11:00] I, I read this a little while ago, um, and I really, really liked this book.
This is a memoir called No Ordinary Bird by Artis Henderson.
Damien: Well, well, well, I know
that
woman.
Ryan: Damien knows her as well. So Damien and I went to, uh, school with Artis for a number of years. This is Artis's second book that she's published. The first one was called Unremarried Widow. Both were excellent, but the newest one, No Ordinary Bird, is garnering some awards and some praise.
It, it's, uh, won at least two awards so far, and most recently it won the 2026 Memoir Burk- Book Award for the American Society of Journalists. Artis tells a little bit of her story in, in this book, which begins with a plane crash. She was five years old and was in a single engine airplane crash with her father, and her father was the pilot.
Her father was killed, and Artis was severely injured. They, for a while, didn't know if she would make [00:12:00] it. Now, as kids, I knew this part of the story because we were friends with Artis and, and she was, you know, freely spoke about it, but-
Damien: Yeah ...
Ryan: we knew that she was in a plane crash. We knew that she had a back injury.
That's all, that's all we knew about it. It, it turns out that her father And she didn't learn this for many years, so she didn't know this at the time that we all knew each other. But her father was a significant player in the drug importation business.
Jess: Fascinating.
Ryan: You know, marijuana though, not a real drug.
Mari- yeah, marijuana. And-
Jess: I was gonna say, what are you doing toodling around in a little plane?
Ryan: Just made-
Jess: Sometimes it has a purpose ...
Ryan: an absolute fortune doing this. So Artis referred to their island home, their vacation home, the home in the Bahamas that was purchased with all this drug money. Sure. And so what she does with the story that's so skillful is it could, it could really just be a salacious story, right?
My life with my dad, the drug runner.
Damien: Right.
Ryan: But she tells, she tells the story in such a way that you get a, you get a view of [00:13:00] it through the eyes of a child. This was her dad, her dad who loved her- Right ... whom she loved, who cared for, provided for, and protected their family. And it, and it really is a, kind of a, a gut-wrenching story in certain parts of it, especially, especially towards the end when she starts going back and seeing some of these places that she used to visit and, and meeting with some of the people that used to come around the house after she's learned who her father was.
And, and I'm not, I'm not certain that she knows the complete story even herself-
Jess: Sure ...
Ryan: even, even now
Damien: of what went on. I mean, I think the complete story passed with her father, you know? Yeah. So it's just one of those things, right?
Ryan: Yeah. And there's a lot of question as to why the, the airplane crashed, and that's all part of it too.
Damien: Oh, really?
Ryan: So yeah.
Damien: Interesting.
Ryan: He was a, he was an expert aviationist, and the a- official reason for why the airplane crashed was that it ran out of fuel. And everybody that knew him said and, and would testify to the fact that there's no way he would've taken off if there was a question of the amount of fuel- Right
certainly not with his daughter- Yowzers ...
Damien: in,
Ryan: in the back. [00:14:00] So lots of interesting stuff. It's a short, short little read, quick read, but really a fascinating story, and I'm just... I'm proud of our friend
Damien: for writing a couple of books. I'm proud
Ryan: of our friend too. Yeah. It's
Damien: one of two of our high school friends I know who have published fairly lauded books in the literary circles contemporary.
Yeah, Annabelle's the other one. Annabelle Tomich. Yeah, is the other one. Congratulations to you, Artis, and if you're listening, we love you. And, uh- Yeah, absolutely ... this, we- it's super, super proud of your success here. P.S. nothing that Ryan really said here is a drastic giveaway, as the subtitle to No Ordinary Bird is Drug Smuggling, a Plane Crash, and a Daughter's Quest for the Truth.
That's right. So be mindful that he wasn't really taking you deep through the arc, okay?
Ryan: No, that's page, page one, I think.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: But please give it, give it a read. No Ordinary Bird by Artis Henderson. Well, friends, that's what we're drinking, that's what we're reading. I'm glad to be holding down the whiskey portion of the event tonight.
And now we're gonna get into our author and publication info. Joyce Carol Oates [00:15:00]
Jess: Was a ...
Ryan: a prolific American novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, essayist, and professor of creative writing. Although I'm sure it's par for the course for her, it is unusual for our podcast that she is still alive.
Jess: Have we-
Ryan: This is true ...
Jess: how many alive folks have we covered?
Ryan: Well, we've done several for our specials, but I'm not sure all together that many- For- ... for our regular seasons. Yeah. Yeah. I don't
Jess: think so.
Ryan: This, she may be the first. Well, congrats, Joyce Carol Oates. And this, this volume at least does- Keep it up
does dip into more modern times towards the end, quite, quite regularly, so. She was born in Lockport, New York, on June the 16th, 1938, the eldest of three. Her family's situation was somewhat spare but steady. She was educated in the same one-room schoolhouse as her mother, and took to reading early and often.
Her grandmother Blanche gave her a typewriter for her 14th [00:16:00] birthday, and her writing career commenced forthwith. Oates' early years contained an unusual amount of violence and trauma, both themes we'll find readily in her writing. Indeed, much of her horror fiction is tinged with a level of realistic violence that one could easily term disgusting.
Other topics that appear repeatedly in her writing include poverty, sexual abuse, class tension, rural living, girlhood, and desire. She's won just about every award there is to win, and her bibliography is itself exhausting to read.
Damien: You weren't kidding when you said prolific.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah. There's a lot. In her personal life, she has been married and widowed twice.
Her first husband she met in graduate school, Raymond Smith, and they were married in 1961. In [00:17:00] early 2008, he died from pneumonia, and Oates grieved his loss profoundly, even stating that through it she came to understand that her relationship with him was even more primary in her life than her writing.
Damien: I guess it was a, it was a question up until then.
Ryan: She then married fellow professor Charles Gross in 2009, and they enjoyed 10 years together before he died in 2019. Another interesting note I read about her personal life is that she has an autistic sister who is institutionalized, whom Oates has apparently not seen in over 50 years.
Damien: Wow
Ryan: Who knows what's behind that?
I just found it an interesting fact. Hmm. Oates-
Damien: Way to dangle that carrot there, Ryan.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. I, I couldn't, I couldn't tell you more, nor would I feel comfortable speculating.
Damien: There's an autistic institutionalized sister she hasn't seen in five decades, and [00:18:00] that's all I'm gonna say about that. That's right.
Yeah. And moving on.
