Your Duck is My Duck – Deborah Eisenberg (2018)

I generally really like short stories, and while my preference is usually for collections from backlisted women writers, I am perfectly happy to sometimes read more modern collections. Your Duck is My Duck is a collection of six stories by American writer Deborah Eisenberg, who has written several other collections. I first read about the collection on Susan’s blog A Life in Books, and bought it immediately, it sounded right up my street. Overall, I did like this collection, though a couple of the stories fell a little short of my initial expectations. It is well written, and though a couple of stories left me a little cold, the others I liked. These stories are all a bit longer than some short stories, and Eisenberg uses their length the fully flesh out her characters.

The stories are by turns, dark, funny and mysterious. Eisenberg explores the strangeness in the lives and emotions of her characters with astuteness, characters are well defined. In these pieces she explores aspects of money, sex and power.

The opening story in the collection is Your Duck is My Duck from which the collection takes its title. This was I thought a very good opening to the collection. An artist is taken up by a wealthy couple who she meets at a party. It becomes clear that she has been struggling with her work, and the couple invite her to their retreat. Their retreat is on the edge of a coastal village which the couple have spoiled with their schemes. On arrival, she finds her hosts engaged in an awkward domestic conflict. There is a wonderful sense of place in this story – as there is in other pieces, I particularly enjoyed Eisenberg’s descriptions.

“I was looking out at cliffs and the sea, all sluiced in delicate pinks and yellows and greens and blues, as if the sun were imparting to the sleeping rock and water dreams of their youth, dreams of the rock’s birth in the earth’s molten core, the water’s ecstatic purity before it was sullied by life—as if the play of soft colors were the sun’s lullaby to the cliffs and the sea, of endurance and transformation.”

(Your Duck is My Duck)

Taj Mahal was definitely my favourite story in the collection, and the one I remember best. The story very cleverly moves across time periods and there are shifting perspectives, as a group of ageing movie stars react to the newly published biography of a film director, written by his grandson, based on his childhood memories of visits made to his famous grandfather. A story about the reliability of memory – as the former stars rage and dispute the facts laid out in the biography. Can their memories of the past really be trusted?

“What to do about all this horseshit? Nothing, really, nothing. But still, the ones who are left, those who happen to be in New York – Duncan, Coral, Roman and Luther – have collected, on this glassily brilliant autumn day, in the noisy bar of a restaurant that Roman likes. Emma has been included, too, although if it weren’t for this so-called memoir, these old friends of her mother’s would no doubt have forgotten all about her. Even in the book her existence is confined to pages 48, 49 and 316.”

(Taj Mahal)

In Cross off and Moves on the death notice of a cousin in the newspaper, leads a woman to remember how her difficult mother loathed her father’s sisters. She realises how many things were hidden from her, her memory of her aunts is positive, she recalls their kindness. She spends time trying to piece together the past.

Merge Is the longest story in the collection, and it started out really well, but the ending fell flat for me – and left me a bit confused. It tells the story of Keith, the son of a wealthy man, he has fallen out of favour at home, and is need of employment. He meets Celeste, a young woman a little older than himself, and she finds him work, helping an elderly neighbour of hers and giving him a place to stay while she is away. Keith helps out Mrs Cordis, one particular duty being to walk her dog Moppet. Meanwhile, somewhere a long way from home, Celeste appears to be in trouble of some kind.

The Third Tower was the story that worked least well for me, I found it all rather confusing. The confusion might well be deliberate as it portrays a young woman undergoing some neurological tests. She finds herself refusing to trust the things that are really in her mind but instead allows herself to be influenced by her doctor.

Recalculating is another excellent story; in which Adam a young man from a traditional American community, travels to England to attend the funeral of an uncle he never knew. Adam had often wondered about this uncle, had grown up asking questions which were never satisfactorily answered. Here he meets his Uncle Phillip’s circle of fairly bohemian friends; they all instantly accept Adam and he is drawn into their world.

On the basis of this collection I would definitely be interested in reading more by Deborah Eisenberg, I really liked her writing and her ability at exploring character and place.