Sadie Sayings
A character named Sadie is a recurring figure in the book, introduced in the opening story and popping up again occasionally in others. She exhibits a certain propensity for creative metaphorical expressions of speech such as the following in that first story:
“The idea of an air mattress and an electric blanket had sounded like a disaster sandwich to Sadie, but she put on her underpants and took off her wet dress and used it to dry her wet knees, and then, cold to the bones, she slid in.”
Puppets
Puppets keep popping up in the stories in this collection. Of course, the stories they pop up in are those unified by the appearances of a couple named Jack and Sadie. Still, the prevalence of puppetry offers a multitude of opportunities for metaphors:
“Ordinarily she wasn’t drawn to puppets. This one reminded her of a corpse at a wake. It demanded respect.”
What’s the Meaning Here?
Most metaphors tend to be clear enough in meaning when they arrive with context. Occasionally, however, the context only serves to complicate things. For instance, in this example the idea of arson does not quite jibe with the suggestion of optimism provided contextually. What is this metaphor getting at, really?
“Together they called Louis the Infernal Optimist. He’d burn the house down looking for a bright side.”
The Ventriloquist
“A Splinter” is one of the strangest contributions to the pile of strange stories about ventriloquists ever written. It does not go where one expects because it has nothing to do with a ventriloquist who can’t tell the difference between where she ends and her dummy begins. Or vice versa or whatever. It is a love story, of sorts, that starts out with a teenager meeting what he suspects is the object of his passion:
“The hairdo had been a wig, the glamorous face largely makeup, the cheekbones trompe l’oeil. But she was there, like a developing photograph, younger than he’d thought, plusher.”
Too Pricey!
You know those tight little bracelets they give you when you have bought your way into exclusionary space and the host doesn’t want your return business unless you can prove you paid to get in the first time? The author offers a distinctly disturbing metaphor for this relationship relative to an indoor water park in Texas:
“At the Schlitterbahn box office they had to offer their wrists, and in a quiet ceremony they were braceleted, married to the park.”
