Book Review : A Mind Inhabited by Stick People

The Story of a Happy Woman by Elizabeth Levin (E. P. Dutton: $18.95, 252 pages)

At first this novel seems to be a classic example of the crazed-housewife genre so prevalent in the early ‘70s. Remember all those sensitive, creative heroines stuck in the suburbs, mourning their wasted talents and flushing their wedding rings down the loo? Though Myrtle Wood seems to belong to the same club, she’s a shade luckier.

Her friends understand and appreciate her, her grown children are affectionately tolerant of her foibles, she’s having a one-woman show of her pottery at a local gallery, and her husband is an incredibly handsome actor whose success in TV commercials has bought a five-acre estate in Larchmont, N.Y. Though dressing up as a bumblebee or a vegetable might sour the disposition of most men, Harry Wood apparently enjoys his profession.

Appearances are deceiving. Myrtle’s mind has been invaded by a gaggle of “stick people,” who live in a dirt cave inside her head. Recently these stick people have started wearing runners’ aprons with yellow numbers painted on them, a device that helps Myrtle keep track of them. Though she can hear about a hundred voices, the reader is only introduced to a few of the more distinctive--the little nun, the ballet dancer, the acrobat, the skinny guys in loincloths who are lewd and funny enough to write special material for Jackie Mason.

Going Through the Motions

As Myrtle goes through the motions of daily life, she carries on a running dialogue with the stick people, in which we, as readers, are obliged to participate. Though Myrtle sees a psychiatrist regularly, Dr. Z. has not been able to exorcise the stick people, perhaps because they are so essential to the novel.

Myrtle has a few other idiosyncrasies as well. Up in her attic is a swan skin complete with feathers, into which she frequently crawls in order to relive scenes from her Wisconsin girlhood. In the Woods’ Larchmont garden there are also a pair of nesting swans with whom Myrtle identifies so closely that she spells the female swan by sitting on her eggs so the bird can take an occasional swim in the pond. Myrtle has rigged up a bell so the swan can call her for this service at any hour of the day or night. When it’s time to take her turn on the nest, Myrtle rushes down cheerfully, enjoying the sensual feel of the swan eggs on her bare bottom.

Harry Wood accepts all of this with remarkable equanimity, only occasionally expressing his annoyance at the fact that Myrtle dresses eccentrically, in antique and often transparent clothes, and is intolerant of his old and incontinent dog. Aside from that, she’s a great wife--a terrific cook and an imaginative lover.

A Destiny to Fulfill

The gallery show of Myrtle’s pots is enlivened by the appearance of a magnificent princely figure who materializes in a beam of light and buys most of the work, telling her she has a destiny to fulfill and whisking her away in a limousine for a romantic ride. Thrilled, Myrtle changes her name to Nellie Pear, and awaits the Stranger’s next visit. From time to time, he does indeed return, to teach her how to figure skate, to picnic with her in the woods, and to take her on an unforgettable moonlight horseback ride to Jones Beach. The fact that no one else can see this Stranger should come as no surprise, though Myrtle has incontrovertible evidence of his reality. Since making his acquaintance, her bosom has doubled in size, an improvement that persuades even her skeptical family and friends that something mysterious is taking place.

Relentlessly bright and brittle at the beginning, the tone of the novel is darkened by hints indicating that Myrtle-Nellie is suffering from something far more serious than dual identity; something, in fact, that doesn’t lend itself at all well to the author’s fey humor. From its fantastic and whimsical opening, “The Story of a Happy Woman” hurtles to a melodramatic conclusion far too ponderous for the fragile mood so laboriously established in the earlier scenes. Beware of swans used as literary symbols. They only know one song, and eventually, they’re sure to sing it.