Missing Clara Peller
It was in January of 1984 when an 80ish lady of Russian descent captured everyone’s attention by putting her hands on her hips and, with a scornful look, asked “Where’s the beef?” I often think of her when reading fiction, or the news (these days, it’s often difficult to tell which is which). This month, we’re looking at lies (our own) and unreliable narrators (maybe ours, probably those of other writers) Let’s start with lies. I often used them to try to avoid chores when I was a kid. I really didn’t like cleaning and grading eggs in our cellar, nor was I thrilled about weeding the garden. These days, I do some of my best thinking while weeding, but it took a long time to get there. Those successive lies bit me big time when I was around eleven. My abdomen hurt like the dickens and I told my father I was too ill to grade/clean my requisite three pails of eggs. He didn’t believe me, so I gutted it out, no pun intended, and finished my chores. At three in the morning, I began s...
