Book review: Carolyn See reviews 'Model Home,' by Eric Puchner
By Carolyn SeeFriday, March 12, 2010; C04
MODEL HOME
By Eric Puchner
Scribner. 360 pp. $26
We all operate under the spell of a convenient set of delusions: that women can be "made over" to look prettier than they actually are, for example; or that with enough diet and exercise we can live to 100. Our favorite delusion, the one on which this great country was built, is that with enough hard work, Americans can become anything -- and have anything -- that they want. A fair amount of good literature has been written about the failure of this American dream, but the failure part usually comes at the end of the story. Eric Puchner's first novel, "Model Home," puts that dismaying fate at the very beginning and proceeds from there.
Warren Ziller, who previously lived a pleasant enough life with his family on the shore of a lake in Wisconsin, becomes entranced by a bright idea that could make him a fortune: He develops a piece of land out in the Mojave Desert, about 100 miles from downtown Los Angeles. The place where he builds his handful of houses is a most unappetizing patch of sand and scrub, but he isn't a mad man. After World War II, hundreds of developers perceived their futures to be in desert land, and until a few years ago that land was a gold mine.
So Warren isn't a maniac to invest in desert property and build tacky affordable housing, just unlucky. No one has told him about the toxic waste dump someone else is locating just a few miles away. But Warren has already moved across the country and settled his family in a gated community south of L.A. overlooking the ocean. Herradura Estates (actually Palos Verdes Estates) features teenage girls trotting along bridle paths and peacocks wandering scenically across owners' front lawns. But it's too good to be true, and far too expensive. Warren begins to borrow from his children's college accounts. It's a nightmare, but he can't get up the nerve to tell his family what's happening.
His family: a sweet wife named Camille, who makes terrible educational films for a middle school audience; the eldest son, Dustin, impossibly handsome, a surfer who's been going out with beautiful Kira, who's planning to yield up her virginity to him on the first anniversary of their romance; Lyle, a cranky, impossibly pale high school girl who hates everyone and refuses to fit into Southern California culture; and Jonas, 11, nobody's favorite.
Part 1 of this novel tells the story of "before" -- before anyone except Warren knows anything about their financial crisis. Dustin, star of his own life drama, develops a sexual obsession with Kira's emotionally disturbed little sister, who worries her earlobes into hideous scabs, samples any amount of recreational drugs and eats glass as an attention-getting device. Lyle, who drips with shame for herself and everybody else, begins to have sex with a Mexican kid who opens and shuts the gate in their gated community. Jonas mopes along. Camille finally makes a film so bad that her family can't even joke about it. When their car gets repossessed, Warren pretends it's been stolen. Then their leased furniture gets taken away. Warren is increasingly entangled in his lies, but he can't seem to come clean about their situation.
Then, just before Part 2, all hell breaks lose. One of the minor screw-ups that accrue around the Zillers magnifies into tragedy. Until this point, the family has believed that they will get ahead because everybody else in America is getting ahead. All the way along, it's possible to see things that Warren ought to have done to avoid his fate. But then we readers should consider all the evenings we may have had too much to drink, or didn't have the courage to make the important phone call, or the plain fact that most of America is probably made up of people who aren't as bright as they should be, and that might include the person who's writing this review, or maybe even someone who's reading it. The American promise of success is often just what it says: a dream. "In truth there was not much time, a blip, and most of what you did was a mistake," a chastened Warren thinks toward the end of this narrative. "You were lucky to find a safe and proper home." And that, the author suggests, is what it really comes down to: decent meals, a roof over your head and, with luck, relatives or friends who will gather to help you when your life smashes to bits.
The Ziller family is utterly believable here. Little Jonas, the kid whom nobody loves, is the perfect example. It's left absolutely up in the air what's to become of him -- or his brother, or sister or parents. Sure, if you work hard and don't screw up, you could succeed, except for the fact that everyone screws up mightily sometime. It's actually a miracle that any one of us stays alive from breakfast to lunch. There's a terrible shame involved if you fail in America. But that shame is universal. It clings to us like an invisible, sticky veil. That's what this estimable book is about.

