In the stories I have read, Jess Walter tends to focus on blue-collar people or worse. "Thief" is no different. The story is about a family of five. Each family member's persona, except for the mother, is described in detail because each is a suspect. The father Wayne is tearing himself apart trying to understand why one of his children would steal loose change from the family vacation fund. At first I thought the father was the thief because he prowls around the house at night examining his children, however the father is simply a workaholic and possibly a drunk who thinks a lot about his friend Ken's affair with a woman named Donna. Caring about the Father's dilemma is difficult because the stakes of the story don't seem very high. Who cares about a few cents here and there.
Wayne has fond memories of the vacations his family took when he was a child. He smiles while telling his wife about a trip to Yellowstone. The vacation fund is a tradition that started with Wayne's father. It takes two years before the family has enough money to take a vacation. Early on Wayne tells his wife why the missing money is a problem: "You want one of your kids stealing from their own goddamn family? You want your kids to be like this?" On his day off Wayne pretends to leave for work and instead hides in the closet, hoping to catch the thief in the act. Wayne hear the thief take money from the jar but he doesn't have the nerve to confront them. When the thief has left the room, Wayne can only reach for a beer. And here is where the story takes a turn. The narrator several numerical facts about the family in quick succession: "The house cost $44,000. The interest rate is 13 percent. The father works rotating shifts at a dying aluminum plant - day, swing, graveyard - for $9.45 an hour, and he comes home so tired, so greasy, so black with soot and sweat that he unrecognizable, and yet, every day he gets up to do it again." The ending completely changes how we view the rest of the story. Wayne becomes a messiah-like figure who dies everyday for his family's sins. You understand the father's struggle on a deeper level. Life is extremely difficult and Wayne struggles everyday to make ends meet with only the faint hope of a vacation every two years to motivate him. Sometimes the people we love don't realize the true consequences of their actions. The thief "burns with shame" but shame is not enough to keep the thief from stealing. What's on the surface is rarely enough to fully understand something. The truth is always far more complicated than appearances suggest. Few writers capture this idea better than Jess Walter.
Buy We Live in Water here:
https://amzn.to/2MMtajd
Wayne has fond memories of the vacations his family took when he was a child. He smiles while telling his wife about a trip to Yellowstone. The vacation fund is a tradition that started with Wayne's father. It takes two years before the family has enough money to take a vacation. Early on Wayne tells his wife why the missing money is a problem: "You want one of your kids stealing from their own goddamn family? You want your kids to be like this?" On his day off Wayne pretends to leave for work and instead hides in the closet, hoping to catch the thief in the act. Wayne hear the thief take money from the jar but he doesn't have the nerve to confront them. When the thief has left the room, Wayne can only reach for a beer. And here is where the story takes a turn. The narrator several numerical facts about the family in quick succession: "The house cost $44,000. The interest rate is 13 percent. The father works rotating shifts at a dying aluminum plant - day, swing, graveyard - for $9.45 an hour, and he comes home so tired, so greasy, so black with soot and sweat that he unrecognizable, and yet, every day he gets up to do it again." The ending completely changes how we view the rest of the story. Wayne becomes a messiah-like figure who dies everyday for his family's sins. You understand the father's struggle on a deeper level. Life is extremely difficult and Wayne struggles everyday to make ends meet with only the faint hope of a vacation every two years to motivate him. Sometimes the people we love don't realize the true consequences of their actions. The thief "burns with shame" but shame is not enough to keep the thief from stealing. What's on the surface is rarely enough to fully understand something. The truth is always far more complicated than appearances suggest. Few writers capture this idea better than Jess Walter.
Buy We Live in Water here:
https://amzn.to/2MMtajd