Ryan: Oates maintains an active, if oft times bizarre, online presence. At the age of 87, she is still writing and maintaining her seven to eight hour workday at her writing desk every single day. That's incredible. It's, it's remarkable.
Jess: Let's
Ryan: go,
Damien: JCO.
Ryan: Our story tonight. Our story tonight, The Rose Wall, first appeared in the April 1981 edition of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone magazine, edited by T.E.D.
Kline, a name that will be familiar no doubt to many of you. And that's gonna take us to our summary, which Jess has for us this evening.
Jess: Whoa. I sure do. Get ready. Get ready for this.
Ryan: She's writing it as we speak. Here we go.
Jess: Fran-
Ryan: All right.
Jess: Uh, let me crack open this book. Folks, it's been a [00:19:00] long week. Okay, so we open on a gal reminiscing about a rose wall, maybe the rose wall?
She grew up in a house with a big, ugly, but pretty easily ignorable granite wall surrounding the whole property. The only part of it that was worth looking at was a section at the base of the garden that was covered in roses: red, pink, yellow, et cetera. The granite wall also had a big, heavy front gate and was topped with big spikes.
When our narrator, as a little girl, asked the nursemaid, "Hey, what's up with the spikes?" She was told they were there th- because they'd always been there. She tries to get a better answer, but her servant, who of course wasn't very bright, just mumbled for her to ask someone else or maybe ask them yourself.
So she asks her mother, who has no idea what she's talking about, and she remembers her dad saying that the families that live in their [00:20:00] neighborhood all have similar houses. She can tell from looking out of the nursery that they're in the hilly rich person district, and all the similar houses have similar walls.
She also sees a cathedral, orange tiled roof, and a lake. If it's clear, they can sometimes see an old castle in the distance Anyway, our narrator had a childhood with too many servants to keep straight. They came, they went, they spoke a million different weird languages and did a million different things around the house.
Some lived within the walls in, like, the servants' wing. Others came and went through the back servants' gate. All were stupid, she thought, and all of them talked weird. There were also some less stupid, like, tutors, a piano teacher, and even assorted priests from the cathedral, uh, the cathedral that they visited a couple of times a week for mass.
Plus, they had deliveries- They were definitely less stupid ... all the time of flowers and special little treats. [00:21:00] "You're so lucky," everyone said. "Blessed. What an amazingly lucky life." She was told that God had blessed their family by an old woman servant who was actually looking at her, a thing which did not happen regularly because everyone ignored the children.
The servant gave her a locket with a picture of a little girl in it to look at, but, like, the narrator didn't know what she was supposed to do with that. One time, a laundry woman told our narrator that her family and her soldiers have hurt other little girls. The laundry woman was crying and repeating herself, telling a pretty horrific story about a little girl whose family was dead in some rubble while she was assaulted by soldiers.
The narrator obviously didn't know what she was talking about and didn't wanna hear any of it, and started crying, which scared the servant, and of course, that servant was never seen again.
Damien: Ugh.
Jess: Our narrator's parents are obviously rich, used to really nice things, and didn't really seem to like each other, but they also didn't see [00:22:00] each other that often, so whatever, it doesn't matter.
It was her father that told her she could only leave the walls if she was with one of them. They went to church and visited other families, but they didn't leave by themselves, and they had a pretty rad setup behind their walls, so, like, none of the kids were that bothered. The garden gate was always, always kept locked except for when it wasn't.
Was? And one day it wasn't, or maybe the lock broke. The kids are obviously happy in the walls, but they're also testing all of the locks and gates like little velociraptors. The rose-covered gate opened up, and our narrator snuck out. She might have heard someone behind her, so she took off running. She'd only been on the cobblestones, like, around the house before in a car, never on foot, but she follows the blank outside granite wall and runs.
She runs downhill until she's out of breath and makes it to a busy intersection. No one is following her, [00:23:00] and she's excited to explore the city. So she does. It's noisy and busy and smelly, and she walks and walks. Eventually she finds a lagoon, and she sees people feeding big, like, greasy geese
Damien: That's, that's a disgusting description What came out?
Is that what was coming out? Yeah. I believe it was a grease-breasted goose
Jess: Whatever. Very funny. But she sees people f- feeding these greasy geese, and then she realizes, like, she's pretty hungry, and so maybe it's time to head home. She heads back up the hill, and she knows that, like, her mother's gonna be worried 'cause she took off, but her grandmother will forgive her as soon as she knocks on the gate.
But she can't find the gate, and she can't tell which walls are hers. She panics, banging on any gate she can find, running her hands over the walls until they bleed. And it's dark now. It's been hours or maybe days? Everyone is suddenly wearing winter coats, and she's stealing bread from the birds [00:24:00] as soldiers throw pennies at her.
Also, she's filthy. Finally, she sees someone who looks like her father. It must be him. With an uncle, of course it's him. But when she yells for them, they act like they don't hear her at all. And when her father looks at her, it's with no recognition. But he throws a gold coin at her, not just a penny. She grabs at it and screams as they get into a carriage and leave her behind.
She takes her gold coin into a chocolate shop and orders a plate of little cherry cakes using her best manners. The other cafe patrons stare at her, 'cause she's disgusting, as she greedily and grubbily eats her cakes. She was very hungry, but then she's never lacked appetite. The end.
Damien: The end. The end. I do challenge you on whether it was truly a gold coin, though.
A box of cakes. Maybe it was, like, one of those chocolate ones. I, I think it was a penny. Anyway.
Ryan: Interesting.
Jess: To discuss.
Ryan: To be [00:25:00] discussed. TBD. Well, let us get to it. I'm gonna take you to a particular page right away, which is page 314. Look at this guy. The servants of our protagonist's household are described as others, having a different, or at least a different enough, language.
This is, this is, at first, a clarifying question, and then, and then maybe something a little deeper. Do you think these servants come from the other side of the wall? Is that the impression you get?
Jess: Yes
Damien: Yes. I was gonna say, you know, other side of the wall, wall being tracks, wall being a symbol of- Right ... a great, you know, social divide, yes.
Ryan: Right. But are, are they coming, are these people coming from the other world or realm?
Damien: I... Well, I mean, I mean, I guess that depends on your interpretation of if there truly exists another realm- I see. Uh-huh ... or if this is- Right ... if this is a true, like, social divide, and it just goes [00:26:00] to show that by spending any consequential amount of time, you, you become subsumed by that environment.
