Anne Tyler - A Slipping-Down Life  

One of the most beguiling and mesmerizing writers in America.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer

Not merely good she is wickedly good!

J OHN U PDIKE

A novelist who knows what a proper story is A very funny writer Not only a good and artful writer, but a wise one as well.

Newsweek

Tylers characters have character: quirks, odd angles of vision, colorful mean streaks and harmonic longings.

Time

Her people are triumphantly alive!

The New York Times

By Anne Tyler:

IF MORNING EVER COMES*

THE TIN CAN TREE*

A SLIPPING-DOWN LIFE*

THE CLOCK WINDER*

CELESTIAL NAVIGATION*

SEARCHING FOR CALEB*

EARTHLY POSSESSIONS*

MORGANS PASSING*

DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT*

THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST

BREATHING LESSONS

SAINT MAYBE*

LADDER OF YEARS*

*Published by Ivy Books

An Ivy Book
Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group
Copyright 1969, 1970 by Anne Tyler Modarressi

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

A somewhat abridged form of this novel appeared in the January 1970 issue of Redbook magazine.

http://www.randomhouse.com

eISBN: 978-0-307-78832-0

This edition published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

v3.1

1

E vie Decker was not musical. You could tell that just from the way she lookedshort and wide, heavy-footed. She listened to marches without beating time, forgot the tune to The Star-Spangled Banner, and moved soddenly around the high school gym in a bumbling two-step. At noon, while Evie munched a sandwich, boys from the band played Dixieland in a corner of the cafeteria. Sharp brass notes pierced the air above the tables; they darted past like red and yellow arrows. Evie ate on, a plump drab girl in a brown sweater that was running to balls at the elbows.

So when she invited Violet Hayes (her only friend) to a rock show at the Stardust Movie Theater, Violet couldnt understand it. What would you go to a thing like that for? she said. Are you serious? I dont believe you even know what a rock show is.

Well, I do listen to the radio, Evie said.

And she did. She listened all the time. With no company but her father and the cleaning girl (and both of them busy doing other things, not really company at all) she had whole hours of silence to fill. She turned her radio on in the early morning and let it run while she stumbled into her clothes and unsnarled her hair. In the afternoons, advertisements for liver pills and fertilizers wove themselves in among her homework assignments. She fell asleep to a program called Sweetheart Time, on which a disc jockey named Herbert read off a list of names in twos to dedicate each song. For Buddy and Jane, for Sally and Carl, for George and Sandra, he loves her very much. Herbert was an old man with a splintery voice, the only disc jockey the station had. He read the dedications haltingly, as if they puzzled him. For Paula and Sam, he hopes shell forgive last night and there would be the rustle of a paper lowered and a pause for him to stare at it. At the end of a song he said, That was the Rowingthe Rolling Stones. His faltering made him sound sad and bewildered, but no more bewildered than Evie.

She listened carefully. She lay on her back in the dark, wearing a great long seersucker nightgown, and frowned at the chinks of light that shone through the radios seams. Sometimes the names were familiar to hercouples she had watched floating hand in hand down school corridors in matching shirts, or girls called Zelda-Nell or Shallamoor, so that they couldnt hope to pass unnoticed. When she knew the names she paid close attention to the songs that followed, ferreting out the words with a kind of possessiveness but ignoring the tunes. Pop songs and hard rock and soul music tumbled out of the cracked brown portable, but the only difference she heard between them was that the words of the pop songs were easier to understand.

One evening in February there was a guest on the program. He came right after the News of the Hour. I have here a Mr. Bertram Casey, said Herbert. Better known as, known as Drumstrings. He coughed and shuffled some papers. Its an honor to have you with us, Mr. Drumstrings.

No one answered.

Evie was sitting on the bed, twisting her hair into scratchy little pincurls. When the silence grew noticeable she took a bobby pin from her mouth and looked at the radio. All she heard was static. Finally Herbert said, Well. This is the beginning of a new feature on Sweetheart Time: interviews. May I ask if you are a native North Carolinian, Mr. Drumstrings?

Someone said, Not for long I wont be.

His voice was cool and motionless, like a stone plunked into a pool. Herbert coughed again.

Whereabouts in North Carolina? he asked.

Farinia.

Farinia, yes. Off of Highway

But Im leaving there, said Drumstrings Casey.

All right. Where is it youre going?

A city, some city. It aint quite clear yet. I aim to cut records and play night clubs, and if I once wiggle out of here Im never coming back again, not even for Christmas. If my family gets to missing me they can come to where Im at, Ill buy them a house with white telephones and a swimming pool.

Thats very nice, said Herbert. Have you done much recording yet?

No.

What are the names of your, um, records?

There aint none.

Oh. Well, your style, then. Would you care to describe it for us?

Style?

Your style.

Style, aint no style.

Well, what, what do you do, exactly?

This pause was even longer than the first one. Second after second ticked away in dead air. If you dont know what I do, said Drumstrings finally, then how come you got me on your program?

Herbert mumbled something.

Whats that?

Because they told me to, I said. Heavens, boy, just answer the questions. Lets get this over with.

Oh, Drumstrings said. All right.

Only thing they gave me was a little scrap of paper with your name on it.

Well, dont blame me. I just show up where Im asked for.

All right, all right. Where was I?

You want to know what I do. I sing and play guitar. Rock.

You have one of those groups, Herbert said.

I sing alone. All I got is a drummer, but I dont know about him.

Hows that?

He kind of trods the beat.

Oh, yes, said Herbert.

There was a series of tiny explosions; someone was tapping his fingers.

You could ask me where I get my material, Drumstrings said.

Where do you get your material?

I make it up.

Thats very interesting.

Some is other peoples, but most is my own. I make it up in my room. I lie on my bed arguing with the strings, like, and sooner or later something comes out. Then my fingers get to hammering, reason they call me Drumstrings. How many people do you know could carry a set of drums singlehanded with one little old electric guitar? Lots will say you cant do it.