Tourist Season (review)

In her latest story collection, Tourist Season, Enid Shomer turns the shuffling image of the Florida retiree on its ear, replacing it with the often-hilarious truths of what happens to people who—with so much life under their belts—begin to topple both forward and backward. Many of these stories reveal how the memories and decisions of a life long lived can shape us from childhood to old age and offer a glimpse into what happens when our past lives catch up with our present selves.

In the opening story "Chosen," past lives is meant quite literally. Two messengers from Tibet are sent to Iris Hornstein's home to inform her she is the reincarnation of the holy Saint Amarjampa. Accompanied by her husband and her own skepticism, Iris travels with them to Tibet for training and enlightenment—a tall order for a Jewish woman from Florida who doesn't believe in reincarnation. Haunting the story are Iris's great aunt Tanta and her cousin Alta, two women with very different ideas of faith. Tanta is a teacher pretending to know less than she does, while Alta flits from belief to belief, landing briefly on mysticism before moving to kitchen appliances. During her training, Iris becomes impatient, although her messengers assure her "you do not have to think you are wise to be wise." The story ends with the Hornsteins back in Florida, Iris's aides Lu and Wangrit still accompanying her. The men, Americanized in their own ways but still believers, have become comfortable companions for Iris, along with the memories of her aunt and cousin. In the end, we see an acceptance of all beliefs in a world big enough to accommodate them, with an added understanding that what makes something true isn't what we think but the power of someone to believe it. In the final paragraph, Shomer writes,

Iris gazed at the Florida sky, which was pale compared to the intense, deep blue of Tibet. She knew the difference had to do with the high altitude. Tibetan air was so thin that early explorers claimed to have seen the stars at noon from the highest peaks. But these accounts, like the reports of temples made of solid gold and sightings of Yeti, the Himalayan Bigfoot, turned out to be travelers' tales.

(27)

Like the opening "Chosen," many of the stories revolve around women who are of retirement age, trying to piece together a new identity when the one they held has become obsolete, proving that aging can be a struggle, a rebellion, a blessing, and a betrayal. Frieda, the protagonist of the title story, struggles to negotiate the world as someone perceived as old, an obstacle course she's handling more smoothly than her husband is:

Inside she was twenty. She was twenty in her passion about landfills, African desertification, dolphins, the shrinking gene pool of food grains, the world her grandchildren would inherit. In her water aerobics class she felt twenty. There, three afternoons a week, nearly weightless in her foam Aquajogger belt, she floated standing up in the deep end and ran and ran, the jewel-clear turquoise water spreading out in ripples around her like applause.

But Milt wasn't twenty or thirty. He was seventy-two. Not because he took beta-blockers and his knees were gone and he could turn his neck in only one direction. But because out of the blue he'd say things like, "The ambulance will be coming for me one of these nights."

(80)

Like Frieda, many of the characters are growing older and realizing that the person they married is not necessarily the person they are now compatible with years later. These characters' lives are riddled with divorces, past careers, and former lives, showing that the more baggage you've got, the harder it is to fit comfortably in your newly renovated role. But even poor, hobbling Milt with his bad knees isn't as uncomplicated as he first appears. He tells Frieda, "'I feel like I'm being turned into something I'm not. That's...