The Art of Ruth Suckow’s “A Start in Life”

F R I T Z O E H L S C H L A E G E R Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University TheArtof RuthSuckow’s "AStartin Life” When Ruth Suckow’s first volume of short stories, Iowa Interiors, appeared in 1926, no less a critic than H. L. Mencken hailed the book with unqualified enthusiasm: Who . . . has ever published a better first book of short stories than this one? Of the sixteen stories, not one is bad — and among the best there are at least five masterpieces. I mean by masterpiece a story that could not imaginably be improved — one in which the people are overwhelmingly real and not a word can be spared. All of these people are simple Iowa peasants. In other hands they would slide inevitably into stock types, ludicrous and arti­ ficial. But Miss Suckow differentiates them sharply, and into every one she breathes something of the eternal tragedy of man. Her talent is not unlike Sherwood Anderson’s, but her mind is more orderly than his. She gropes and guesses less and is hence more convincing.1 Despite Mencken’s praise, however, Miss Suckow’s reputation has been modest at best. She is generally mentioned, with varying degrees of favor, in the standard works on American regionalism and local color fiction. In addition, she has been the subject of a volume in the Twayne United States Authors Series, a very recent pamphlet in the Boise State 1H. L. Mencken, “The Library,” American Mercury, IX (November 1926), 383. 178 Western American Literature Western Writers Series, and one full-length critical study.2 All of these works are unquestionably sympathetic, but none has done enough to illuminate the particular quality of Suckow’s short fiction that Mencken praised — her fine artistic command of language and detail. Indeed, in Suckow’s best stories, “not a word can be spared.” In his review of Iowa Interiors, Mencken did not identify specifically the five stories he deemed masterpieces. But I feel sure that one of these must have been the volume’s opening story, “A Start in Life.” In no story is Miss Suckow’s sure command of the significant surface — her ability to make every detail count — more apparent. What I propose, then, is to look carefully at the art of this deceptively simple tale of a hired girl’s first day of work. My purpose is dual: to reveal the thematic and artistic preoccupations of a remarkable short story, and, by exposing the story’s artistry, to assert the value of Ruth Suckow’s fiction. As its title suggests, “A Start in Life” is a story of initiation, in this case the initiation of a young girl into a life of grinding economic necessity and subservience. The story’s outward action can be very simply told. Suckow focuses on Daisy Switzer’s first day of work as a hired girl in a rural community of Iowa. The opening scenes of the story take place at the Switzers’ house, as Daisy’s harried mother, herself a hired domestic, works frantically to get her daughter ready to go to her new position. Daisy is then picked up by her employer, an up-and-coming young farmer named Elmer Kruse, and driven to the Kruse farm, where she spends the day learning her duties. When she arrives at the farm, Daisy overhears Mrs. Kruse’s mentioning to her husband that she would like to go for a drive to her mother’s late in the afternoon: a drive that Daisy looks forward to throughout the day. The story’s crisis occurs, then, when the Kruses decide not to ask Daisy to go driving with them. Being excluded brings Daisy her first awareness of her status. Mrs. Switzer had told Daisy that going to work for the Kruses would not be like “visiting.” By the end of the story, Daisy has begun to understand her mother’s meaning. Although the two most thorough studies of Suckow’s fiction — those 2Leedice McAnelly Rissane, Ruth Suckow (New York: Twayne, 1969) ; Abigail Ann Hamblen, Ruth Suckow (Boise: Boise State University Press, 1978) ; and Margaret Stewart Omrcanin, Ruth Suckow: A Critical Study of Her...