I have considered this project of studying Appel's short story techniques through reading of his collection EINSTEIN'S BEACH HOUSE, a limited study with another writer, The Fire Man. Consequently this commentary on the stories and Appel's technique and style will come to a close about a month from now. I had hoped this blogging experiment would be helpful for the Fire Man, a talented and aspiring young writer, but I think he is finding it to be more of a task than a joy. For myself, I discovered the act of reading a powerful, subliminal teaching tool, and I was hoping our readings and response to each other would be a source of motivation and inspiration.
While waiting for my colleague's response to "Strings," I have moved on to "Limerence" the fourth entry in this eight-story collection. Of all the stories, this one had, perhaps, the most impact for me on a personal level. Limerence, as a psychological condition was not recognized until Psychologist Dorothy Tennov published her study in 1998, Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love. Limerence is described briefly as obsessive thinking about the object of your affection, irrational idolizing their attributes, emotional dependency, and lastly, (and most importantly) longing for reciprocation.
Leave it to Appel, who among his many advanced degrees holds a doctorate in psychology, to clarify my adolescent life that continues to haunt me even today. His story about Jesse's obsession with Lena, pales before the obsessive compulsive behaviors of my adolescent years from junior high school through my years in college. Want to know about "Limerence"? I can give you stories...in spades. But, that's another Blog.
Appel's story of Jesse Neerman growing up in Connecticut with an obsession for Lena Limpetti is well-crafted. Lena had moved to the house across the street when he was in the seventh grade. She was also in the seventh grade, and Jesse's father asked him to show her around and introduce her to friends.
Lena's stepfather was in jail for having killed her mother, and she had come from California to live in Connecticut with her father. We learn these facts abruptly as an element of surprise, as almost everything about Lena is endearing, edgy, with abrupt swings of mood. But she was a stunning beauty. She turned heads, no matter where she goes. She hung out with older boys and enlisted Jesse's help to smooth over and back up her alibis about her whereabouts and boyfriends.
When Lena abruptly leaves for California with a tattoo artist to visit her stepfather who has just been released from prison, Jesse finally gets the courage to write Lena a letter declaring his love for her. Upon her return, Jesse asks Lena if she received his letter, she replies "I wish I could write like that." When he asks about the visit with her stepfather, she tells him he hanged himself the day before she arrived.
Years pass, and Jesse marries and has daughters of his own, and after pursuing his law degree at Yale, becomes a Connecticut judge. He has lost touch with Lena, and on a rainy day, Lena's father calls with concern about Lena in Greenwich Village and her refusal to communicate.
Although he had not seen or been in touch with Lena for years, he agrees to check on her situation in the village. When he arrives, he sees Lena at the cash register. She doesn't recognize him. He walks up to her and says "Lena...it's really you." Suddenly she recognizes him and hugs him, and all of his feelings for her from the past come flooding back into his memory.
She goes through a rush of emotions, becoming angry that maybe he thought he still had a chance with her. She tells him he wasn't the only guy that wrote her love letters. She begins fuming that her father had sent Jesse, screaming, "I don't owe him anything."
They sit for a few moments, when Jesse says, almost angrily, he has to get back to Connecticut. As Lena reaches for his hand, he avoids her and makes a quick retreat, presumably leaving Lena stunned.
Outside in the "drizzle and mist," Jesse clutches his umbrella, somehow hoping that Lena Limpetti would come "chasing him through the rain."
This is the most complex narrative in this set of stories thus far---passages of time and histories of characters unfold quickly in this story that takes Jesse Neerman from the seventh to twelfth grade in high school, to being appointed to the bench midlife, his limerence holding him captive to a dream that could never be.
