“have an eye!”
Morley Callaghan - To Tell The Truth*
His son Michael’s notes
By the time he was 20 Morley had written, “Words should be like panes of glass,” I discover what this meant when I first came across a story of his in a paperback collection as I sat cross-legged on my bed recuperating from bronchitis. I was 12. The collection was a Pocket Book of famous writers, and as I read Morley’s story I realized his story was as good as any in the collection, and that I had been carried into secret places of the heart with startling insights that were almost frightening. After this experience, I looked at him in wonder. Those eyes! I stared at my father and wondered if he could see through me. Looking back, I suppose he did.
By the time he was 20 Morley had written, “Words should be like panes of glass,” I discover what this meant when I first came across a story of his in a paperback collection as I sat cross-
His early writing in a "modern" style was influenced by Flaubert.The following piece was written when Morley was about twenty. It may have been this little piece that Morley handed to Hemingway in the Library in the Star.
”You are a real writer,” Hemingway replied.
”You are a real writer,” Hemingway replied.
“On the Way Home”
The wire fence was low at the dip in the hill. Lou put one foot on the top wire and stepped over and down the embankment to the railway track. He walked along the track lifting his bearded face to the sky. It looked like rain. It was getting dark and he wanted to be down to the grocery story before it rained
He heard voices on the bank above the track. A young fellow and a girl had come up from the wooded ravine to the right and were climbing the wire fence. Lou wondered what they had been doing down in the ravine so late. The young fellow tossed a coat and a leather bag and a book over the fence before helping her over. The girl had riding breeches under a long coat and she had a black band around her head. They did not see Lou. They walked along the top of the bank hardly speaking to each other. Lou could see that the fellow was angry about something. He was swinging the bag at the weeds. The girl kept looking over her shoulder at him. They walked straight ahead. She tried to put her arm around his waist but he pushed it away. She laughed and started to tease him.
Lou didn't want them to see him so he walked ahead along the path by the tracks. It started to rain a little. The girl snatched the fellow's cap and put it on her head, the peak to one side. The fellow still pouted. Lou could have laughed out loud. He didn't mind the rain. The fellow and his girl came down the bank to the track. The street lights were a little way ahead.
Lou could hear her say, "Give me your handkerchief, and. . ."
"Go chase yourself," the fellow said.
The girl strutted along the ties. Lou saw her take a handkerchief from her pocket and knot it in the four corners. It was almost dark and raining steadily. The girl waited until the fellow came up even with her and slyly put her arms around his neck and kissed him until he let her put the knotted handkerchief on his head and turn up his coat collar. He put his arm around her waist, lifting her on to a track rail, balancing her while they walked. Lou followed vaguely excited.
The bank on the right flattened out. They stood on the track looking down the dark ravine. The girl must have been poking or pinching the fellow because he yelled, "Ouch, damn you," and she ran along the track, laughing out loud. Lou wanted to laugh out loud. The fellow chased her and caught up with her. She struggled while he tried to twist her over his knee, but finally submitted and he slapped her behind. She ran ahead again, to run and yell mocking, "Oh my big bad man, you're so strong." She came back giggling and put her head on his shoulder. He wouldn't say a word.
Lou wanted to lift up his head and whistle happily but he had never been a very good whistler. They didn't mind the rain and he didn't mind the Kingston Road radial car southeast of the track that hooted mournfully. The fellow and the girl were past the ravine and the track became a ridge on the level ground. Then they saw Lou and straightened up, walking respectably and rapidly along the track. By a guard rail on the track a path went down the bank to the end of a street. Lou started down the path and stopped, watching the fellow and the girl going along the track in the rain, the girl with the fellow’s hat pulled over her ear, the fellow with the handkerchief knotted on his head. Lou turned up his coat collar and went down the path to the street and along to the grocery store. He could have kicked himself for thinking of the fellow and the girl trudging along the track to the stars. It was raining hard.
Dramatic Irony
.Callaghan developed dramatic irony to a degree that is unique among modern writers. His stories invariably end in a moral paradox that leaves a reader searching for an answer that the protagonist does not have. The ending is within the reader reflection on a dilemma, as in Chekobv