Frog by Stephen Dixon

 

Frog was a finalist for the National Book Award for fiction in 1991, placing Stephen Dixon in the spotlight for the first time in his thirty year writing career. The author's previous 4 novels and 10 short story collections were published in small literary presses, many of the individual stories appearing first in tiny saddle stitch magazines such as Asylum Arts and Ozone.

Frog is 769 pages, composed of one novel, three novellas and 17 short stories, all interconnected, all with titles like Frog Remembers, Frog Dances, Frog Takes a Swim, Frog’s Mom, Frog Reads the News.

Frog is about a little known fiction writer by the name of Howard Tetch aka Frog. Tetch has a wife and two small children and comes from a large family. Turning the pages, we becoming better acquainted with not only the nitty-gritty of Tetch's day-to-day grind in his many roles (private, professional, family, social, anti-social - the list goes on) but his extended family through generations, large portions told in what isn't so much stream of consciousness as what could be termed spin of consciousness.

Ah, signature Stephen Dixon spin of consciousness. Here's a minuscule clip from Frog Fragments, a chapter covering over 250 pages where paragraphs will continue on page after page after page: "She says, when he's making the couch up, pretending not to notice her going back and forth from bathroom to bedroom, trying to push his penis back between his thighs because it's sticking straight out, "Listen," in a short nightie, nipples and pubes seen through, "why don't you sleep with me tonight, if you promise to take off those godawful shorts." "You want me to wear boxer shorts instead of briefs?" "Anything. Nothing, under your pants, if I had the choice, between those and no underclothes." Engaged in a couple of months. Proposes in her building's basement while they're taking clothes out of the washer and sorting them and putting most into the drier. "I know this is the wrong place but would you, if I asked, marry me?" and she says "Why, what other place would be more memorable to be asked that except maybe the toilet? and I'd love to." "Let me get it straight - for the record as we reporters like to say - I never did but I heard about it - you'd love to marry me?" Yes, I would." You will marry me then?" "Yes, I said it."

On occasion, Tetch the Frog will generate a number of possible past happenings or versions of the present or future possibilities as if exploring a Borges garden of forking paths. But, no matter, once we shift into Stephen Dixon's high-strung staccato, we gladly play along.

Regarding the author's quirky writing style, the most insightful observation I've come across is from Alan H. Friedman's New York Times review of the novel: "One doesn't exactly read a story by Stephen Dixon; one submits to it. An unstoppable prose expands the arteries while an edgy, casual nervousness overpowers the will. Still, this irresistible text is bound to meet immovable readers; I'd like to be there to pick up the pieces."

Frog is an astonishingly original work of fiction. I've never read anything quite like it. Such a distinctive, compressed writing style and so much like a frog, hopping from chapter to chapter wherein Frog searches for Kafka's grave, members of Frog's family are shipped off in a cattle car to a Nazi death camp, Frog considers what he would have been if a soldier or farmer, Frog offers encouragement to his dying sister, Frog speaks as a corpse.

Many chapters deserve a special call-out but I'll focus on Frog's Interview. As a dedicated book reviewer, I just can't help myself. Several direct quizzical quotes coupled with my comments:

"I wrote a letter suggesting an interview with him. He wrote back "I've been interviewed twice in the last three years and the day after each interview I told the interviewers to erase the tapes and tear up their notes." There's something of the actual Stephen Dixon injected into these lines. I've not only read a number of his interviews online but I vividly recall listening to a Dixon interview some years back. He's more than happy to talk about his work but there's a prickliness if he hears the interviewer making bold assumptions about his voice and stories. Also, Stephen Dixon doesn't hold back when it comes to a publishing industry more interested in money than supporting quality literature.

"Listen, I don't want people knowing where I came from . . . how my life leaks into my fiction and vice versa and what comes from the real and what from the imagination and what kind of instrument I use to sharpen my typewriters every morning, and so on. I also can't answer your questions in writing because I'm a writer who only writes fiction. Whose only nonfiction, in fact, since I was a pimp maybe 25 years ago, and was an article called 'Why a Pimp Can't Write Nonfiction.'" Again, this is stellar Stephen Dixon, a writer who has spent many hours of nearly every day of his adult life sitting at his typewriter writing stories. He's not interested in theory or literary criticism (unless I've missed something, I don't believe Stephen Dixon ever wrote a book review) nor is he interested in writing about history or current events. I can almost hear him screaming, "Leave me alone so I can write my stories!"

"I'm not a bright guy. Fact is, I'm dense and intellectually dumb. You can see that by what I say and how I say it. I might know my way around a typewriter keyboard when I'm alone with it, and that for sure is arguable, but just about nowhere else." And yet again, Stephen Dixon-like. As a fiction writer, one need not be an intellectual or even an articulate conversationalist; what is needed is an keen ability to translate one's vision and voice into writing, one word, one sentence, one paragraph at a time. Exactly what Stephen Dixon does well.

When asked what's going on in American fiction from his point of view, Frog answered: "Writing, lots of writing. Short stories and novels. Some novellas. Short shorts are in. Cuffs are out again and pleats are back." You tell her, Frog! What does she think you are - a journalist? a critic? a historian? Damn, you are a fiction writer!

Coda: Stephen Dixon died in hospice on Wednesday, 11/6/2019, at age 83. A warmhearted, sensitive man. You will be missed, Stephen.


American short story writer and novelist Stephen Dixon, 1936-2019