So yes, I believe that's how they're referred. They're segmented as such- Okay ... and-
Ryan: So this gets to the heart of the matter then, right? So one way of interpreting this story is that this is a parallel realm indeed, and the other way of looking at it is it's, it's just so different from her wealthy existence.
Perhaps other, these others are speaking in, in a different, you know, more rural or more impoverished dialect that, that doesn't sound to her like proper speech. So it was- Right. Yeah. Right. You have to decide which way you're gonna read the tale. Right. Because if, if they are come... If it is a parallel realm, and this is, this is an argument for, I guess, the other way of interpreting the story.
If it is a parallel realm, then the fact that they're coming from it suggests that there is a way back to her world from this other world. Right. Right. And if that's the case, then why doesn't she find it, or why doesn't she use it if she does know where it is?
Damien: Well, I [00:27:00] would, I would say that she intentionally runs away from it and distances herself culturally, physically, whatever, enough to where she can no longer return.
Ryan: She can't come back because she's, she's now seen too much of the difference.
Jess: And if she came back, would the capacity be like now she could come back as a servant because- Right ... spoiled, she's- Mm ... outside of the walls. She's-
Damien: Right ...
Jess: she's no longer-
Damien: Tainted That is a very- You know, tainted ... that is a very
Ryan: charitable reading of her.
Damien: You know, the other is that- I'm intrigued. Yeah ... when, when she comes back and she's searching for that e- re-entry and comes across that door, you know, that she can't get in, and then curls up and goes to sleep, and then wakes up sometime later. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Maybe she never woke up, you know? There's... I think there's...
This, this story is particularly, like, rich and deep in, in what ifs. And so-
Ryan: Yeah,
Damien: there's
Ryan: a lot of open-ended corridors here. There's a lot
Damien: of openness. Yeah. There's a lot of openness, yeah. I mean, coming in and having the last thing that I read by Oates being her novel Zombie, which was all about, like, Jeffrey Dahmer- [00:28:00] Mm-hmm
and, you know, lobotomizing lovers just to see them die or whatever. Got to do what you gotta do. That I was expecting, I was expecting more of a macabre outcome. And so I was, I was going in thinking every, every development in the story was gonna lead to something, like, really, really, really deeply- Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm ... down a rabbit hole.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Damien: And so maybe that's why I went in with that mindset. And then it
Ryan: doesn't. Yeah, so yeah. Yeah.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: It's a f- I mean, at least from what I've read of Oates too, this is a pretty tame narrative.
Damien: Yeah. I would agree.
Ryan: Well, Jess, a certain xenophobia is present in the story, wouldn't you say?
And perhaps that's even class-based. I'll leave that for you to pick up. Are you asking Jess a class... What a novel approach. Funny. My, my, my real question here, it... And yeah, this, this, this gets at, at another heart of the matter. Is this a xenophobia you think Oates is writing against, or do you think it's creeping into the story- Ooh, interesting
from [00:29:00] her?
Jess: No, I mean, just how glaringly obvious it is. It seems a critique of the family and, and little girl, that it's just like, oh my God, these smelly, horrible weirdos with their, like, boiled hands and their disgusting languages. Like, it's, it's so- And
Damien: their tales of gang SA, you know?
Jess: Yeah. From the soldiers.
Like, it's, it's so over the top that it, it seems a pretty, like, direct critique of how this, like, family is raising this little girl, and I assume the other kids, mys- the mysterious other little velociraptors running around.
Ryan: Damian, what do you make of, of this class phobia?
Damien: Yeah, I mean, uh, yeah, I would, I would agree.
It's... But that also comes being victim of knowing a little bit something about our author, seeing as how she's still up and kicking. And, you know, knowing her, her drastic social takes and observations. Mm-hmm. And you can pretty clearly see what side of the eat the rich argument she's on. [00:30:00] And so therefore, I, I think it's probably easier to make that, or to draw that conclusion.
Plus, the way she writes our protagonist, quote, unquote, is, is pretty scathing in ways that seem innocuous and just run-of-the-mill day-to-day behavior for her, but are really just ab- absolutely horrendous and horrific to, to see acted out. Just like these smelly people with their missing, keep them, uh, you know, boiled hands and stuff.
That's all an observation from this child who is looking at another human being and just noticing these imperfections- And that they're not- ... and seeing them as a lesser creature because of it.
Ryan: As a, as a different creature. Yeah. Yeah. And they're not individuals. It's
Damien: like they're a herd. Yeah, they're a mass.
Right. Yeah. It's, it's like a, it's like a colony. They're kind of like- It's like a reef, you know, of mollusks. It's like you're all part of one ecosystem, and you're just different extensions of it. It's, it's, it's pretty sad. But it's also not incredibly fictional. Even down to sharing teeth. Yeah.
Ryan: So Jess mentioned this in the summary, and I'm glad she did.
At the beginning, the protagonist, who, who goes unnamed through the whole story. Isn't that, is that right? Yeah. Yeah. [00:31:00] The little girl, she observes these sharp things atop the rose wall. Her nursemaid says that they were always there, but her mother doesn't seem to be aware that they exist. What, what do you think's going on with this?
Is, is her mother just, just so up in the rich cloud that she has no idea that there's these protective measures around her home?
Jess: Yeah. There's a scene that... It wasn't even a scene. There was, like, a half a sentence where sh- she's describing the view from the nursery where you can see the castle and the lake- I
Damien: like the skyline, yeah
Jess: yeah, all of this stuff, and how anyone who goes up there is always just like, "Oh my gosh, it's so beautiful." And the mom has a line where it's just like... 'oh, yes,' my mother or grandmother or one of my aunts would say, laughing. 'Oh, yes, certainly, from here.'" So, like- Mm-hmm ... they're aware of how, like, removed they are and that everything outside of their walls, like, is bad. Like, it looks okay from, from far away, from [00:32:00] up here in their protected little-
Damien: Yeah
castle. As a backlit outline, it's fine.
Jess: Yeah, yeah, yeah But, you know. It's fun to look at an old castle, but, like-
Damien: Right ...
Jess: no one lives there. No
Damien: one cared. Don't see how the sausage is made. Yeah. And maybe, maybe, maybe with that observation, like, like, you could say that it's because they never really noticed the wall, you know?
That the wall- Yeah, yeah ... is there mostly to keep things out, so they don't look at the elements of it. It could be that it was a part of just the construct. Like, are these literal sharp things? Is it an installed, you know- prevention measure to- Right ... prevent things from crawling over? Is it a part of, like, you know how they'll, they'll have jutting rocks on the top to prevent birds from alighting and other sort of- Or like a
Jess: broke- broken bottles-
Damien: Right, right
Jess: when you have to like DIY your own, like-
Damien: Mm-hmm ...
