With thanks to Virago for the review copy
Over the summer I read The Wedding by Dorothy West – and it immediately made me want to read everything she wrote – it’s a sadly very short list. I do have her first novel The Living is Easy somewhere on my tbr – which I will read in the fullness of time, knowing there will be no more.
The Richer, The Poorer is a collection of stories and autobiographical pieces, they are an absolute delight. Here Dorothy West shows her brilliance in the shorter form, she illuminates the struggles of ordinary families, the sad, disappointment of childhood, the misunderstandings that exist between the old and young.
In these stories we meet people dreading the visit of the investigator – who decides whether they will receive welfare relief. There are families holding funerals, girls renting typewriters, people living in sad marriages, a forty year old man trying again for his bar exam, children whose small eyes are opened to the frailties of their parents, people who have spent all their lives working to avoid the poverty of their childhoods. In each story, Dorothy West’s characters step from the page fully formed, they are clearly the people she met during the time she worked in Harlem as welfare investigator and relief worker.
There are seventeen stories in this collection, and many are very short – yet for me at least not unsatisfying. I delighted in gulping down one after another, after another. Following on from the stories, are thirteen autobiographical pieces, sketches and reminiscences from Dorothy West’s long life, many harking back to her childhood. With so many pieces in this collection I can only really give a flavour of the whole.
In these stories people acknowledge the history of slavery – many characters in these stories people born in the South but who moved North to escape the prejudice so prevalent in the South, but something of the place we once called home always pulls us back.
“He shuffled down the street, an abject little man of fifty-odd years, in an ageless overcoat that flapped in the wind. He was cold, he hated the North, and particularly Boston, and saw suddenly a barefoot pickaninny sitting on a fence in the hot, Southern sun and a piece of steaming corn bread and a piece of fried salt pork in either grimy hand.”
(The Typewriter)
The collection opens with The Typewriter a middle aged man plods home after a day at work as an office building janitor. His daughter has been learning to type on a rented typewriter – and he isn’t looking forward to the sound of it echoing through the apartment. However, he is a fond parent and he wants to help his daughter – so when she asks him to dictate made up letters for her to type, he obliges – and his letters, firing his imagination, open up a whole new world for him.
In the title story; The Richer, the poorer – two sisters who have lived their lives very differently are brought together again by the circumstances of old age. While one sister, saved and worked hard all her life – sacrificing many comforts to the drive to ensuring she has money for her old age – the other sister did the exact opposite.
“Over the years Lottie had urged Bess to prepare for her old age. Over the years Bess had lived each day as if there were no other. Now they were both past sixty, the time for summing up. Lottie had a bank account that had never grown lean. Bess had the clothes on her back, and the rest of her worldly possessions in a battered suitcase.
Lottie had hated being a child, hearing her parents skimping and scraping. Bess had never seemed to notice. All she ever wanted was to go outside and play. She learned to skate on borrowed skates. She rode a borrowed bicycle. Lottie couldn’t wait to grow up and buy herself the best of everything.
As soon as anyone would hire her, Lottie put herself to work. She minded babies, she ran errands for the old.”
(The Richer, The Poorer)
In the stories The Five-Dollar Bill and The Penny we see both the desperation for a small amount of money and the terrible toll poverty can have on children. In the first of these, a child is made aware of the duplicitousness of her mother. While in the second story a little boy is joyful at the gift of a penny from his father – but his joy is destined to turn to misery – and have unexpected consequences, thanks to the interference of a local do-gooder with an agenda.
In Jack in the Pot Mrs Edmunds wins fifty-five dollars on bingo – a fabulous sum of money at the time. The winnings bring a terrible fear however, as she and her husband are awaiting a visit from the welfare investigator. She is terrified of being sanctioned. She tells her husband she won five dollars and they celebrate with a wonderful dinner. Meanwhile, a neighbour suffers a terrible tragedy – and knowing his need of the exact sum of money she has hidden away Mrs Edmunds is horribly conflicted. We meet another welfare investigator in the story Mammy in which an investigator must follow up on a claimant’s previous employment – in this story we meet the mammy of the title; Mrs Mason, who has suddenly left her employer and refuses to return. There’s a lot that is uncomfortable about the relationship between the wealthy employer and her servant – too much that reminds the reader of the imbalance of power.
The autobiographical pieces that follow the stories are simply wonderful. In these pieces West remembers her middle class Boston childhood, paying tribute to her fabulous mother. She recollects the summers spent so happily on the island; Martha’s Vineyard, and the people who would come and share the family summer cottage with them. She also recalls a trip to Moscow, and the time she spent working as part of the Harlem Renaissance. We are left with the impression of a fascinating woman, who lived a long and happy life.
The Richer, The Poorer is a wonderful immersive collection, the themes are universal and West’s writing compassionate and richly observant.
