{"id":10857,"date":"2025-03-11T22:23:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T22:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=10857"},"modified":"2025-03-11T22:23:27","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T22:23:27","slug":"featherless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/11\/featherless\/","title":{"rendered":"Featherless"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Golden Years<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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A new novella from the peerless A. G. Mojtabai tackles an underrepresented group: those who are growing old.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review by John Wilson<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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For years now, starting well before I became officially \u201cold\u201d myself (I\u2019ll turn 77 in June; my wife, Wendy, turned 77 in February), I\u2019ve deplored the paucity of current fiction that prominently features \u201cold people\u201d both in their great variety and in their shared experience. A sterling exception is A. G. Mojtabai, whose novella Featherless<\/em>, published by Slant in December, is one of the best such books I\u2019ve read in my lifetime.<\/p>

Three caveats before we zero in on the book and Mojtabai\u2019s remarkable \u201canti-career,\u201d as I have described it. First, I am not urging you to check out Featherless<\/em> in order to accrue virtue for reading about an \u201cunder-represented\u201d group: the \u201cseniors\u201d (loathsome word), the elderly, the senile, etc. Of course this \u201cgroup\u201d is indeed absurdly under-represented at a time when a large proportion of newly published fiction derives its raison d’\u00eatre from its claim to tell stories about various groups whose stories are said to have been ignored, repressed, untold. And it is a \u201cgroup\u201d that crosses all the familiar lines\u2014racial, sexual, and otherwise. But most fiction written under that sign, like most fiction that makes any such prefabricated appeal, is tedious stuff.<\/p>

Second, as a firm believer in the irreducibility of taste, I have no desire to grab you by the collar and say, \u201cYou must read this!\u201d (even if such an imperious command had any chance of success). The airways are already crowded with people (some of them my good friends, others whom I\u2019ve never met but hold in respect and affection, and so on) who prescribe a steady diet of Great Books for you: Jane Austen for breakfast, Flannery O\u2019Connor for lunch, and who\u2019s coming to dinner?<\/p>

Third, part of the charm of Featherless<\/em> is precisely the fact that it has nothing to sell you. I don\u2019t mean that it is a trivial book\u2014far from it\u2014but rather that it is self-effacing in a manner that it is characteristic of the author. Many of her fictions are short; several have one-word titles. A book in a sort of no-man\u2019s land between fiction and nonfiction, Soon<\/em> (1998), set in the realm of hospice care (Mojtabai served as a volunteer), is thematically related to Featherless<\/em>. And her most recent book, the novella Thirst<\/em>, is also closely related to Featherless<\/em> while quite different in tone. If you don\u2019t like Mojtabai, you may say that her approach to the reader is too detached; if you like (love) her, as I do, you relish her serene assurance, without a trace of arrogance. In the acknowledgements at the end of Featherless<\/em>, Mojtabai writes, \u201cFirst and foremost, I want to thank my daughter Chitra F. Mojtabai for her collaboration on every page of this manuscript. Without her, Featherless<\/em> would never have taken flight. She bled over each word as much as I did. This book is half hers.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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It is a marvel that Mojtabai brings this off with no sense of rush, nothing forced.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The next paragraph of the acknowledgments is essential too: \u201cTo the wise and kind women who have been my caregivers, I have learned so much from you. Thank you for your attention and friendship, your patience and compassion. Here\u2019s to my Texas Toughies: Lisa Tucek, Pandora Box, Kimberly \u2018Kiki\u2019 Grantham, Tammie Whitley, and Anna Ortiz.\u201d I\u2019m not sure I have ever quoted from the acknowledgments in writing about a work of fiction; here, to do so is essential, to give you a sense of the spirit of the book, the spirit of the author.<\/p>

So. The setting of Featherless<\/em> is the Residence at Shady Rest, Home for the Aged. That pretentious name (\u201cthe Residence at…\u201d) is pitch-perfect, like everything else in this book. Almost all of the narrative covers part of a single year. This is followed by two \u201cmini-chapters\u201d (and I mean \u201cmini\u201d), the first set a year later (a \u201cmysterious new flu\u201d\u2014Covid, of course\u2014has arrived, and residents and staff are dying), the second, a year after that. The narrative is very episodic, now zeroing in on one of the residents, now on another; the central consciousness, insofar as there is one, is a young man named Daniel, who has started to work at Shady Rest not long before the beginning of the action. The residents\u2014Gladys, Elora, Eli, Wiktor, and so on\u2014are a varied bunch; we get a sense of each one as a person in quick descriptions, a bit of conversation, brief third-person glimpses of their thoughts. All this is done very economically, with more extended takes of Daniel. It is a marvel that Mojtabai brings this off with no sense of rush, nothing forced.<\/p>

There is a sharp downward trajectory for some of the residents while others are muddling along, the end not yet looming. Eli is tormented by the thought that he will soon be transferred to the \u201cMemory Care Unit,\u201d where residents in the full grip of senility are sequestered; that becomes one of the major \u201cplot-lines\u201d of the novel. As a caregiver myself, this rang all too true to me. Also resonating with my reading of Featherless<\/em> were memories\u2014some very sharp\u2014of the eight years during which my wife, Wendy, was a hospice volunteer. I think many readers would have similar experiences with this book, since so many of us have encountered\u2014in one way or another\u2014the bedrock reality it illuminates. Many thanks to Greg Wolfe and Slant Books, and above all to A. G. Mojtabai.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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John Wilson<\/strong> was the editor of Books & Culture<\/em> from its first issue (Sept\/Oct 1995) to its last (Nov\/Dec 2016). Nowadays he writes an (online) column every other week for First Things<\/em>, a monthly fiction column for Prufrock News, and reviews for a wide range of publications.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Featherless<\/strong> was published by Slant Books on November 26, 2024. Fare Forward<\/em> appreciates their provision of a review copy. You can purchase your own copy from the publisher here<\/a>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new novella from the peerless A. G. Mojtabai tackles an underrepresented group: those who are growing old. 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