In Praise of Falling

The Storyteller’s Daughter

The Storyteller’s Daughter He starts like this: True story.Did I tell you this one? I didn’t? The story of a water fight between my young dad and his neighbor begins with a few sprinkles on their apartment patio and ends with a flying pot of water and a cracked windowpane. Years later, the story of a water fight between young neighbors transforms into a Homeric epic featuring an open fire hydrant and ends with Poseidon ascending from the sea on Malabar Street. This is not to say my father’s prone to gratuitous exaggeration. Transforming into Homer, spinning epics of open fire hydrants and the one about the flaming trail of lighter fluid blazing across the back deck (this is not to say that he is prone to gratuitous exaggeration), my father is alternately the hero of the story and the butt of his own joke. A flaming trail of lighter fluid blazing across a redwood deck becomes a cautionary fable about fire safety told by a man who is enthusiastically the hero of his own story and the butt of the joke. You could call it my inheritance—anything for a lesson or a laugh, these cautionary fables about fire safety told by a man who taught me it’s okay to bend facts for the sake of the story. You could call it my inheritance—anything for a laugh or a lesson, like a good hunter never lets a wounded animal run into the brush. Yes, it’s okay to bend a couple facts for the sake of the story— like the one that begins with a few sprinkles on their apartment patio and the one where I let a wounded animal run into the brush. Did I tell you that one? I didn’t? It starts like this: True story . . .  Dumesnil PGS:Layout 1 4/28/09 12:32 PM Page 23 ...