Family Matters

THE GRANDMOTHER of five girls, Lil Krauss, is the undisputed leader of her large family. She is the matriarch,"...the queen bee...the Queen of Persia, the Empress herself." Krauss is the undisputed leader of her large family. She is the matriarch, "...the queen bee...the Queen of Persia, the Empress herself." Krauss is a monarch by virtue of her strength, energy and stubbornness. Although her effect on the household is subtle, her presence is constantly felt, her power never doubted. From her family, she commands an unlikely mix of fear, respect and sincere love. And as family matriarcl., Lil Krauss becomes the symbol of female dominance throughout Joan Chase's first novel. During the Reign of the Queen of Persia.

Case's novel is a beautifully written, expertly crafted portrayal of a simple American family. Yet very little is conventional in this work. There is no single strand of time to guide the reader through the varied experiences and feelings Chase presents, moving back and forth freely through three generations of American women. The unity of the novel is created soley through the narrators, the voice of a collective female consciousness.

The use of the first person plural "we," is Chase's greatest and most effective innovation. The narrators are two sets of sisters--Anne and Katie, Jenny and Celia--whose lives are so intertwined it seems quite natural that their feelings and impressions are unified. "Sometimes we watched each other, knew differences. But most of the time it was as though the four of us were one and we lived in days that gathered into one stream of time, undifferentiated and communal" Together they play and grow, all the while watching the lives around them from a single perspective. The daughters present a wealth of experience with the complexity of feelings that are not fully understood. They explain,"...for what we knew of the family was disclosed to us by our being there to see it happen. We had to remain as inarticulate as the mantling walls, silent and watchful--outside the action."

Were it not for the author's compelling artistry and style. During the Reign of the Queen of Persia might easily be dismissed as an interesting experiment. The girls live on their grandmother's farm in Northern Ohio, and nothing terribly tragic or extraordinary ever happens in the old brick house and surrounding fields where they spend their days. But the strength of this novel does not lie in the glamour of its characters or the excitement of their lives, but rather in the author's ability to make this simple, unceasingly ordinary family compelling. Through her narrators, Chase delves through levels of experience, exposing the most deepfelt emotions in this family's superficially simple thoughts and actions. With her rich, almost poetic prose, Chase raises seemingly artless feelings and circumstances to a moving and fascinating level, viewed from an exclusively female perspective.

CHASE develops her feminine consciousness in the first part of the book, describing the girls' growing sexual awareness. One sister, Celia, is separated from the others by her unique beauty and innocent charm as a teenager. Celia inspires mixed admiration, envy and anticipation from the other girls, who hear their mother warn of "Endless betrayal, maidens forsaken, drowned or turned slut..."even as they witness their sister's endless stream of romances. Chase builds her feminine voice from this distinct consciousness, rooted firmly in the girls' sexuality.

From this foundation, the novel moves to examine more fully the entire realm of female experience, from marriage to childbirth and death, from contentment to rage and guilt. The struggles, however, are not those of the girls, but of their grandmother. The girls reveal her hardships, from poverty and disastrous marriage to the sudden wealth which allowed her to buy the farm. Lil Krauss's five daughters, May, Elinor, Libby, Grace and Rachel, also come alive through the narrators; the startling distinctions amongst them, the subtle tensions, and their relationships with their husbands are brought to light under the granddaughters' watchful eyes. When the illness and subsequent death of one of the five sisters touches the family, the complex web of emotion and experience that binds the three generations of women is gradually untangled.

The rich characterizations of the women in this novel stands in marked contrast to Chase's treatment of male character. The men are never as closely scrutinized, or deeply loved, as the women by the narrators. Their natures are defined only insofar as they inspire the affection and hatred of the women. Yet this sketchy definition of the man is not a weakness in the work; as young women, the narrators intuitively understand and empathize primarily with the feelings and experiences of the women around them. They merely accept and reach to the men, whose actions and weaknesses are often curious or fearful, and never completely understood by the girls.

During the Reign of the Queen of Persia, written by a woman, from the perspective of women, remains foremost a widely appealing story of an American family. Like Lil Krauss, it is testimony that the female voice can be heard by all ears.