Jess: security fence.
Damien: Which I don't think that happens in this sort of a state, right?
Jess: No, but it's, it's that vibe where it's- It's that, yeah ... just like you are outside, I am-
Ryan: I was imagining, like, iron spear tip type of things. Yeah. Yeah.
Damien: Yeah. Yeah, like, in, like, omen movies where someone falls out and impales themselves on it, you know, after falling out of a church [00:33:00] window or something.
Ryan: When, when I took the job that I'm currently in and we moved to St. Petersburg, my son, this was eight years ago now, asked me a very penetrating question, which I, I was nervous to answer even. So as background, some people, you know, I'm assuming that the Venn diagram of people who are, are up with all the politics and polities of the Anglican Church and those who listen to this podcast is fairly small.
Host. Host. One. One. Yeah.
Jess: Just one guy in a circle maybe.
Ryan: So, so one of the, one of the benefits that I get with my position is that a house is provided for our use, and the reason for this is that most churches value their, their pastor living nearby. But they also recognize that with what they pay their pastor, their pastor in, in all likelihood cannot afford to live in the neighborhood where the church is located.
And this is, this is exponentially true in, in my case. And so most of the houses on the street that, that our church is on have big fences and, and walls [00:34:00] and gates across the driveways. One of them goes so far as to have a sign on their, on their fence, on their gate across their driveway that says, "My German shepherd can reach the fence in 1.7 seconds.
Can you?" So you, you get, you, you, you get a feel. Love that. You get a feel for the place. So we were walking the dog, and Jackson was noticing all these fences and all these gates, and he said, "Why does every house have a gate around it?" And I was like, "You, you've just asked this profoundly deep question that-
I'm not sure I'm prepared to answer in this moment." But, you know, it's like one of those parenting moments where you have to, and-
Damien: Yeah ...
Ryan: you know, I think I said something about, "Well, they, you know, they, they value their privacy, and they don't want people just coming up to the door that they don't know."
But it was, it was very curious to me that that was one of the first things he noticed about our new neighborhood. And also, it's,
Damien: you know, it's like a, it's like an [00:35:00] observation of, of density, right? Like, if everybody- Mm-hmm ... has a gate around their house, then why does anyone?
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah,
Damien: exactly. Jackson ahead of his time.
Ryan: Yeah.
Damien: What a philosopher. The, uh,
Ryan: the wall in our story is covered in roses, at least on the top. What do you think these roses symbolize? The title, the title of the story takes its name from these roses. So
Damien: these are important to Oates. Well, I thought w- wasn't it, like, just one section is really- Yeah, one section
dense
Ryan: with roses? Of the
Jess: where it's like
Ryan: a- Like, by the gate, by the fence there's a rose bush or something. Yeah. Yeah, by, by that gate. Yeah.
Damien: Right, right, right.
Ryan: What, what is Oates doing by putting these roses there on this dividing wall?
Jess: I think you mentioned it in your intro, but a lot of, a lot of Oates's writing is kind of like girlhood- Mm-hmm
coming out of girlhood. And I feel like perhaps the easiest way to represent a nice little pure girl in a, in a- Mm-hmm ... walled is [00:36:00] probably a little, you know, like, a little yellow rose.
Damien: Plus if the roses can, can ascend and overcome the wall. They grow up. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Damien: Why can't you, little one?
Ryan: I ga- it gave me very, serious Secret Garden vibes.
Damien: Yeah, Secret Garden vibes. Yeah. Yeah. Yep, yep, yep. Totally. But just in one section. The rest of it was jagged, brutal stone and-
Ryan: Right ... and spikes. Yeah. So, so you have this, this, this, this really neat conflation of beauty and, and then threat or menace. Right.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: Right? All in the same space.
Damien: Yeah. It's like a, it's like a perfect circle album.
Ryan: It's
Damien: just... Let's give a throwback. Way to go, Maynard. At
Ryan: the end of our story, the very last line of the book,
Damien: of the short story- Jess mentioned it. Jess, uh, Jess
Ryan: quoted it. Yeah, she did.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah. Jess, Jess preempted a lot of my questions tonight, which is awesome.
Damien: That's great. Good on you.
Ryan: To refresh everyone's memory- Finally pulling it out
the very last line, on page 325, says, "But then I have never [00:37:00] lacked appetite." And the choice to use this as the last line, I mean, I really did, I sat there shocked for a moment as I read that, because what it, what it did to me was it, it made me wonder if I understood the story at all.
Damien: Sh- yeah. I don't- That's a good, that's a good point.
Ryan: What, what is, what is she saying with this last line? What does this mean to you? What does this, what does this suggest? I, I'm not sure. I, I... If that's, if that line were left off the story, I would be like, "Yep, I got this one." I- But now I think I need to read it again ...
Damien: I think there's, there's a sliding scale of, of heft to this line.
I do think it was intentional, but I think it more or less refers to a curiosity, so an appetite for the unknown. Mm. An appetite for- Mm-hmm ... chicanery, for pushing boundaries, pushing limits discovery, and that's what happens. So it just, it just goes to show that just because she went through this experience where she hungered for what's on the other side of the wall, she broke through the barrier, she ran, she exuberantly ran away from what was familiar, [00:38:00] from anyone who could be chasing after her.
She went through some hardship, real, imagined, timeframe TBD. But at the end of the day, like, after all this went on, she was shunned by her father, who treated her like a stranger. And this is all through her perspective. Her uncle as well, people on the street looking at her as a vagabond, as a ragamuffin, as any other cool three or four-syllable word.
You know, that finally she gets this penny/gold coin, and what does she do? She goes to a fancy little patisserie candy shop- Right ... and sits down, enjoys this treat. She uses her best manners. She uses her mom's voice- Yeah ... to order. Yes, exactly. So she goes and basically, like, revisits what she was- in that effort and with the same zeal and fervor that she wanted to escape what she was.
Mm-hmm. So it just shows that it's cyclical. She's basically learned nothing.
Ryan: And so to me, to me that hunger- It
Damien: had such a
Ryan: sinister feel to it to me, though.
Damien: Yeah, sure. But, you know, I just, I, I think, I think the term hunger is good. Like, [00:39:00] I think it was used very deliberately. It was a very proficient use of it because you could go a million different directions with it.