Its only another day but everything has stopped and silence ...no birds, planes, traffic...nothing can be heard except machines slogging away at heating, communicating, reproducing. We really don't need to be here. Back then, you had to speak, or move to another place and speak or perform an action then wait to recieve a response. Now, nothing. They sit in bed and type and the wrld is fine.

America

America, To Me

I lived in a place where life was always happening somewhere else. Anyway, I left-- not seeking old pals, or better times or peace of mind--- I was not looking to get anywhere.

I am fine with being nowhere. But I need to be trying for something better. I need to stay in motion.

Although I am now only an observer of what I’ve seen, I regularly assault myself with questions and harsh accusations that I can seldom respond to. A fog of old missteps shudders, and then emerges like Venus from the cold depths of old love. I can't see the answers through this mess.

Years ago I bumped into an old lover who still seemed fond of me. I offer him a sofa but he coolly blows me off. Later, I dreamed that he turns back around, accepts his old flame’s kindness, and finds himself reduced to tears by her pure and undiminished loyalty.

In real life he wakes up early and slides away. Nowadays, he appears far too estranged and exhausted to respond.

I no longer play Benedict Arnold to my younger self, denying my own identity or ducking the hard times which happened twenty-five or thirty-five or forty years ago. I find intimacy with the long-ago inhabitants of another place.

My lack of health complicates everything. Our --mine and America’s-- failing memory is unable to look the chaos that we have failed to keep under control in the eye.

In a sad land like America, fantasies beat out cruel facts. They organize my life in the manner of a good vacation—departing, enjoying, happily returning home-- while the truth is eternally unknowable and pulls me up short and back to square one every time.

I'm missing Sam this morning, and I'm trying to define exactly what meaning he gave my life.

My favorite thing at age 16 was to snarl "How phony", and leave it at that.

Sam showed me the truth is usually there underneath the horse shit So now at age 61 I still spot it easily...I'll demonstrate: Page one of today's NYT (but one could look any day of the week and find similar) thrills over a new show of photographs...."Some of these pictures will be on view at a new show at KMR Arts in Washington Depot, Conn., juxtaposed with an anatomically resonant series on sidewalk cracks that she produced in the ’70s. "

The sidewalk cracks may have merit, but Is this writer an idiot?

Bell Island

Creepy people lived there. People we did not know, or whose fathers were "away", people who didn't have the right number of digits on their hands or people who lived by another set of rules, like the Ripleys, Chip (off the old block or on the shoulder, either would apply) and Bobby? Billy? and unknown other brothers who terrorized the grade-schoolers and coated their black hair with grease and combed it in ducks ass Elvis styles . I wasn't old enough to know whether certain girls found them attractive, I would guess yes, very much so . They stood out in a classroom full of healthy skin and chestnut-haired girls and flat-top, buzz cut little boys. Their faces were pale, and even in fifth grade I feel that they smoked.

Entering Bell Island, visitors crossed an old WPA sytle bridge, where usually a mean-looking adult was drowning a pillowcase full of kittens, or teenage boys were dropping rotting fish on boaters on their way in or out of the cove that connected to Farm Creek. On the right, you'd see a creepy little house, a miniature cottage with a spooky wishing well and a sign singing "Sponsored by the Bell Island Garden Club" . It was red, and year-round it had blooms in its window boxes. Something made it ominous and the last place a little kid would want to break in and vandalize. Very Hansel and Gretel if anyone had asked me, of course no one did..... this was all going on in my mind.  The streets were so narrow, and cars were parked bumper to bumper along the sides, unlike in Rowaton proper where it was quite unacceptable to park anywhere but one's garage or personal driveway. Unless attending a large party....then the cars were everywhere and our local cop, Vinnie Velotti, patroled and directed  drunken guests  toward home if needed. 
Adding to the foreignness of Bell Island was the size and height of the houses.  They were generally tall, 3 story Victorians built right up to the sidewalks, and in my ignorance they screamed "Brooklyn" or "The Bronx" or "Newark", all crowded and evil and undesirable locations in my little mind.  How naive I was!  Only now do I know the island was exclusive and the homes were for the rich, the crowding and oldness had cachet and  to be packed into such close proximity with the neighbors meant the Ammerican Dream had been Achieved! 
Now I look on the iinternet on a hot North Carolina afternoon and I see that Bell Island's house are priced in the multi-millions, that tear downs have occurred and the new structures are fake Nantucket style mansions. I'm certain all the frightening things I noticed as a child are gone, the brown and tan Victorians if they still stand are painted unthreatening gray with dark green shutters.  Everything nice and normal.  No more little girls will lie in bed at night and wonder what it would be like to touch the white flesh of Chip Ripley, or even his younger brother Bobby......

