Ben Hoffman’s “All the Girls We Knew in the Suburbs” was an obvious and perfect choice for our December online exclusive short story. Featuring bored Jewish teens on Christmas Eve, the story is an examination of difference, ennui, and adolescent anxiety, and its dark tone stands in sharp contrast to the bright, shining high holiday of Christendom. We recently emailed Hoffman to ask about the story, his other work, and about those long, cold Wisconsin winters.
Nate Brown: I want to start by asking you about the most uncomfortable moment in the story. Your unnamed protagonist tells us that he knows that he makes a young woman uncomfortable, and he proceeds to fondle her without first getting any form of consent. It’s a tough moment, particularly because the protagonist has already alerted us that he’s not interested in atonement. Yet, at the end of the piece, it’s strongly implied that somewhere outside of the frame of the story he has, in fact, had to atone for things. Is that what the piece is ultimately about? The nature of forgiveness, the need for it?
Ben Hoffman: To me, the story is primarily about the awful nihilism of teenage boys (or, at least, of these two teenage boys). But the story is definitely also about the idea of forgiveness, maybe even more so atonement. Grappling with what one has done ought to precede forgiveness from others, or from self. As Mallory Ortberg wrote recently at The Toast, “Forgiveness can never come before the hard work of acknowledging, of atoning, of apologizing, of enduring punishment, of changing.” And the narrator can’t quite get to this place yet. He’s close—for a moment it’s right there for him, hovering just out of his grasp—then it’s gone.
NB: The Grinch figure is so great here—not merely because it’s a strange, memorable image, but because he re-casts the protagonist and Ian. Here we’ve got these three figures—the protagonist, Ian, and the Grinch—and they’re all sort of small-hearted. At first, the protagonist and Ian seem particularly callow, but they quickly look adolescent and, well, less ominous when they witness this deeply creepy guy dressed as the Grinch as he’s about to dump shit off the edge of a cliff. Is that how you see that figure working here? To act as a foil for Ian and the protagonist?
BH: Yes, that’s part of it, though I do think maybe it’s working both ways. The boys are less ominous than the man dressed as the Grinch (who is an adult; Ian and the protagonist are only children!). But his arrival also groups them together, these three small-hearted rebels out on Christmas Eve.
Once I realized that a man dressed as the Grinch appears in the story, I had to resist the urge for the three of them to embark on some sort of screwball adventure. That might have been more “literary” (and certainly, were I in their shoes, my own writerly curiosity might cause me to at least investigate further). But I had to ask myself: what would these characters do? They would drive away, laughing at his freakishness, and only later feel misgivings that they cannot share, in the way that many teenage boys cannot articulate their insecurities with each other.
NB: That’s interesting. At what point in a story (or a longer work, for that matter) do you have to let go of your urge to run with a great image, character, or detail in order to let the piece become what you’ve intended? Or, rather, how do you know that this is the story you wanted to write rather than, say, the story of the boys hanging out with the weird Grinch figure?
BH: It’s funny, because usually I’m in favor of going down the rabbit hole, so to speak. I’m always telling my students: Maybe your characters should explore their weird urges! Maybe your story should follow that bizarre tangent and see where it leads! Maybe it won’t work, but you can’t know until you’ve tried it.
It’s hard to say exactly how one knows what to do with a story—you’re relying in part on instinct, and often, unfortunately, it turns out to be a wrong instinct. In the end, I think you have to try to be true to the world of the story, to the characters you’ve created.
NB: Unexpectedly, maybe, one of the most memorable moments of the story for me comes when they’re nearly home and we get this observation: “We knew something awful awaited us and we did not have the courage to face it.” Of course, when the protagonist and Ian get home, we learn that their “[…] houses were the same as ever, cramped and slightly warm, like someone had left the oven on,” which perfectly captures that terrible, adolescent feeling whereby so many apparently innocuous things somehow feel alien or oppressive. I’m not asking you to identify the cause of adolescent fear and ennui, of course, but can you say a bit about this character’s particular fear and ennui?
BH: Well, ennui has a certain grip on these two, as it does on many teenagers (as opposed to angst, which many teens also feel, though these two not so much). Not much impresses them.
As for the narrator’s particular fear, I wonder if it doesn’t stem from the understanding, repressed in his subconscious, that he has done some wrong, or at least has not been his best self. But he can’t quite find the outlet for honest reflection on his actions and his attitude, so it emerges as something else altogether. When he says, “I felt foolish at my terror, ashamed of it. I resolved to forget it, and I did,” he’s also turning his back on this attempt at deeper self-understanding. Part of what scares him is his own introspection.
NB: That’s it exactly, isn’t it? The ability to deny and to avoid is really developed in this kid, and it’s much easier for him to engage in denial than it would be for him to think about—let alone attempt to understand—his behavior. Was this your experience of being a teenager? In some ways, it’s not too far off from my own, and I wonder if that’s why I find the piece makes me feel somewhat uneasy.
BH: Denial is always easier, until it isn’t. I can’t say I share the specific denial or transgressions of this narrator, but I recall, for example, a few instances where as a young teenager I basically participated in bullying (by silently abiding by it). I was able to do so by walling off the part of me that knew it was wrong, and it still troubles me sometimes to look back on it.
It’s worth noting that this sort of denial is not only a “teen” thing. So many adults are practically swimming in denials, both large and small—denial not only of their own behaviors but denial of what the world is really like, and of what tiny role they might be able to take to make it a little bit better.
NB: You’ve been publishing pretty widely since early 2013. You’re on a roll, it seems. What’s your other work like?
BH: Thanks, I’ve been trying! As for my other work, I’d say that much of it possesses a strangeness and, hopefully, some humor. I find my stories strange and sometimes funny (and, always, flawed). They discomfit me. I think that’s important for a writer. In any event, many of them can be read online!
NB: You’re currently a fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. Can I ask what you’re working on (and, also, how you’re handling those freezing Wisco temperatures)?
BH: Sadly, handling almost seems too triumphant a word for my dealings with the weather here in Madison. The ice fishers on Lake Monona are handling the weather. I am “handling” it by staying indoors, drinking coffee, and writing. Often while wearing knit fingerless gloves (thanks, mom!).
In all seriousness, I’m very lucky to be here. Weather aside, Madison is wonderful, and the Institute provides ample time for writing and for thinking about writing. I’m finishing up a collection in which many of the stories, like “All the Girls We Knew in the Suburbs,” involve strange appearances or disappearances. And I’m fleshing out a novel, which opens during the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown.
Ben Hoffman is the author of a chapbook, Together, Apart. His fiction has won the Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Award and Zoetrope: All-Story’s Short Fiction Contest and appears in The Missouri Review, tinhouse.com, and elsewhere. He is the Carol Houck Smith Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing.