In a letter dated January 1, 1916 to writer and critic Louis Untermeyer, Robert Frost declares, “a poem is never a put-up job—it begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.” I absolutely love this quote and only wish I might have found it when I was writing, or at least attempting to write, poetry. If somehow I could talk to Mr. Frost today, say after a class or a chance meeting at the post office, I’d tell him that I thought his requisites for a poem work equally well for fiction. That is; a character that doesn’t hurt in some fashion, or long for something, is only a paint job. Homesickness, lovesickness, and the rest, are the most powerful elements we have on our writer’s palette.
For example, consider how the devil-may-care Luke in the film Cool Hand Luke changes when his mother is brought to the road camp where he is incarcerated. She’s crippled and coughing her lungs out. With Luke’s fellow inmates looking on he suffers the embarrassment of her telling him that they really did have the best of times. We don’t know what those times were, but we accept that in their frame of reference they were the best, and we also know she is saying good-bye. A few days later Luke is told that his mother died. To keep him from escaping to attend her funeral the warden puts Luke in the box—solitary confinement.
The story doesn’t wallow in sentiment; rather it springs from this low point to find its highest energy. Luke goes on a tear. He escapes from the road camp and sends his pals glossy photos of himself with his arms around a pair of blonde bombshells. Soon he’s dragged back to prison in chains, only to plot and lead episode after episode of inmates besting the guards and warden. You could argue that without that one scene with mother and son, and her eventual death, Luke’s being fatally wounded while on the run would have left the audience shaking its head over a meaningless ending. We knew ways that Luke hurt that he never shared with his closest friends. That intimacy gives the story its power.
In the classic comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles Steve Martin plays Neal Page, a polished and poised advertising executive who’s trying to get home to Chicago for Thanksgiving with his family. He meets up with traveling salesman Del Griffith played by John Candy, who is on the road hawking shower curtain rings. (This movie is as much a Thanksgiving tradition at the Lawrence household as is turkey and excessive football—but that’s another story.)
The unlikely pairing of Neal and Del has them traveling by every means to get home. Del desperately wants to get along with his newfound companion. Neal wants no part of Del who talks too much, smokes, and hogs the bathroom in the dives they are forced to overnight in. Before going through his nightly ritual of reviewing upcoming business calls Del places a portrait of his wife on the nightstand next to the bed. Neal, who has had icy phone conversations with his wife, doesn’t display pictures of her or his family.
Through one hilarious mishap after the next the men begin to bond. But when it appears as though they’ll never reach home traveling together Neal breaks away from Del. While he is sleeping comfortably in a warm room Del is outside in the snow sitting in their fire-ravaged rental car. He talks out loud to his wife as though she was there to hear his sad story. We learn through his prayerful soliloquy that his wife is no longer living. Later after several drinks, Del remarks that he hasn’t been home in years. When Neal calls him on it Del finesses a reply, claiming that what he said was just a figure of speech—that being on the road as much as him makes it seem like never being home.
When the men part at the L-station in Chicago, Neal begins a short ride to his posh neighborhood where the fireplace is glowing and the loving family awaits his arrival. As he travels along he plays over in his mind all of the crazy things that he and Del went through together. At first he breaks out laughing and then he recalls Del’s remark about never being home, and his testimony about having wives to grow old with. We know that Del is a widower with no place to call home. When Neal realizes it, he catches a return train to find him still sitting in the station where they parted a while earlier. He confronts him with the truth about his homelessness and brings his accidental traveling companion home to dinner. The story that has you laughing to the brink of tears turns at the moment of Neal’s realization, and creates Robert Frost’s essential lump in the throat, albeit at the end and not the beginning.
The hurt and the homesickness must be native to our writing—whether poetry or fiction—because they are native to life. Do you remember your father saying, “Don’t you think you’re a little too old for Santa Claus this year?” That hurt. So does, “Tom, I don’t know how to say this—but I think we’d be happier if we stopped seeing each other.” Or, “Fred you practically invented the business, but the fact is, the sales just aren’t there anymore. Take the rest of the week off—come in over the weekend to pick up your stuff.”
A colleague kept a sonogram of his daughter tacked to the wall in his office right up until the company relocated across town. Prior to the move his walls were adorned with pictures of the all-grown-up Karen with her high school diving team, riding horses, and flashing a sudsy smile at a youth car wash. He wasn’t absent-minded; nor did he keep a messy office. The sonogram revealed a longing to hang onto the wonder of expecting a child, years and years after she was born.
As writers we know that it’s better to show than tell, and this includes bringing the reader in on these important glimpses into the depth of our characters. Let’s not rely on an omniscient narrator, or ten pages of backstory to do the job. Rather, use a sonogram tacked to the wall or a fleeting comment to plant the longing and homesickness into the marrow of our heroes and villains.