The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Carrying the Body, by Dawn Raffel
reviewed by Gregory Howard

Untitled document

Dawn Raffel. Carrying the Body. Scribner, 2002. 126 pp. $18.00.

Like the gem at its center, Carrying the Body is a hard, sharp, multifaceted thing. The novel describes the return of a prodigal daughter, Elise, son in tow, to her parents’ house, where her sister, called only Auntie, is taking care of their father, whose health fails daily after the death of Mother. Raffel uses this trope to its full effect. The house without Mother, or Father for that matter, falls into disrepair, and the characters move about it like specters, encountering each other almost by accident and repeating conversations and gestures with constricted formality. This kind of Existential Metaphor could be overwrought and terrible, but Raffel has a light touch and tempers it by creating in Auntie a pitch-perfect passive caretaker bubbling with resentment. She voices her discontent only when alone, but infuses her polite conversation with frustration and anger to the point of cutting herself off much of the time. In this house certain things must not be said, and the burden of the unsaid is as heavy as the titular body. Raffel shoots all of this through a modernist prism, carving the story into small chapters that jump in space and time. The love for which Elise left is recounted slowly through the whole book, as is Auntie’s telling to Elise’s son the story of the Three Little Pigs, which reflects, increasingly, the chaos of the house and her own frustration. Certain things—just what did happen to Mother?—are repressed right out of the book, leaving the reader to feel the empty spaces the characters presumably feel. And this is Raffel’s strategy. The reader feels Auntie’s exasperation with the child’s repetitive banter, feels the claustrophobia of the house, and wonders, like Elise and Auntie, what is wrong with the father. Raffel sets a high mark for herself and, for the most part, meets it with exquisite prose and a keen unflinching eye for the subtleties of familial disintegration.


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction Carrying the Body, by Dawn Raffel reviewed by Gregory Howard Untitled document Dawn Raffel. Carrying the Body. Scribner, 2002. 126 pp. $18.00. Like the gem at its center, Carrying the Body is a hard, sharp, multifaceted thing. The novel describes the return of a prodigal daughter, Elise, son in tow, to her parents’ house, where her sister, called only Auntie, is taking care of their father, whose health fails daily after the death of Mother. Raffel uses this trope to its full effect. The house without Mother, or Father for that matter, falls into disrepair, and the characters move about it like specters, encountering each other almost by accident and repeating conversations and gestures with constricted formality. This kind of Existential Metaphor could be overwrought and terrible, but Raffel has a light touch and tempers it by creating in Auntie a pitch-perfect passive caretaker bubbling with resentment. She voices her discontent only when alone, but infuses her polite conversation with frustration and anger to the point of cutting herself off much of the time. In this house certain things must not be said, and the burden of the unsaid is as heavy as the titular body. Raffel shoots all of this through a modernist prism, carving the story into small chapters that jump in space and time. The love for which Elise left is recounted slowly through the whole book, as is Auntie’s telling to Elise’s son the story of the Three Little Pigs, which reflects, increasingly, the chaos of the house and her own frustration. Certain things—just what did happen to Mother?—are repressed right out of the book, leaving the reader to feel the empty spaces the characters presumably feel. And this is Raffel’s strategy. The reader feels Auntie’s exasperation with the child’s repetitive banter, feels the claustrophobia of the house, and wonders, like Elise and Auntie, what is wrong with the father. Raffel sets a high mark for herself and, for the most part, meets it with exquisite prose and a keen unflinching eye for the subtleties of familial disintegration.

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