Feminism and Domestic Space by Ariane Torres

My novel, We are the Kings, came together as a tangle of ideas not long after my grandmother died. Her death was sudden, a car accident, but that’s really all I know. I’ve sort of refused to learn more, mainly because it doesn’t really matter. 

I was lucky that I never saw her in decline. For the entire time I knew her, she emanated a particular kind of regal-seeming female power, something that is almost impossible to articulate, a blend of age, intelligence, humor, and spirituality. I was also lucky in the sense that I did not experience the waves of regret that often accompany the death of an older family member. She had not been moved to a nursing home and forgotten; her company was not something I took for granted or pushed aside to deal with later. I recognized how special she was when I was very young, and I made a point of spending time with her as often as I could, begging my mother to drive me to her house before I could drive there myself, and then when I could, visiting regularly. In college, there were years where I visited her every weekend.

But I do have some regrets. Or one in particular. I didn’t quite think of her mind as being as sophisticated as it was. This was not a conscious thing. We talked about everything. Men, academics, politics, fashion, sexual trauma, violence. She spoke to me frankly, woman-to-woman, telling me things few people knew about her, and I did the same. We often sat in a small room adjacent to the living room, the walls of which were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with her books. The wall behind her chair held her poetry. The shelf between the window that looked onto the mountains and a tiny daybed that could be concealed with brocade curtains were her Thomas Hardys, her Eliots, her Brontes.

I studied Victorian Literature in college, often bringing a paperback edition of one of the hardback–sometimes leather-bound— books that lined her shelves, that I’m sure she’d read, though I never asked her. I don’t know why. I’ve concluded now that my mind was too clouded by internalized sexism and misogyny, so even though I would have been appalled at the notion then, the truth is that I gave more credibility to certain aspects of male minds than those of women. There are no tangible metrics for this. Just a strange set of standards about certain solid-seeming ideas that men grasped better than women. So, despite the fact that I was obsessed with my grandmother and tried to emulate her, it didn’t occur to me to think that she might be capable of rigorous analysis of the great books. I know I asked such things of my grandfather. And I took his estimation as fact.

There was nothing wrong with my grandfather’s thinking. He was brilliant and funny and radical and kind. But so was my grandmother.

Now I go out of my way to pull thoughts and stories from the women in my life. I press them for longer answers and more intricate details. I do not do this for men, though this is not because I’m uninterested in their stories. I just know that I’ll hear them anyway. Gloria Steinem says that you should raise your daughters like sons and your sons like daughters, and that the culture will take care of the rest. I think we should treat our grandmothers like grandfathers and our grandfathers like grandmothers, and the culture will take care of the rest.

My grandmother’s house is on the market right now. After she died new owners “updated” her beautiful home, destroying antique woodwork, adding track lighting and thick carpets, and in my mind, destroying an architectural masterpiece, a space that was perfect and understated and elegant, just like she was. The room where we sat still has the bookshelves, but they’re empty except for a few trinkets, and the furniture is situated in a way that makes it impossible to enjoy the view of the mountains and the warmth from the fireplace. In my most dramatic moments, I’m convinced that those empty shelves are some kind of symbol, but I know my grandmother wouldn’t see it that way.

I think she’d just want us all to think and say and read what we want to, and to be happy. So I try to do that instead. And when I can’t write and I find myself pulling up the listing of her house and thinking about how I could restore it to its former glory, I find that her power is still remarkably potent. I can vividly recall almost every detail of her home, each throw pillow and candleholder and trim color. I can still evoke full paragraphs about her travels, her family, her early relationships before my grandfather.

Writing, for me, is partly how I work through the agony of missing her. I can’t quite bring her back to life, but I can try to resurrect the stories of women that aren’t as deeply entrenched in our minds as they should be. The way their voices sound. What their expressions are. What their spaces look like. 

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More about Ariane Torres:

Torres attended Mount Holyoke College, majoring in Russian Studies and English Literature. Her graduate work at the Corcoran College of Art & Design and Columbia University focused on prison architecture and aging in prison, respectively. Torres has worked in interior design and prison advocacy. She lives with her family in Somerville, MA. This is her first novel.

Follow Ariane around:
Facebook: @arianetorres

Instagram: @ariane__torres

Goodreads: @arianetorres

WE ARE THE KINGS

A tribute to family history, We are the Kings (Bold Story Press, March 1, 2022) shows the difference in women’s struggles across two generations of women. While Marcella is sifting through her family’s conflicting and fading memories, she puts into words what no one else will say out loud, revealing not only what may or may not have happened, but what is truly at stake when a woman tells her story.

The strength and resilience of women shines in this author’s debut novel. With themes of feminism, domestic space, and women’s invisibility, this story delivers headstrong, driven characters that carry readers through the bonds between women. It shows how women rely on each other through trauma, grief, joy, and the journey to find themselves from childhood to adulthood.

 

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