As Noah York says of his mother: “Of course I love her, but that’s beside the point.” She is the “most complicated person” he knows, “running the gamut from holy woman to gargoyle, depending on the day.”
In The Language of Love and Loss (Kensington Books), it has been eight months since 37-year-old Noah — a struggling artist who teaches part-time at a community center in Providence, Rhode Island — has seen his mother, the 68-year-old woman known as Virginia York, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer teaching at Cassidy College in the small town of Oakland, New Hampshire.
This text is a standalone sequel to Iowa City author Bart Yates’ novel Leave Myself Behind, which featured Noah as a younger narrator of 17 years old. This latest story finds Noah beckoned back home one summer. He coughs up just enough cash for a bus ticket and embarks to Oakland.
Returning home, Noah estimates Oakland to be “a pretty little town, but it’s so sleepy I’m not sure anyone who lives there has a pulse.” The uncouth nature of the town is only one of the ghosts haunting our narrator in this tale. There are old bullies, an ex-boyfriend named J.D. and being reminded “how much I fucked up my life.”
Another spector is lingering embarrassment and bitterness over a poem written by Virginia.
After Noah dropped out of the Rhode Island School for Design at 20 years old, Virginia wrote a somewhat notorious poem titled “The Lost Soul,” which cast her son as the unwitting title character and lamented him “wasting his talent.” That publication of that poem does a lot to color the dynamic between mother and son.
Usually the spats between the two are ignited shortly after his arrival. This time, however, Noah receives a relatively warm welcome, which makes him uneasy. He says to his mother, “You’ve lost weight. Do you have a parasite or something?” She responds, “Not since you were in my womb.” Not long after, Noah discovers that Virginia has been diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
The book as a whole is hilarious and biting, but also tender and heartfelt. This exchange summarizes much about their relationship, and the piercing humor in Yates’ prose.
This is the first work I’ve read from Yates, but it won’t be the last. With marvelously drawn characters and profound, at times puckish narration and dialogue, Yates has crafted an entertaining story where the sentimental can be barbed, humorous, sad. This is an honestly and sharply drawn tale presented without compromise.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s July 2023 issue.