But I truly think it was just, like, a need to consume something else. A grass is always greener on the other side reproach, and I need to experience it firsthand. That's what I took from it. Jess? Jess,
Ryan: you were summarizing the tale. What, what did you think the first time you read it, and did it change on the second, the second go through?
Jess: I think that I am probably coming into this having read the most Oates, especially a bunch of her short stories. And one of her probably, like, most anthologized one is called Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been? And-
Ryan: I've even heard that title before, yeah ...
Jess: it's, yeah, it's, it's in every collection of book, books that had, like, have anything to do with girlhood or growing up or anything.
Okay. And it's, it is a little bit like this where it kind of seems weird, but also it could be read very straightforward, and it's basically about, [00:40:00] like, a teenager meeting an older man, and she kind of knows what- is going to happen, but also kind of doesn't because she's only like 14 or 15. And, you know, it's, it's very similar to this one where it's, it's a character who, like, knows that, you know, if she wants to grow up, this is part of it, and she kind of has to choose to be in the world where terrible things happen.
Or, or you don't, or you stay in your castle, or y- I think that one, she's, you know, she just had a fight with her mother. You know, so you can kind of stay where you are, or if you're growing up
Damien: Or if you want the sweet things, you need to
Ryan: pay for them.
Jess: Yeah. Like, you, you have to, you have to get out of there.
Ryan: Okay. How, how is this different, though, from anyone's maturation process? Why is she different? It's not. It's not. That's the- Yeah, I think it's- Th- th- this [00:41:00] is the point, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Jess: Yeah. I think it's a universal thing. Like, I guess it's different in that, like, lots of people, including the mother in this story, are just like, "What wall?
What are you talking about?" Right. Uh-huh. "Everything here is great and we live here." Meanwhile, she's like, "Oh, I don't even notice the wall," while circling it and testing every door every time she walks by it, right? '
Damien: Cause she doesn't see the wall because the wall is literally just the end of her lively- is the end of her life The end of her world.
Yeah, the end of her world. Yeah. So there is... It's not what's on the other side. It's, it's the same reason she says, "Yeah, from here." Like, of course it is from here. Like, I couldn't tell you what it's like on the other end because- What other vantage point would
Ryan: there be?
Damien: Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.
Jess: So it's a, a...
Yeah, it's definitely, like, a coming of age story that's both-
Damien: From an
Jess: insular- ... pretty universal- Yeah ... and also, like, isn't, because you could just choose not to open the door. You could just stay inside.
Damien: Right.
Jess: And, and many people pick that option.
Damien: As children, though? Yeah. As- I mean, she's got a bunch of siblings
children that are going through a period of development, you know? Mm-hmm. That are... A period of self-awareness, a [00:42:00] period of external awareness. But, I mean, are there children... Do you think there's children who would choose not to go through the gate?
Jess: Yeah.
Damien: And literally none of them have gone through the gate. Well- Yeah. Well, there- Or maybe they have. And maybe they've, maybe they've been hired back to the house as another. Maybe that... How about that, huh? Hmm. What if the, what if the main servant who sat there and, like, weaved tales about what life was like on the outside- What if it was her in the rocking chair?
started off as a child inside the wall?
Ryan: Right. That would be a, that would be a cool idea. I mean, I, I couldn't- Well, that's where- I couldn't have paid for a better segue to our next question.
Damien: Nice.
Ryan: God, we're really- Because I think that- ... doing it tonight. Hitting it. We're so good at this. On... Y- y- you guy- like, we've done this together for a while now.
We're, we're, we're getting on each other's, track, I guess. Yeah We're,
Damien: we're 100 plus episodes now,
Ryan: baby. One of the themes that I think this story explores, even given the situation that there are herds of other children and herds of others who work for this family, but I think there's a, there's a theme of isolation here.[00:43:00]
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: That this, this girl feel- Especially
Damien: as they describe the- Yes ... well, especially as they describe the husband and wife and their relationship, very isolating, very individual, very, like, non-connected.
Ryan: Uh-huh.
Damien: Along with the kids and how they tie into the grand scheme of things. It's like- She
Ryan: doesn't even know the names of the people that work there, right?
You would think that if they, if they'd worked there for her whole, whole childhood, that she'd, you know, she'd know that's, that's, that's Bertha or, or whoever.
Jess: Yeah. Yeah. She's never walked
Damien: on- Bertha. Nice ...
Jess: the cobblestones.
Ryan: I don't know how... Right. I think she was described as beefy. I, you know. Beefy Bertha. I actually looked up the...
There was a name of the, of the body of water that was given, and I, I took a chance and looked that up, and it's a lake in Germany.
Jess: Yeah.
Ryan: I saw that- So at least we know the setting. Yeah. ... too. Yeah
Jess: I couldn't quite tell if that squared with the orange tile roofs
Ryan: Yeah, that sounds like Spanish The
Damien: Mediterranean.
Jess: Yeah. Yeah. It, it seemed like maybe there were a few things going on, so I, I [00:44:00] didn't insert that into my summary of, "And also we're in Germany," 'cause I, I can't
Damien: German historical architects, please write in.
Jess: Hit us up. What color are your tile roofs?
Ryan: How else does the story explore isolation or highlight it?
Damien: Well, I mean, I ta- I, I mentioned a little bit about the seeming disparate, like, lives of the husband and wife, and it's not something that's overwhelmingly surprising. And I think, like, you know, we all get glimpses into that if we follow any iota of pop culture that is, like, Real Housewives of fill in the blank, and you see how fiercely independent but somewhat, like, isolated- Yeah
a lot of these folks are from their siblings. And I say these folks because it's literally everybody in the show. So it's not an innately, you know, like, gender role characteristic. It's everyone. It's, it's a class, it's, it's a class characteristic, which is you attain a certain amount of wealth, you just, like, do your own thing.
You don't actively parent your kids. [00:45:00] I mean, that's not... I'm, I'm not laying a blanket observation down, but I'm just saying there's a higher propensity of people that are just like, "I've got help to do this, so I'm gonna..." Like, they're gonna go off and do their own thing, and our paths will cross when they cross.
But, like, the parents live independently. She's... The mom is bringing in dressmakers, and that's who she spends most of her time with. The dad is out, you know, like, traversing different geographies and whatever, and is pretty much constantly traveling in his crisp white shirts and dark colors. And so it just, it seemed like nobody was connected.
Like, I wouldn't even call this- Right ... a family, you know? It was just like-
Ryan: Yeah, he doesn't even, he doesn't even recognize his daughter in the world.
