Colm Tóibín Reads Tobias Wolff

The New Yorker: Fiction

In this episode of The New Yorker Fiction Podcast, Deborah Treisman and guest Colm Tóibín discuss Tobias Wolff's short story

Key takeaways

• Colm Tóibín chose Tobias Wolff because his writing makes ordinary, plain situations become
• while revealing characters who are more complex than they first appear.
• Tóibín praises Wolff's memoirs This Boy's Life and In Pharaoh's Army, as well as the novel Old School, for their clarity and ability to create a full scene in a single paragraph.
• The story is set against Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which Tóibín calls
• because it created a decade of secrecy, possibility, and emotional tension around gay relationships in the Army.
• Sergeant Morse is analyzed as a man who seeks order through military life while repeatedly risking scandal through secret attachments, including with a Cuban waiter, a young lieutenant, and Master Sergeant Dixon.
• The encounter between Morse, Julianne, and Charlie at the pancake house becomes a study in loneliness, pride, failed hospitality, and the fear of being seen as an outsider performing intimacy.

Main topics

• Tobias Wolff's prose style and character complexity
• Sergeant Morse's secret gay life under Don't Ask, Don't Tell
• Desire, risk, shame, and fear in military culture
• The relationship between Morse and Master Sergeant Dixon

Notable quotes

Don't Ask, Don't Tell was an absolute gift to writers.

It was a lucky man indeed whose desires served him well.

