Mysticism in Charles Baxter's Short Fiction

Themes in The Would-Be Father & Royal Blue Compared

Aug 12, 2009

Charles Baxter has published four story collections and four novels in his twenty-five year career. Certain themes have appeared in his work consistently since the first.

As his technique has developed, Baxter’s treatment of themes has become more and more effective. This article looks at instances of mysticism in two of Baxter’s short stories, one from his very first collection, “The Would-Be Father” from 1984’s Harmony of the World, and the other his most recent short publication, “Royal Blue,” published in The American Scholar in 2008.

Matching Narrators And Protagonists

“The Would-Be Father” and “Royal Blue” are both told in close third-person and follow the thoughts and actions of a single middle class Caucasian male of child-rearing age (Jerome in “The Would-be Father,” Nicholas in “Royal Blue”.)

The central character in each story lives with one other person who is kind of like his family, but not quite (Jerome’s’ nephew, Nicholas’s girlfriend.) Both stories include strange, slightly crazy older female characters that pop in and out and question the intelligence and motives of the protagonists (Mrs. Schultz, Granny Westerby.)

Both stories feature unexpected tragedies (the death of Jerome’s brother and sister-in-law on the way home from seeing E.T. in “The Would-Be Father”, the events of Sept. 11th in “Royal Blue”.) Finally, the stories both revolve around a character that uses other people’s wacky, mystical beliefs to help himself get along in life (folk art, horoscopes.)

Themes in Charles Baxter’s Fiction

Both stories explore mysticism to comic effect, but only in “Royal Blue” does mysticism thrust the story into profound questions of life, death, and human nature.

Baxter has been able, since his first collection, to navigate potentially suffocating subject matter with lightness and ease. In “The Would-Be Father,” Jerome is faced with raising an orphaned 5-year-old boy after the young deaths of his brother and sister-in-law. Rather than discussing the complicated, weighty emotions of Jerome and Gregory, the boy, Baxter illustrates their situation with an unexpected bedtime scene. Jerome is tucking Gregory in, and instead of reading a typical children’s book, or making up an innocuous story about an animal to put the child to sleep, we learn that Jerome has been inventing horoscopes for Gregory each night, to reassure him that nothing terrible is going to happen to him the next day (like someone else dying.):

“Okay.” Jerome took a deep breath. “The planets are in a good position for you tomorrow, especially Mercury and Venus. They’ll take good care of you, just like today…”

the seriousness of Gregory’s loss nor Baxter’s light view of the concept of horoscopes. The two ideas juxtapose one another while remaining static themselves.

Comedy and Tragedy In Baxter's Work

In contrast, the first scene in “Royal Blue” takes an idea presented as light (folk art) and an idea that can only be heavy (Sept. 11th) and blends the two, adding dimension to folk art and humor to tragedy.

The main character, Nicholas, visits a client to whom he frequently sells objects with Armageddon-referencing, old-testament-style quotations (i.e.… “The chariots rage in the streets…they are like stones thrown from the field for the plows straight path. Who shall tell the truth of the law and of righteousness? Only I, saith THE LORD. “)

The eerie quality of the scene, brought on by the outrageous folk art, sets the mood for Nicholas’s drive home, when he hears about the attacks of September 11th on the radio. Because the client has just been introduced as an eccentric rich person who has a comic obsession with cryptic, prophetic country art, Baxter is able to both elevate the seriousness of Nicholas’s business and alleviate the weight of discussing Sept. 11th with the following dialogue on page two—a cell phone call from Nicholas to his client from the road, right after he has heard the news:

Baxter’s “Royal Blue” A Success

The urge toward mysticism for the sake of humor is the same in “The Would-Be Father” and “Royal Blue,” and it works well in both. The difference is that “The Would-Be Father” remains in the safe territory of a character’s personal tragedy that the reader will not have her own opinion about when it is first mentioned. It is affecting and rings true, but “Royal Blue” succeeds beyond the scope of Baxter’s earlier work by confronting a historical event readers will remember and feel sensitive about, and bravely opening up that event to the possibility of comedy and alternative interpretation.

The copyright of the article Mysticism in Charles Baxter's Short Fiction in Modern American Fiction is owned by Eva Gordon. Permission to republish Mysticism in Charles Baxter's Short Fiction in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.