Damien: Yeah. And there's, I mean, there's interpretation to that, but-
Ryan: That, that's, well, that stretches belief, too, so.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: I thought that this was one of the places where the story connected most deeply to our current environment, our current social environment, at least in the United States.
Probably both of you have heard the phrase loneliness epidemic that, that's occurring, right? We're the most digitally connected we've ever been, [00:46:00] and yet everyone is siloed- Socially disconnected ... and lonely. Yeah. Right? I, I, I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but here we are having this podcast recording in three separate states-
three separate locations. At least we can
Damien: blame geography for
Ryan: this. Yeah. All in our... Yeah, we can blame geography, but it's... I mean, it's like look at any group of teenagers. They're sitting around, uh, the spot where they like to hang out, and they're texting. And, and they might just be texting each other.
Damien: They might be.
Ryan: 10, nine or 10 years ago, I guess it was, the surgeon general of the United States proclaimed that there was a loneliness epidemic that was the cause, or, or at least the root cause, of as many deaths in the United States as tobacco and alcohol, which was, which was a startling figure to realize.
There's, there's been several social, s- social psychology books written about this. Bowling Alone is probably the, the number one book that people have read or are interested in. There's also one called Loneliness that was quite good that I, that I read. I did that as an audiobook while I drove by myself in my [00:47:00] car.
Damien: That's called situational irony, folks.
Ryan: Yes. So I think, I, I don't know. I think that, that this is something we're gonna have to, we're gonna have to ad- maybe address is too direct of a word. We're gonna have to reckon with as technology only increases our ability to be by ourselves and be happy. And maybe that's
Damien: because, you know, in the, what was this?
Mid-'80s, '85- Yeah ...
Ryan: this story was written? Yeah, '81. Yeah.
Damien: in the '80s, you look at this and you think, "Okay, it's people who are wealthy enough to stay disconnected." Now, it's, okay, technology super users can easily be disconnected. Well, guess what? We've democratized access to technology, so literally that's everybody.
Um, there are people who are unhomed, who still have a cellphone, you know? And the one thing they pay for is their unlimited data plan. So it's one of those interesting things that shows that this is... It's, it's commoditized, and it's democratized access, and it's widely available.
And the amount of processing power that you have is spent [00:48:00] staying away from people- Mm-hmm ... and having the world come to you instead. So that is a-
Ryan: We eat out in our living rooms- Yes ... with delivery.
Damien: Right, right, right. Yeah. So it is... I, I think it's... I think it is interesting. I don't... I think we're going the way of Wall-E, you know?
We're not going the way of increased socialization unless we get some big EMP that knocks out our entire global digital infrastructure, and then we're back to being cave folks who are going out and seeing the sun. But yeah, it's not something that's gonna be reversed. But it is a little prescient, I think some of those themes from the mid-'80s, which was a time of everyone was getting together and doing coke, so, you know.
Jess: Yeah, we were.
Ryan: What do you find about this story that's falling apart?
Jess: Be more vague.
Ryan: I'm tr- I'm being vague on purpose.
Jess: What else
Ryan: you got? There's a B side to this question. A B side. But I can't tell you that yet.
Damien: Well, what? The lock on the gate? I, I think Jess even said it in the recap. It was like, did it rust and break?
You know? No one knows because no one ever tried to open it. Like, it [00:49:00] was just presumed to be locked and, and a barrier, but now as it turns out, maybe it wasn't, you know?
Jess: We also have, you know, a society. It's the very rich in their walled-in hillside homes and the-
Ryan: Her perception of society- Social decay ... was breaking down.
Yeah,
Jess: social
Ryan: decay. And
Jess: the, you know, everyone else is scrabbling for pennies, even, you know, when her dad tosses her the coin. Like, she has to hurry for it 'cause there are other people in the exact same position.
Damien: Bunch of pizza rats.
Jess: Exact- exactly like that. And even when she does, you know, like pull herself together enough to go eat a little cake, that's not allowed either, 'cause she's, like, dirty.
Damien: And she's still getting, yeah, looks from other patrons and stuff.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. So here's the B side of the question. One of the arguments that I encountered while researching this story is the question, is this story gothic? And there's just as many people that say no as say yes.
Damien: I would think so, and I [00:50:00] think the key that pushes my scale towards the side of gothic is the description of the castles in the distance.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I know that sounds really contrite- Yeah, no, I don't think so ... but that one little detail can easily push it over. Yeah. Because everything else was more or less a bit frozen in time, and there were
Ryan: no- Some of the people were described as falling apart in various ways. Yeah.
Damien: There were no... Yeah.
Rotten teeth, boiled hands, icky skin. But we weren't talking about, like, failed and crumbling or decaying infrastructure either. Like-
Ryan: Inst-
Damien: maybe institutional infrastructure ... the wall was in good shape. Right. The, y- you know, the roses were in good shape. The house was in order.
Jess: But the lagoon is full of garbage.
Damien: People would disappear. Yeah, that's true. That's, that's a good
Ryan: point. Those
Damien: geese are greasy. The greasy geese. The geese were described as what looked like a grease stain- Grease ... on their chest, but I just think that's coloration, right?
Jess: Yeah, but it's funnier if they're greasy.
Damien: It is funny. I like the greasy geese.
It's, it sounds like a tongue twister. So yeah, but I, I think for the most part it was seen in good order, and it was exactly in good [00:51:00] order, and it was well-staffed. And then, like, after you pass the divide, then stuff gets mysterious, and, you know, the decay is more or less, like, a state of being for all of the outside world, except for little escapes like the sweet shop, you know, and that sort of thing.
How was the writing?
Jess: Bark, bark.
Damien: Well, Poppy thinks the writing was okay.
I, I didn't-
Ryan: This is a different
Damien: question than I thought ... I know, I, I know, I know Oates' potential, and I know that Jessica knows it even better. And I don't think this was a, what I would call, like, if you wanna read Oates and get the best of the best, like, read this story
Jess: I think it was appropriate to a story reflecting a little girl.
That's a good
Damien: call.
Jess: Like, the language is, is pretty simple. I know that it's, you know, in theory, a narrator recalling this time, but, like, she's remembering her [00:52:00] time as a little girl. So, like, we don't have the most complicated language. We have some pretty obvious thoughts. But it is a story about, you know
I don't even think they say how old she is, but young enough child who, who goes on a little walkabout. I was thinking
Ryan: about 10.
