Fiction at the Chokepoint

Christina Milletti's Choke Box, winner of the Juniper Prize for fiction, will be released this month by University of Massachusetts Press. Milletti calls her novel a "fem-noir." Using the tropes of crime fiction, psychological thrillers, and chick lit, Milletti manages turn a complex, feminist critique into a dark page-turner.

The story is told by suburban mom/accused murderer Jane Tamlin, who presents a suspicious, yet compelling (and often funny) account of the circumstances leading to her incarceration. The humor in the novel often derives from Milletti's absurd pairing of mundane domestic scenes with eruptions of bizarre violence. For instance, in the "So-Called Butterknife Affair," Jane turns from the sink to stab her young son (accidentally? intentionally?) with a dull, soapy butter knife.

Throughout the novel, opportunities for horror (and humor) emerge from ordinary domestic activities, such as eating and speaking. For instance, Milletti presents us with a list of "Famous Chokers" which includes Attila the Hun, George W. Bush, Cher, and Tennessee Williams as well as the obstructions to their famous airways (a nosebleed, a pretzel, a vitamin pill, and a bottle cap, respectively). Yet Milletti reminds us that choking, which threatens to silence us permanently, is tied to the human ability to speak. Our distinctive anatomy, our voiceboxes, make us susceptible to choking. What is suspense but a story that gets stuck somewhere between life and death? The fem-noir is, perhaps, a story you'd die to tell or one you'd die telling.

Here's a story I'd like to tell: while reading Choke Box, I began to reflect on the time I tried to help a woman who was choking. I was at a benefit party at bar in D.C. with a couple of friends, including a new acquaintance, who I'll call "Liz." Liz and I shouted over the music as we loaded up our plates with hors d'oeuvres. Not long after, a grilled beef cube became lodged in her airway.

I knew right away her cough wasn't normal. But I felt too shy to offer her the Heimlich maneuver. Liz was clearly self-conscious about coughing. I didn't want to embarrass her further. Besides, what if she wasn't really choking? I looked around for someone to help. Everyone stepped aside, pointedly ignoring Liz; later I learned that they'd assumed she was drunk.

When snot and spit and tears melted Liz's make-up, she staggered toward a dark, secluded corner of the bar—presumably to die, literally, of shame. I tiptoed up behind her. I whispered, "Should I, um—?"

I still couldn't bring myself to say the word: Heimlich. I put my arms around her. I paused, giving her the opportunity to push me away. I didn't want to seem creepy. I squeezed. The beef cube popped out.

Liz breathed. She laughed. She fixed her makeup. We drank cocktails and danced.

Choke Box helped me see my little life-and-death episode through the lens of fem-noir, where (gendered) doubt and silence contribute to the suspense and danger of a situation. After the event, I still doubted my perceptions: had Liz really choked? It was hard to believe. We were drinking and dancing. She was her breathing, laughing self—had I invented the whole thing? In Choke Box, doubt and danger emerge through the breathing, laughing account of a woman who is lodged—perhaps permanently—in Buffalo Psychiatric, and there she writes in her dingy room.

Jane's growing memoir forms the bulk of Choke Box. She hides her manuscript behind a section of crumbling plaster in the walls of an institution that will be familiar to readers who have visited Buffalo, New York. Buffalo readers will imagine this tale unfolding within the towering, fortress-like nineteenth century, mental institution that serves as a local landmark and (currently) a boutique hotel. Rumored to be haunted, the old buildings recall an era when inconvenient women were confined—often...