Conclusion

The episode offers a close literary reading of

Transcript preview

Speaker 6 (0:07) This is the New Yorker Fiction Podcast from the New Yorker magazine. I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker. Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss. This month we're going to hear Awaiting Orders by Tobias Wolfe, which appeared in the New Yorker in July of 2005. Speaker 3 (0:28) Morris had spent 20 of his 39 years in the army. He was not one of those who claimed to love it, but he belonged to it as to a tribe, bound to those around him by lines of unrefusable obligation, love being finally beside them. Speaker 4 (0:45) One day last year, police entered a mansion in L.A. County and discovered the couple that lived there had almost two dozen children, nearly every one of them born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived. Speaker 2 (1:01) I Speaker 5 (1:01) started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into? Speaker 4 (1:06) I'm Ava Kaufman. The Journey is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark podcast feed. Speaker 5 (1:20) Hi, everyone. I'm Rebecca Ford. And Speaker 2 (1:22) I'm John Ross. We're Speaker 5 (1:23) the co-hosts of Little Gold Men, Vanity Fair's podcast for film, TV, and awards lovers. Speaker 2 (1:29) Awards season is underway, and you know we're following every twist and turn in the race to the Oscars. Join Speaker 5 (1:35) us each week as we break down the films, performances, and campaigns making the biggest waves in Hollywood. Speaker 2 (1:41) Plus, conversations with the critics, creators, and stars at the center of it all. New Speaker 5 (1:46) episodes of Little Gold Men drop every Thursday. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (1:55) From Vanity Fair, I'm Mark Aduchie, and I want to tell you about our new show, Fair Game. On every episode of Fair Game, I'll sit down with a leading character in our culture, from the worlds of Hollywood, politics, style, Silicon Valley, and beyond. Fair Game is a deep dive into some of the personalities that shape our world and the stories that you need to hear. Think everyone and everything that you'd read about in the pages of Vanity Fair. So join me, Mark Aduchie, on YouTube, VanityFair.com, and wherever you listen to podcasts. It's all fair game. Speaker 6 (2:31) The story was chosen by Colm Torbin, a winner of the International Dublin Literary Award, whose books of fiction include the novels The Master and Long Island, and the story collection The News from Dublin, which was published earlier this year. Hi, Colm. Speaker 3 (2:46) Hi, Debra. Speaker 6 (2:48) So, the last couple of times that you were on the Fiction Podcast, you chose stories by Sylvia Townsend Warner and Mary Lavin. What made you go for Tobias Wolfe this time? Speaker 3 (2:59) Maybe it's the same thing, the idea that something very plain, something that doesn't, you know, have gorgeous writing in it or have any sort of obvious efforts towards transcendence, something that seems rooted in the daily, becomes oddly luminous in one way and in another way with the characters becomes much more complex than you thought it would be. In other words, that simple characters ostensibly... begin to have more than one characteristic and then become really quite mysterious. Speaker 6 (3:33) It's difficult to write characters with more than one characteristic, isn't it? Speaker 3 (3:37) It seems to me the essential element, really, that you have to say to yourself, is this character merely gruff? Is he merely careful? Is he merely good-mannered? Is he merely dutiful? And if he's merely those things, then I think, as in this story, you have to then start working. at making him more complex, at giving him ambiguities, things that are opposite to each other, so that you're never quite sure where he's coming from. And I think that's part of the joy of this story, is the way in which Morse presents himself as a very complex figure indeed. Speaker 6 (4:13) Yeah, and when did you first read the story? Speaker 3 (4:16) I read the story when it came out in a book called Our Story Begins. which is the new and selected stories. And it was one of the stories towards the end of that. And I read that book when it came out. Speaker 6 (4:29) And were you a longtime fan of Tobias Wolfe? Speaker 3 (4:33) Yeah. You know, the two memoirs, I think, had an enormous impact on people of my age. The first one is This Boy's Life and then In Pharaoh's Army. There's a sort of clarity in the writing that doesn't strive in any obvious way towards transcendence or towards anything, you know, especially wise or beautiful, but actually manages to do that almost without trying. And he could do that also in the stories. And there's a novel of his, which is called Old School, which I read more or less in a sitting. Speaker 3 (5:10) There is also in that that he can create a scene in a paragraph. And when you look at the paragraph to see how did this happen in this paragraph, it's not obvious, but it is that every, I suppose, image is hard won and worked through. There's an image towards the end of this story where he's talking about rain. And just watch how he describes how the rain on the asphalt and also the rain hitting hard on somebody's face, who seems to turn her face. towards the rain. It's pretty good stuff. Speaker 6 (5:41) It's probably helpful for listeners to know that the story was written during the days of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, you know, when the Department of Defense policy was that you couldn't discriminate against gay people in the Army, but so long as they didn't identify themselves as gay. But if they were openly gay, they were barred from service. So that is a backdrop for the story. Do you think? Do you think there's anything else that listeners should know about it before we start? Speaker 3 (6:08) Yeah, Speaker 6 (6:09) they Speaker 3 (6:09) should know that Don't Ask, Don't Tell was an absolute gift to writers. It's that funny moment from gay sex being unmentionable and unmentioned in the army and the moment of full disclosure. So in that funny interregnum, in that strange time, Speaker 1 (6:28) someone Speaker 3 (6:29) could be both ready for a relationship or even having a relationship. but that relationship would be kept secret. Whereas a decade earlier, the relationship would not have been possible. And a decade later, it would all be easier. So that decade of don't ask, don't tell was an extraordinary gift to writers. Speaker 6 (6:48) Just opens up a whole world of secrets. Speaker 3 (6:51) Yeah. But Speaker 6 (6:52) we'll talk some more after the reading. And now here's Comte Taubin reading Awaiting Orders by Tobias Wolff. Speaker 3 (7:01) Awaiting Orders. Sergeant Morse was pulling night duty in the orderly room when a woman called, asking for Billy Hart. He told her that Specialist Hart had shipped out for Iraq a week earlier. She said, Billy Hart? You sure? He never said a word about shipping out. I'm sure. Well, sweet Jesus, that's some news. And you are, if you don't mind my asking, I'm