Jess: I was thinking, yeah. May- Yeah. I'm thinking eight, but I think just ... I don't know how old kids are, so I think I think they're all eight.
Ryan: Well, they're all different ages, Jess. Yeah.
Jess: That's where I've gone wrong .
Ryan: There's not just one. There's, like, you know, this is a kid.
Damien: Kid.
Ryan: They have to-
Damien: Nine years old. Nine years, three months, kid.
Jess: Whatever.
Damien: No, that, the writing was- That's a, that, that, that's a, that's, that's a good point, Jess, and it, you know, kinda hearkens to, like, a contemporary piece like Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman, which is told through a kid's perspective.
Mm. Yeah, yeah. And it is very ... You know, it kinda, like, jumps around and has a random, errant, intrusive thought that happens every once in a while, and then-
Jess: And this is like that, where she's just like- Yeah ... talking about the servants, outside, remember a thing from her dad, you know?
Damien: Yeah, rapid fire, a lot of [00:53:00] hyphens, a lot of
Yeah.
Ryan: I thought the writing was strong. I thought there was lots of evocative imagery. We've talked about a lot of that. I, I felt there was a surprising amount of em- emotion in the story. Interesting. But I felt that it was all, it was ... I, I guess I'll put this in, like, a film term or a cinematography term.
It was, it was r- ... As the writing went along, it was all receding. Okay. As the camera pull, as the camera pulled back and the world got bigger, the frame on the girl got tighter, or, or got less ... Got wider, I guess is the way to say that.
Damien: Okay. I guess that's fair. And it showed that instead of being this, like, central fish in a contained pond, now she's- Right
this very small fish in a giant ocean. Yes, and
Ryan: it kept- Would you think that worked? ... it just kept pulling ... I think it probably accomplished what Oates was trying to- Right ... accomplish with it. Yeah, I agree. But I- It worked ... but I'm not sure I cared for it.
Damien: Yeah, okay.
Ryan: If that makes sense. No,
Damien: it- But I think that, that, that jarring shift in perspective is just that, and I think- Mm-hmm
maybe it did carry its intention, but, [00:54:00] you know, it's gonna be a bit divisive in how it's deployed. Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah,
Damien: that- Because then we lost the nuance and the detail- Yes ... of, like, narration. Yes. And it became this, like, like a dust storm- Mm-hmm ... of a story, and it just felt more muddled and more confusing. And then at that point it's like, okay, was this the intent?
Cool, but it's pissing me off as a reader.
Ryan: Right.
Damien: Which happens to me often with this
Ryan: particular writer. Yeah. So that's gonna take us to our question of destiny for this story. Out of 12 roses, did it destiny? I had to go with a dozen.
Damien: Okay. I'm gonna say 1.5 Roses of Destiny.
Ryan: Really?
Damien: Yeah. Mostly thinking of parallel universe transdimensionality, like, I, and less about destiny.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Because I think this is, this is very much a parable, and it just happened- I'll buy that. Sure, yeah ... it, it happened to include, like, this symbolic wall and what was on the other side of the wall and stuff. But I don't think it really tied to a [00:55:00] destiny. Like, we don't know enough about the character to know if she was destined.
We just know her class and her status and her desire to see what's on the other side, and then she got there and it wasn't great, and so she went and ate a cherry pie. So I'd, I, I don't know. Like, at the end of the day, for me, it just wasn't a destiny story. I think Oates probably brought in weight and maybe a compelling angle, but I didn't...
it didn't destiny for me. What about you, Jess?
Jess: I'm gonna say eight little cherry cakes. I think it's not so much destiny as she left what the destiny would be. So, like, her destiny was be a rich woman- Was to inherit, yeah ... to, to grow up in this house, and then eventually get married and probably move into the same house down the block.
And by leaving that, she's, like, abandoned her destiny, which is- ... I think, interesting.
Ryan: All right.
Jess: All right, it's, uh, it's fine.
Ryan: To qual- I have to qualify my answer. I, nothing felt fated in the story. Nothing felt particularly destined. [00:56:00] It did, to me, feel strong on parallel realms. Hmm. Even if the parallel realm- Well, I think we have the exact opposite opinion
was in the same universe.
Damien: All, like, there are three people in a pretty polar and a pretty linear scale here, and we all three have different polar takes, so I can't wait to hear what Ryan says.
Ryan: I, I gave it, I gave it 10 out of 12 roses-
Damien: You're insane ... for parallel realms.
Ryan: All right. But, but for parallel realms, like it's a total different world.
But parallel means- Even, even if it's not supernatural ...
Damien: parallel means some sort of overlap, and this wasn't it. Like, it was distinctly- Of course it overlapped ... two different- All the people that
Ryan: work for her come from that other place.
Damien: No. Yeah,
Jess: the men, they come out. Some live
Damien: there, some live elsewhere. No, but they're still there.
They're still there. It's not like Napoleon- They leave ... wearing a Hawaiian shirt, or, you know, it's not like- You
Jess: don't
Damien: know he's not there still ... actually George Washington died, you know? And maybe Napoleon is there. Yeah, you're not there. The mult- the
multiverse element wasn't there. It was one universe, but two different parts of the universe. No, it wasn't, it was, yeah,
Ryan: it was one universe,
Damien: but-
Ryan: But
Jess: it was divided in half.
Damien: I don't know. I think you guys are being gracious. This [00:57:00] was a one and a half rose type story, but I digress.
Ryan: Well, let's see how we do on our whiskey ratings then.
Whoa.
Damien: Fine.
Ryan: Whiskey ratings are how we rate our stories here on Whiskey and the Weird from zero fingers- It's how we rate everything ... of whiskey, or the... It's, it is how we rate everything, actually. Yeah. So you can go all the way from an empty glass, which is very dull, to a full glass, which is a full fist or five fingers of whiskey.
Jess, what are you giving The Rose Wall?
Jess: Three and a half. I think it fit well enough. The story- Uh-huh ... was good enough. I enjoyed reading it. I did think about it a little bit afterwards, but have read enough Oates that it's, like, not my favorite thing she's ever written, and there are just, like, enough things where, like, I, I don't, I don't care if stories have resolutions, but this one, like, I kind of like- But to what extent
Damien: does an author owe you resolution, is the question.
None.
