“What Can You Do with a General” & A Self-Love Problem
Today, for the inaugural Reading and Drinking post, I’m taking a dive into Emma Cline’s “What Can You Do with a General” from her short story collection Daddy. If you haven’t used up your four free articles already, you can find the story on the New Yorker’s website, where it was first published in 2019. If you’re here for the cocktail, it’s at the bottom, so scroll down!
Story: “What Can You Do with a General”
You may recognize Emma Cline from her meteoric rise in the past five years, in part to her Plimpton Prize-winning story “Marion” (from the Paris Review) and her first book, a novel you might have heard about, called The Girls (which is soon to be a limited series on Hulu). I think the best part of a story collection are both the first and last stories. One wets your appetite, setting expectations about what’s to come, while the other settles it all, leaving the reader with a final parting thought and something that might tie everything up in a bow. Like some necessary stretching before a workout, a quick jog before stepping into other, perhaps weightier, topics, “What Can You Do with a General” eases the reader into a mindset that readies them for the rest of the collection.
What’s there to say about the writing that Cline hasn’t already earned? It’s good, of course. Specific, imaginative descriptions that paint vividly the Californian landscape and, broadly, its people (at least, for this Midwesterner who knows the west coast only through what his technology and fiction deliver him). There is an important dynamic happening between the POV character, John, and his dialogue and action in that it easily aligns: his perception of things and what he says and does are synced. And what’s interesting about that is how everyone else’s dialogue and actions run counter to his thoughts and, particularly, to what he says. This creates a very subtle tension on the page that isn’t overtly narrated or laid out. There’s no moment when the pot boils over though we feel as though it might at any time. The writing itself and the general milieu of the story, its slow wade into a quotidian slice of life, reminds me of Updike, Cheever, and Ford, how their stories often turned an eye towards a privileged white man in various states, including decline, as “What Can You Do with a General” does as well, though this story (and I suspect the other stories in Daddy) is different in an important way: it’s presented to us with surprising empathy through the lens of a modern woman author.
Of note, the first paragraph delivers in ten, succinct sentences everything we need to know about the story to come and about John, who is an aging father waiting for his three children to return home to him and his wife, Linda, for Christmas. The first sentence, its tone, reveals something of John’s attitude while he watches his wife pace, a clue he’s oblivious to and that raises zero worry for him. Instead, he enjoys his time drinking coffee in the hot tub, thinking about how his kids should bake cookies using the persimmon fruit growing on the tree in his backyard when they arrive. After that thought, we’re immediately given two uncertain sentences, “Wasn’t that what Linda used to make, when the kids were little? Or what else—jam, maybe?”, where we see that John’s connection to his family—who they are, even who they were in his memories—are not really what he believes them to be. Then John, having concocted a way to recreate an uncertain family memory thinks, “Linda would know where to find the recipe.”
We can already see familiar gears turning in the head of John, the gears of a certain paternal type of man. We see it also in how he alters memories to fit expectation (an issue that arises again later in the story), and how he places himself automatically in the position to make decisions for the group well before any other character moves into scene, already passing responsibility onto Linda to bring the warm thought of persimmon cookies—or jam—to fruition.
In an interview for the Paris Review, Cline said she’d been trying to “write about men who didn’t feel so attuned to the emotional world around them, or the emotional world of others”, the sort of men revealed to the world by the #MeToo movement (along with other, more recent problems), which is a trait clearly expressed in John. He responds to Linda, and the rest of his children, with an absent-minded emotional detachment, as if he’s incapable of registering the harm he’s caused (through some undisclosed abuse he’s heaped onto Linda and his children, more actively in the past) and the dissonance it manifests in those relationships. You can see, too, the partitioning of roles. Linda takes care of the children—she helped Sam find a good used car, picks up Sasha who doesn’t have a license from the airport, —while John is, at best, frustrated by them and, at worst, judgmental towards them for not rising to some standard, to an expectation he’s slowly realizing his children may never reach.
Which is interesting because Cline doesn’t present judgments of John in the story, she merely lays out his thoughts and actions, lets the other characters reflect back the fallout of those actions, and allows the reader to form their own opinion, which is refreshing. Cline clearly trusts her readers to pick up on what she’s putting down without belaboring the point, though there is one part in the story where it felt a little forced.