his sister. I can give you his email. Hang on, I'll find it for you. That's okay. There's people waiting for the phone, people who don't know any better than to breathe down other people's neck. Speaker 6 (7:47) It won't take a minute. Speaker 3 (7:49) That's okay. He's gone, right? Feel free to call back. Maybe I can help. Huh, she said, and hung up. Speaker 3 (8:01) Sergeant Morse returned to the paperwork he'd been doing, but the talk of Billy Hart had unsettled him. He got up and went to the water cooler and drew himself a glass. He drank it and filled the glass again and stood by the door. The night was sullenly hot and still. Just past eleven, the barracks quiet, only a few windows glowing in the haze, and meaty grey moth kept thumping against the screen. Speaker 3 (8:30) Morse didn't know Billy Hart well, but he'd had his eye on him. Hart was from the mountains near Asheville and liked to play the hick for the cover it gave him. He was always running a hustle. Hart engaged elsewhere when there was work to be done, but on hand to fleece the new guys at poker or sell rides to town in his Mustang convertible. He was said to be dealing, but hadn't got caught at it. Thought everyone else was dumb. You could see him thinking it, that little smile. He would trip himself up someday, but he'd do fine for now. Plenty of easy pickings over there for the likes of Billy Hart. a good-looking troop though some indian there those high cheek-bones deep-set black eyes beautiful really with that slow cat-like way about him cool aloof almost contemptuous in the languor and ease of his movements morse had felt the old pull despite himself knowing heart was trouble but always a little taut in his presence fighting the stubborn drift of his gaze toward Hart's face, toward that look of secret knowledge playing on his lips. Hart was approachable, Morse felt sure of it, open to whatever might offer both interest and advantage. But Morse kept his distance. He didn't give advantage and couldn't take the gamble of a foolish entanglement. Not now, anyway. Morris had spent twenty of his thirty-nine years in the army. He was not one of those who claimed to love it, but he belonged to it as to a tribe, bound to those around him by lines of unrefusable obligation, love being finally beside the point. He was a soldier, no longer able to imagine himself as a civilian, the formlessness of that life, the endless petty choices to be made. Speaker 3 (10:33) Morse knew that he belonged where he was, yet he had often put himself in danger of scandal and discharge through risky attachments. Just before his tour in Iraq, there had been the Cuban waiter he met in a restaurant downtown. The waiter turned out to be married and a gambling addict, and finally, when Morse broke it off, a blackmailer. Morse would not be blackmailed. He wrote down his commanding officer's name and telephone number. Here, he said, go on, Speaker 6 (11:04) call him. Speaker 3 (11:05) And though he didn't think the man would actually do it, Moore spent the next few weeks inwardly hunched, as if against a blow. Then he shipped out, and soon came to life again, ready for the next excitement. This turned out to be a young lieutenant who joined Morse's unit the week Morse arrived. They went through orientation together, and Morse saw that the lieutenant was drawn to him, though the lieutenant himself seemed unsure of his own disposition, even when he surrendered to it, with an urgency only heightened by the near impossibility of finding private time and space. In fact, he was just discovering himself. and in the process he suffered fits of self-loathing so cruel and dark that Morse feared he would do himself harm, or turn his rage outward, perhaps on to Morse himself, or bring them both to grief by bawling out a drunken confession to a fatherly colonel in some officer's bar. It didn't come to that. The lieutenant had adopted a mangy one-eared cat while they were on patrol. The cat scratched his ankle and the scratch got infected and instead of going for treatment he played the fool and tried to tough it out and damn near lost his foot. He was sent home on crutches five months into his tour. By then Morse was so wrung out that he felt not the slightest stirrings of pity, only relief. He had no cause for relief. Not long after returning stateside, he was called to battalion headquarters for an interview with two smooth, friendly men in civilian clothes who claimed to be congressional aides from the lieutenant's home district. They said there was a sensitive matter before their congressman that required closer knowledge of the lieutenant's service in Iraq, his performance in the field, his dealings with other officers and with the troops who served under him. Their questions looped around conversationally, almost lazily, but returned again and again to the lieutenant's relations with Morse. Morse gave nothing away, even as he laboured to appear open, unguarded. He figured these men for Army narcs, or whatever else they said. They let several weeks go by before calling him to another meeting, which they cancelled at the last minute. Morse was still waiting. for the next summons. He had often wished that his desires served him better, but in this he supposed he was not unusual, that it was a lucky man indeed whose desires served him well. Yet he had hopes. Over the last few months Morse had become involved with the Master Sergeant in Division Intelligence, a calm, scholarly man five years older than he. Though Morse could not yet think of himself as anyone's partner, he had gradually forsaken his room in the NCO quarters to spend nights and weekends at Dixon's townhouse off-post. The place was stuffed with ancient weapons and masks and chess sets that Dixon had collected during his tours overseas. And at first Morse had felt a sort of nervous awe, as if he were in a museum, but that had passed. Now he liked having these things around him. He was at home there. But Dixon was due to rotate overseas before long, and Morse would soon receive new orders himself, and he knew it would get complicated then. They would have to make certain judgments about each other and about themselves. They would have to decide how much to promise. Where this would leave them, Morse didn't know. But all that was still to come. Speaker 3 (14:59) Billy Hart's sister called again at midnight, just as Morse was turning over the orgy room to another sergeant. When he picked up and heard her voice, he pointed at the door, and the other man smiled and stepped outside. Speaker 5 (15:14) Would Speaker 3 (15:14) you like Speaker 5 (15:14) the address, then? Speaker 3 (15:15) Morse asked. I guess, for all the good it'll do. Morse had already looked it up. He read it to her. Thanks, she said. I don't have a computer, but Sal does. Sal? Sally Cronin, my cousin. You could just go to an internet cafe. Well, I suppose, she said skeptically. Say, what did you mean, maybe you could help? I don't know exactly, Moore said. You said it, though. Speaker 1 (15:49) Yes, Speaker 3 (15:50) and you laughed. That wasn't an actual laugh.