A Writer in Writer's Clothing

Mary Robison, critically acclaimed author and Briggs Copeland Assistant Professor in English, met her present spouse, James, when he "offered me a lift on his motorcycle between states somewhere, on the way to Motor City."

A pretty typical incident in Robison's life, her early years being spent "all over the map, getting married, having children, being a hobo, a socialist..." Robison even looks the part of a carefree bohemian. "I love the way she looks like what you would imagine in a stereotypical writer: she smokes nonstop, she drinks lots of black cofee, has wild hair and funky bracelets," says Elizabeth L. Buckley '87, a first-time student in Robison's creative writing course.

Writing, however, was one art that "did not seem to me to be plausible," Robison says. "I had wanted to be other things, but I am at an age where I'm narrowing my focus. I am probably not going to be a rock star or a nuclear physicist."

Then one day a letter arrived from novelist John Barth asking her to come to Johns Hopkins and study with him, which she did. A friend, it turns out, had sent some of her work to him. "That was the first idea I had that my stories were of any interest. It was very exciting. I thought it was a mistake--this letter over what seemed to me journal, a girl's diary, and not conceivably of interest to anyone."

Now, almost 10 years after getting her first short story in The New Yorker, the tables have turned, and it is Robison who is teaching young people the craft of writing fiction in English Car and Cbr.

Reaction to her teaching over the years has been "universally, hysterically enthusiastic," says Professor of English Monroe Engle, who hired Robison for the job. John T. Zilcosky '87, a three time veteran of Car, notes that "She gives the class a relaxed atmosphere. She seems to stimulate conversation--a lot of laughing and joking around that lead to productive criticism."

"I'm impressed by the fact that she's encouraging even when she's critical of your work," says Buckley. "She lets you know she doesn't like your work in way that doesn't shatter you."

But after five years at Harvard, with a year teaching at Oberlin in between, Robison is about to hang up her red pen. "There simply isn't any extension on their side, and I have two books five years overdue, so there simply isn't any extension on my side. I reached a point where I was a better teacher than a writer."

Giving teaching up "is a considerable sacrifice," Robison says. "Actually, I sort of prefer it [to writing]. It's easier. It comes more naturally."

You wouldn't know it from her writing, however. Robison writes with the same ironic precision that's in her speech. Witness this dialogue from her early short story "Bud Parrot":

"You're the bride's sister, aren't you? Aren't you Evaline?

"Yeah," Evaline said. "Which side are you on? The bride's or the groom's?"

"Both. I know both of them," Bud said. "I'm older friends with Dean than Gail. By about thirty minutes."

Evaline stood over bottles of various kinds of liquor. She stirred up a warm martini and handed it to Bud Parrot.

"One for both hands," he said. "Thanks."

Evaline began to make a Gibson. "What's your name?" she said. "Maybe I've heard of you."

Bud said, "Bud."

"Oh," Evaline said, looking a bit flustered. "Oh, yeah."

Robison's distinctive style of spare, non-florid prose has been labeled "Minimalism" by reviewers. "They're borrowing terms from painting that aren't applicable," Robison complains. "I don't know why they can't think up their own terms."

"I am always grouped with two or three others--Anne Beattie, Raymond Carver. I happen to be friends with them," she says. "I don't know anyone in the minimalist school who enrolled."

When it comes down to labels Robison prefers to be called a subtractionist, "because at least it sounds as if there's some effort involved. And besides, I made it up and I'm writing an essay for the Times on being a subtractionist. I'm going to wrestle with the critics there a bit."

Even if the critics don't always appreciate her work, Robison "is a writer's writer," says Bobbie Bristol, Robison's editor at Knopf in New York.

"I think the most interesting thing about Mary's reputation is that while she's not widely known, she has been very influential on young writers like David Leavitt," adds Andrew Wiley, her agent. Author and fellow Car instructor Chris Leland attributes the effectiveness of her writing to "her wonderful economy of language."

Not surprisingly, Robison is best known for her short stories in Days and An Amateur's Guide to the Night, most of which have been edited and published at The New Yorker by Roger Angell.

"I have a great respect for the form, but I actually prefer novel writing," Robison says. "But there's the obvious thing that I can get paid a great deal more money with short stories than with novels. I get paid twice--usually I publish the story somewhere then get paid for the collection." Robison has finally reached the position, rare amongst the literary set, "of being able to make more from my writing than from teaching." She plans to return to teaching only if offered "obscene amounts of money."

She has also published a novel, Oh!, which "has been optioned [for the movies] a lot. I think there's a better chance than there ever was of it being made into a movie."

"As a matter of fact, I don't particularly want to see this version made--I better not say why. Some of the people involved I'm crazy about, others I don't approve of," she says. (The Hollywood Rumour Mill states that actress Allie Sheedy is one of the persons being talked to.) "I don't have any say--my opinion is solicited," Robison adds.

Robison's husband is also a writer, who recently published a collection of short stories. Robison also has two teenage daughter from a former marriage. "I never hesitate to use them for material," she says. "I did one thing right. I convinced them early on that I was inept and pitiful, so they wait on me and do a lot for me-most children don't. They're used to an unconventional life."

Vintage Robison

"WE WERE IN MY Plymouth, on the expressway, passing a red weedfield that was going to be subdivided into a housing tract, when Junior asked to be let out. I pulled onto the berm and stopped. A bad wind was throwing paper and Dixie cups around.

Junior said he was going to walk back and sit on a pine bench he had seen. He said after that he might run around in the weedfield until he got lost, and maybe he did, too, because I only saw him one other time before I saw him dead at his funeral--he was hit by a post office truck in a Florida crosswalk on his way to Disney World--and that one other time I saw him was when Aunt Barbara got married to a man who owned a soda-bottling company."

excerpted from "Relations" in Mary Robison's Days.