When the family is watching old tapes and the video turns eventually to his middle child, Sasha, who is the story’s main source of conflict. In the video, John asks her “Do you love your daddy?....Who do you love more, your daddy or your mommy? Do you love your daddy the most?” and it feels as though we already knew this moment happened, or something like it; that we already understood, by this point in the story, that John is an emotionally taxing and abusive father. And while the scene doesn’t feel out of place it does feel overwrought, especially given the early moments of awareness John has, when he realizes his anger has been “neutered” and when he wears “a knitted sweater—Linda’s—that seemed laughably and obviously a woman’s. He didn’t worry about that anymore, how silly he might look.” To deliver us these complicated moments of vulnerability and self-connectedness and to then pull back a curtain to reveal, suddenly, such an embarrassingly needy person, and to hand-wave away in an off-screen time lapse of age the transition of the needy person in the video into this slightly more aware one feels like an oversight, for all the characters. Still, the story doesn’t miss a beat, nor does it bang a drum. It carries you through, however uncomfortable, to it’s welcome and unneaty end.
It would be remiss of me to not mention Zero, the family’s old dog kept alive by a pace maker. There’s such an important connection between Zero and John that, once again, takes me back to those 20th century male writers, how a dog is always a metaphor. Tigers and rare birds, alligators in the Nile and the howls of coyotes in the distance, these can all be scenery to create a mood (above and beyond metaphors); but so important to human life, dogs are always connected to something. A person, a feeling. Something mortal, soon to be lost. The way Zero is clearly extremely fragile and in need of constant attention from the family, how John takes care of and pities the dog—how John’s angered is neutered—shows us something of his inner self that is also fragile and in need of attention, and something John would also pity if he were in better touch with himself and his family.
Cocktail: A Self-Love Problem
Just as the first story in a collection is meant to wet the reader’s appetite, to be a sort of aperitif for the banquet of stories to come, so, too, is this week’s cocktail, called A Self-Love Problem. The drink was constructed with other aperitif drinks in mind, like the Aperol and Campari Spritzes, and is well suited as a pre-dinner cocktail, a fall weather sipper, or a brunch substitute for your mimosas. It features Lillet, Champagne or Prosecco, and a persimmon syrup.
Lillet is an aromatized wine, similar to vermouth, but fortified with citrus liqueur which increases the ABV higher than most vermouths while also adding longevity to the spirit. There are three versions of Lillet (Blanc, Rouge, and Rosé), each of which would add their own flavor twist to this crisp cocktail. Blanc pairs well with the persimmon because of its floral, honey notes, and it also adds a slight herbal nuance that rounds the out the drink. You can make a wonderful martini using Lillet in place of vermouth, or a white Negroni with gin, Lillet, and either Aperol or Suze.
Persimmon matures in the fall, around the end of September, and can be found well into January. There are two varieties of persimmon: the hachiya is larger and unsweet until ripe, full of tannic notes until the flesh feels mushy, like an over-ripe peach; the other is fuyu, which I used, that is sweet even when firm, but far more delicious when ripe and border-line melty. Persimmon tastes like a sweet pumpkin glazed in honey rubbed up against an orange: it’s sweet, but not saccharine, and earthy. The robust flavor, in proper balance, can stand up to more robust flavors like cinnamon, and spirits like rum and bourbon. You can find persimmons at your local International or Asian grocers.
Recipe
2oz Lillet Blanc
1.5oz Persimmon Syrup
Champagne or Prosecco to top (about 3oz)
Make the Persimmon Syrup: Mix 2 parts ripe Persimmon to 1 part white sugar and 1 part water. I scooped 2 ounces of persimmon into a microwave safe container then added 1 ounce of sugar and 1 ounce of water then microwaved in 30 second intervals, stirring in between. Once the mixture is combined, you’ll want to strain the mixture. Don’t use too fine a strainer at first as the pulp will clog everything. After that, strain to the refinement you want, but a sweet syrup with a little pulp is alright.
Add the Lillet and Syrup to a shaker with ice and shake, briefly, for 10 to 15 seconds, then strain into your glass over ice.
Finally, top with bubbly: I used Moët Chandon champagne, which kept to the California theme (and won’t break the bank), but you can use prosecco or even flavored soda water for an even lower ABV cocktail, whatever you prefer.
Enjoy.