"The Common Day": 10/01/24

"The Common Day" by John Cheever (1947) was a short story in the August 2 edition of the New Yorker. It's an examination of class in New England as seen over events of summer visit of Jim Brown and his family to his mother-in-law's.

Jim notes how various parts of the house are off limits to him but not to his four-year-old daughter, Carlotta. She is allowed in the kitchen and in the other private spaces used by Mrs. Garrison. He waffles between bemusement and resentment at his daughter's privilege.

He is also at odds with Nils, the groundskeeper. As a privileged man from the big city, Jim hasn't had to learn how to do the work to maintain a home. He doesn't garden. He can't change a fuse. He can't do, nor has any awareness really, of the work Nils does.

Feeling insulted at Nils's blunt observations on class and on Jim in particular, he decides to take care of the raccoon who is damaging the garden. It's violent, nasty work and well beyond anything Jim as ever had to do.

Jim reminds me Ramsay, the young laird in The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan (2019). Both have legacy help. Neither house has the full staff needed to efficiently run. Neither house can afford to have a full staff and the aging staff is paying the price of being the last ones with their health.

While Ramsay is willing to adapt to the changing times, it's implied that Jim isn't. More precisely, Jim is too far removed from the lives of his mother-in-law's staff to even begin to comprehend what needs to change.

As with the other John Cheever stories I've covered, this one sits on the Road Narrative Spectrum. Jim and his family are traveling together (33). The destination is uhoria, both the past in the way things used to be at the home and in its uncertain future (CC). The route there is the cornfield (FF) represented throughout the story by the corn the raccoon is taking.

Three stars

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