The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard

Next up, the final book from my last “Sneak Peek” class: The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard (Ecco/HarperCollins, 1/25/11 pub date).

As I was reading this book, I was creating a picture in my mind of the author and what she must be like. I knew nothing about her as yet, hadn’t even looked at her photo on the back flap of the book.

I thought of her as a suburban housewife. There are several reasons I thought of her this way. First of all, I am a suburban housewife. That is not all I am, but it is a big part of who and what I am. And because I am currently trying to write a novel, and part of my novel takes place in suburbia, and Pittard’s book also takes place in suburbia, I was thinking perhaps she was curious about suburbia for the same reason I and countless writers before us have been, which is the supposition that “things are not what they seem,” the belief that under the often-placid and homogenized surface, things are happening that aren’t known about, aren’t expected, and are probably interesting to think and write about. I assumed this was her exploration of the undercurrents of suburban life. I decided that she, like me, must be a suburban housewife exploring life in the suburbia she sees around her.

I also thought it interesting that Pittard decided to explore this concept through the boys, through male voices – well, one plural male voice, using the sometimes awkward and unusual 1st person plural point of view. Interesting that she is wondering what the boys are thinking about all this that’s going on. Challenging, as a female writer.

Then I got to the end of the book and I looked at her photograph and I decided I was completely wrong about her. Judging by what I see in the picture, she is not a suburban housewife. She looks a bit too urban and hipster. (No circles beneath her eyes, no evidence of a yoga mat.) Yes, yes, I know—things are not what they seem to be, but still. Perhaps her interest in suburbia comes from her upbringing. I would be curious to know. But I do think she shares with me and many others the compelling curiosity about a place (i.e. suburbia) that has a habit of stunting and torturing those who grow up there.

Pittard comes to us with some impressive literary credentials, having, among other things, won the Amanda David Highwire Fiction Award. Amanda Davis, if you don’t know, was a talented writer who died tragically young in a plane crash, and I highly and emphatically recommend her novel, the ironically titled Wonder When You’ll Miss Me. I’ve taught it and read it several times and, while it’s not for everyone (right, Lauren?), I think it’s pretty spectacular.

The premise of Fates is that a popular beautiful high school girl disappears one Halloween evening. The boys, and the men they later become, never stop thinking about her, obsessing about her, wondering what became of her and making up stories about her fate.

My readers in the class and I had a bit of trouble keeping straight all the various boys in the book – it became somewhat confusing at times to distinguish them given the plural all-purpose authorial voice. Also given the many voices and characters, I did wonder, where is the author’s heart here? Is it in any one particular character? Nora, the girl who disappeared (and whom we never directly meet)? Sissy, the sister left behind? One, more or all of the boys? As a reader, I wasn’t finding any particular allegiance myself. In some places my sympathy landed harder than others (for example with some of the mothers of the boys), but I made no real direct connections. I do, however, find interesting the concept of writing a book that hinges around a character (the missing girl) who isn’t even in the book.

If I try to distill the point of the book down to one lesson, it is in this quote from the final chapter: “At the end of the day, we find ourselves somewhat unprepared . . . for the obvious realization that this—this, all around us—is our life.” No fireworks, no starring roles, just the everyday that ekes forward inexorably until the days run out (that last quote being mine!).