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A Geography of Reading

"It is by reading novels, stories, and myths that we come to understand the world in which we live." -Orhan Pamuk

Gabriela and the Widow: Jack Remick Teaches Writing through Writing

March 10, 2013 by Isla McKetta, MFA 4 Comments

The old adage, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach” does not at all apply to Jack Remick. Before I read Gabriela and the Widow, Jack taught me about writing with the insightful questions he’d ask after we read our work aloud during the long-standing writing group at Louisa’s Café in Seattle. Reading Gabriela was even more of an education in the subtleties of craft.

Significant Detail

Driven from her village in Mexico by a civil war that kills her family, young Gabriela faces many hardships. Remick uses details like a “cotton blouse embroidered by hand in the faint light of the evening fire” to convey tender allusions to what Gabriela’s life must have been like before the war. When La Patrona, a woman who has “rescued” Gabriela, then takes this blouse and says she will burn it, the reader has a deeper understanding of how fully the woman is stripping away the essence of Gabriela.

When Gabriela craves a pair of white Nikes, it is easy to see that what she is really craving is a life like the Norteñas who wear these shoes. Later, Gabriela will be coaxed into other shoes, but even then the Nikes serve as a grounding point to indicate how much Gabriela is changing.

Objective Correlative

Terrible things happened to Gabriela when the war came to her village. Remick could have detailed them and we’d be struck by the horror without ever really getting inside Gabriela’s experience. Instead, Remick creates a correlation in Gabriela’s mind between toads and the horrible events—events that she refuses to quite remember. The reader sees her visceral reaction over and over anytime toads cross her path and in this way learns to empathize with her.

Remick builds on Gabriela’s reaction to toads throughout the story. What makes this relationship for me is when Gabriela begins remembering times of innocence that involved toads as well. The glimpse at what life was like before is heartbreaking and the tension between the dark and light memories makes both exponentially more touching.

Myths Retold

Gabriela finds safety in the North where she takes care of an ailing widow whose memory is failing. Gabriela helps her work on a list of objects and photographs and what they meant in the woman’s life. In return, La Viuda teaches Gabriela about what it means to be a woman. Though La Viuda has a somewhat colored view of the experience of womanhood, she doesn’t let her life turn her into a Miss Havisham. Instead, La Viuda intersperses myths and stories of great women with her own stories. Through tales about everyone from Helen of Troy to Xipe Totec, she helps Gabriela create an identity based on strength and womanhood as she transfers her life force to the young girl.

There are hundreds of things I could say about the reasons I loved this book—like the way Gabriela and La Viuda seamlessly slip from English to Spanish and back in their conversations, the magical realism (especially in relation to mirrors), or how in answer to La Viuda’s aging forgetfulness, Remick creates a shifting repetition that grounds the reader and also builds the narrative. What you need to know is the elegant craft reveals just the right amount of information to engage you, the reader, in telling the story.

Jack Remick can teach and he can sure as hell write. Read Gabriela and the Widow and find the things that speak to your writing. You’ll fall in love with the story and you’ll be a better writer for it. Although my work schedule doesn’t allow for weekday afternoons at Louisa’s anymore, I am grateful I can pick up Gabriela and learn from her and from Jack any old time.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Gabriela and the Widow from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

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Isla McKetta, MFA

Author of Polska, 1994 and co-author of Clear Out the Static in Your Attic: A Writer's Guide for Transforming Artifacts into Art, Isla writes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and BAs in Sociology and Political Science from the University of Washington. Isla makes her home in Seattle where she writes fiction, poetry, and book reviews and has served on the board of Seattle City of Literature and Hugo House. Recent poems can be found at antiBODY, Cascadia Rising, Hummingbird, {isacoustic*}, Lily Poetry, Minerva Rising, and Riddled with Arrows.

Filed Under: Books, Latin America Tagged With: Feminism, Gabriela and the Widow, Jack Remick, Objective Correlative, Significant Detail

Comments

  1. Jack Remick says

    March 10, 2013 at 10:25 am

    Isla–whoa…you bring so much to the reading of the novel that I think I’ll have to read it again. Thank you for taking the time to go into Gabriela so deeply.

    Reply
  2. Roxana Arama says

    March 10, 2013 at 11:26 am

    I love reading your reviews. I get so much out of them. And this one is great, as always.

    Reply
  3. Jerry Soffer says

    March 10, 2013 at 11:54 am

    “And she left the dying world.”
    “The year the war ended, … … ”
    What a way to begin a story! Though I enjoy the lyrical yet sad voice very much, I don’t write in it, because it isn’t me. It certainly is Jack Remick, however, and he’s a master of it. As I think it through, the lyrical yet sad voice is an overview, it knows the entire story it’s telling and sees both the sadness and the beauty in it. For reasons I can’t explain, I write fiction in the first person, the voice of a character whose life keeps slamming into him, so that he only makes sense of it later, some of it only much later. I know it’s not easy on the reader, but I try to make the story worth it. Maybe I need medication. Then again, Faulkner won Nobel for far more difficult stuff than I write.
    In any way, I, like Roxanna Arama, look forward to your reviews. You put so much into them, and it makes them so worthwhile.

    Reply
  4. Isla McKetta, MFA says

    March 11, 2013 at 12:47 pm

    You all are very kind. Sharing books and writing with you is one of my greatest pleasures.

    Reply

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Polska, 1994

Polska 1994

Clear Out the Static in Your Attic

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