Will She? Won't She? The Years of My Birth by Louise Erdrich

The construct of this story is clear. The externally flawed is saved by love and generosity. The physically beautiful is internally flawed. The guilt of a mother who gives up a child because it’s imperfect is turned on the remaining child and poisons the relationship.

Erdrich does not sacrifice Tuffy with subtlety, she puts her out there abandoned and physically flawed. She creates good and evil characters, the Wishkobs versus the Lashers. She creates drama through the very practical event of a needed kidney to bring them together and they all act out their true natures (none of whom changes) in the moment of climax. The story is short and satisfying even if we don’t know the outcome. The satisfaction coming in the revenge that neither of the Lashers is happy and the child that was thrown away comes back with the ability to save them, even if she doesn’t.

The question Erdrich makes you ask is: what value does Linden provide Tuffy? Tuffy reflects on her adoption, "I was grateful now for the way things had turned out. Before we were born, my twin had had the compassion to crush me, to improve me by deforming me: I was the one who was spared." (p. 68.)

If Linden dies, will his presence, his only possible "goodness", die as well? If Tuffy saves Linden, does she also save herself from being alone? If Linden dies, will Tuffy then be subject to Nancy? Tuffy seems to need Linden to live more than he does himself.

So where is the climax in this story? There are two possibilities: Nancy asks Tuffy for the kidney or Linden rejects Tuffy and she has a dilemma. The tension is built throughout back story since you know from the outset that there is a twin, that there is a birth mother. Erdrich isn't telling you this information out of pure interest, she's putting it out there for you to pay attention. So we wait through the first half of the story, until Tuffy is settled into her life for the phone call. It comes, they meet. Still more tension through dinner, but Erdrich takes you quickly to the point (the story is very short after all). Thus the climax seem to occur at the point of the question. Will she? Won't she?

More tension builds through Tuffy wrestling with possibility, consulting her sister (who threatens to have Linden's plug pulled), and then getting tested. No one she encounters, including Linden's doctor, thinks she should sacrifice herself for him. Not even Linden himself "You don't have to be a Jesus." (p.68) he tells her. Erdrich drives the story all the way to the point at which we believe Tuffy is going to abandon Linden. And then she abandons the reader. She puts Tuffy in the "white, white room"(p.68). This then could also be the climax. Will she? Won't she? The white room is the place where Linden's presence held her hand, where she was put away from those who loved her, where she screamed until child services gave her back to the Wishkobs. The white room is a place of powerlessness, so we have to think Tuffy is stuck. But really, any action that follows is plausible, will she, won't she?

I believe the narrative arc leads you to the point at which Nancy asks. While Erdrich toys with the reader for the remainder of the story, you can't believe that she won't save him. Tuffy is, after all, an inherently good character. She doesn't need to escape from Linden, he has protected her, she will rescue him. So while the tension is heightened all the way to the close of the story, the emotional pivot point is at the question. The point at which the reader says along with Tuffy, "All my life, knowing without knowing it, I had waited for this to happen." (p. 68). We all had. And we are all stuck in that white room with her but resigned that she will find "the alternative unbearable" (p.68) and will save both herself and Linden.