Hot June Friday afternoons always bring memories of happy family picnics at Baily Beach. Mom would get home from teaching around 3:30, have a short gin and tonic with a twist or mabe a sprig of mint from the garden, then, if the tide was going to be high that evening, drag out the scotch kooler and shove it full of those blue plastic ice things that sat in the freezer year round and stunk to high heaven. She'd pack all the fixin's for martinis...shaker, gin and vermouth....dixie cups, and... oh yes, some meat and salad and french bread. When Dad rolled in at 5:30, he'd change to shorts and get the charcoal and newspaper and lighter fluid and away we'd go. There were always 3 or 4 other gin-drinking families doing the same thing at the Bailey Beach picnic area (NO Food or Drink on Beach under penalty of death) and pretty soon the party was going full blast. Booze, food, dimes for the kiddies to go to the concession and buy popsicles. The fire had to be started and then there were false starts and smoldering newspaper and black smoke. When it did start, at least one hour had to pass for it to become a white hot pile of coals, so that dad could burn the hell out of whatever protein he was cooking. It was usually steak...marinated flank steak as tough as an old leather belt and dripping with red wine marinade. Never a hot dog or even a less proletarian hamburger. Never a bottle of ketchup or A-1. Nothing. We didn't know what was good, and we were reminded of that on a daily basis. I'd beg to go home, beg for dimes and nickles, beg to be allowed to start a little campfire on the ground. Sometimes if the sun was far enough over the yardarm, I was allowed, and once in a blue moon there was a bag of hard, deformed marshmallows that I could impale and incinerate, and finally scrape out of my hair the next day. Each summer, nothing changed. The alcohol, the scotch koolers, the crusty old lifeguard Art Ladrigan, the high tide picnics. Until 1960. With 24 hours notice, all plans were changed, and I was put in the back of the barely-running 1950 Ford convertible with my dog and rabbits, and driven to New Hampshire where Mom and I hid out and snarled at each other for 2 and a half months. What was that about? To this day, no one's mentioned it. The month we returned, the "family" what was lefty of it..moved to West Norwalk.

I only have these 10 miutes, but do you know about the women in the Rowayton Art Guild? Well it used to be called that, they were so so artsy craftsy, -ish women who did things at fivish and sevenish.. they always had Phil Booth "Hang Their Shows". He was one of the only men in Rowayton who knew how to operate a hammer, or a generator, or do anything more useful than screw in a lightbulb...the majority of men were in our little hamlet were, their wives cried, "just useless"....He was the man they ran to in Rowayton Estates when their husband, say, may have kicked the lawnmower blade while the machine was running, to loosten the clodded grass, and were lying on the lush green lawn gushing blood from a severed artery. He painted garish 10 x 12 foot murals of naked women reposing in front of mirrors to decorate the annual Fireman's Ball at Roton Point, and Mom always burned them the next morning because her son's little friends wanted to hang them on their 11 year old bedroom walls , next to the Little League pennants.
But one activity that Dad refused was the annual cleaning of the cannon. On the traffic triangle in front of Winthrop House, at the intersection of Rowayton Avenue and , a Revolutionary War cannon said, muzzle eternally at half mast.. black and sooty and corroding in the salt air. The -ish women mounted the cannon every April, and gripping with their thighs positioned themselves astride for most of a morning while they scrubbed and rinsed. It never looked any cleaner, and Mom would always drive by and out of the corner of her mouth hiss that they'd be better off with a man at home than perched on a phallic symbol on Main Street. I had to get clarification from Becky of course. She knew everything.....