Jess: Do whatever you want. But I did want one other bit. Like, I kinda liked the cheeky little, like, wink to the camera when she's, you know, like, you think she's [00:58:00] so sad and destitute- Right ... and everything's horrible outside the walls, and then she's eating her cake, and she's like- She's
Damien: flattening out her-
Jess: Yeah
Damien: pleats on her filthy skirt and
Jess: being like, "Ha ha" And she's like, I think, being like, "Yeah, I got what I want, actually." Like- So it's
Ryan: funny, I always feel like I'm the one that wants a little bit extra. I didn't want any extra in this story, and you did. But I
Jess: wanted- I, I love that ... I, yeah. Like, maybe one other scene of her getting a kick out of being outside of the walls.
I feel like it went from, like, I'm having fun, to horrible, horrible, horrible, wink, just kidding. I am having fun. I wanted maybe, like, one more little scene of her, you know, liking the bread she's stealing from the geese or so- you know, like, one, one more illustration- Yeah. Okay ... things are what she wanted.
Damien: It was a contained parable for me.
I didn't really care about anyone in it. I read it and I was done with it. It delivered its point. It was adeptly written. I didn't like it for the theme. I thought it was way too much of a stretch- Okay.
Ryan: Yeah ...
Damien: to be in this [00:59:00] collection. Because of that, I'm giving it two fingers. I'm
Ryan: giving it two fingers as well.
My man. So there is something about Joyce Carol Oates that has never jived- I feel like you're coming into it with a bag Yes, that's true. I remember him saying this ... you've said this before. Ugh. He just, he is not a JCO fan. I don't like- And I went into this with as open mind as I could, but nope. It's like, nope.
Jessica just threw down the gauntlet on you, Ryan. You better respond. Say it again. I missed it. I was lost in my own reverie. Allow me. May I, may I, Jess?
Damien: Yeah. No,
Ryan: yeah. I think you don't like women who write Let, let me, let me counter that, if I may. I... My shelves are filled with women writers I love My thing, my, my thing is
Jess: I don't even care if they write.
All right, sorry. Continue.
Ryan: My shelves are filled with women.
Jess: I've got binders of them.
Ryan: Yeah, you gotta clear that out, brother, especially if you're gonna sell your house. Seriously, that's, that's really tacky. Yeah, I don't know. I've [01:00:00] read, I've read a handful of, of her... I haven't read much, I will say that. I've read a handful of her short stories.
I read Zombie like we all did for our book club. I hated Zombie. Sure.
Jess: Yeah, j- that was a weird choice. I don't know why we picked that one. I liked, I liked...
Ryan: The, the writing was good here. The... I, I thought the writing was, was strong. I still come away at the end just mostly not liking it. I, I don't know.
There's something, there's something about Joyce Carol Oates that I j- just doesn't, doesn't, doesn't do it for me. All right. So two fingers of whiskey. That's gonna take us to our If This Then That, and Damien has that for us tonight.
Damien: Yeah. Because I was so anti-parallel realm, but very cognizant of the fact that we're talking about a bit of degraded society, or at least member of society who goes through a series of misfortunate events that leads to a downfall, what sang to me as I read that last little line about hunger is drug addiction.
And what sang to me about drug addiction is Requiem for a Dream. Of course, a very- Ooh, good
Ryan: one. Yes ...
Damien: popular film, uh, released in 2000, [01:01:00] directed by Darren Aronofsky.
Ryan: Popular film that everybody saw only once.
Damien: Yes. You will not watch this more than once. No, we all
knew this movie came out too because... But everyone here can identify Yeah. It's... Or you bought it. Never watched it. Right. That's one of the things, too. Yeah. Um, the... It, it follows four interconnected characters, probably the, the most memorable being, uh, Jennifer Connelly Ellen Burstyn in a role of a amphetamine addict who just sees the joys of heightened energy but doesn't see how the rest of her world is crashing down as, I think it's her son is played by, uh, Jared Leto.
Yep. And then his friend is one of the Wayans brothers, and his girlfriend is Jennifer Connelly. And all through different means of interactions with drugs, whether it's commercial sale of, use of, or a combination of the two, see their lives just absolutely fall apart by the end to a penultimate finish that is just one of the most grueling cinematic montages- Mm
in history that- Mm ... still sticks with any of us who have seen it. And I'm sure we can all quote lines from the [01:02:00] end of that, and I won't do that here because I like to think that we're a semi-family podcast.
Ryan: It just makes me feel like a greasy goose.
Damien: Yeah. We're, we're all greasy geese after watching this, uh, very terrible v- but very beautifully shot, uh, harrowing story that's also based on a book of the same name by Hubert Selby Jr.,
uh, which was published in 1978. I can't speak to the faithfulness of the adaptation, but I can say that by doing just an iota of research that the film options were licensed for 1,000 bucks- Hmm ... back in the late- Interesting ... '80s, and Hubert Selby Jr. didn't think it would translate well to theme. But it did.
It got at least a bunch of Oscar nominations. That bet paid off. And, I think it made AFI's top 100 films in 100 years.
Ryan: Yeah. For
Damien: sure. I, I know Ellen Burstyn got nominated for an Oscar. I don't think she won. But, uh, very harrowing tale. Again, Requiem for a Dream, 2000, directed by - Darren Aronofsky.
Ryan: Well, thank you everybody for joining us for this episode of Whiskey and the Weird. That's gonna do it for us tonight. [01:03:00] If you liked this episode as much as we liked bringing it to you, would you mind dropping us a rating or a review wherever you catch your podcasts?
That always helps us get the word out to more and more people. We thank Dr. Blake Brandes for providing the music for Whiskey and the Weird. And Damien, if they'd like to tell us about their rose wall, where can they do that?
Damien: Yeah, give us your greatest horticultural tips @WhiskeyandtheWeird, @WhiskeyandtheWeird on the meta properties, so Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
@WhiskeyandtheWeird, we spell our whiskeys with an E and we hope you do, too. If not, may you cross a barrier that's unreturnable and have a bunch of greasy geese attack you for bread.
Ryan: That sounds terrible. I don't want that to happen.
Jess: Rough.
Ryan: Jess, if we don't want that to happen to our listeners either, where should they turn to to read our next story?
Jess: Why don't we read The Branch Line to Bencheston? Pronunciation is- Oh ... debatable because it is not a real place. [01:04:00]
Damien: That's very much a Massachusetts town right there.
Jess: But that one is by Sir Andrew Caldecott.
Ryan: I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm Jessica Burke.
Damien: And I'm Damien Smith.
Ryan: And together we're Whiskey and the Weird
Damien: As always, keep your friends through the ages and your creeps in the pages.
Ryan: And now good night.