Sorrow
A Novel
Tiffanie DeBartolo
Copyright © 2020 by Tiffanie DeBartolo
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a review who may quote passages for review.
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available
ISBN Paperback 978-1-949116-30-4
ISBN Ebook 978-1-949116-31-1
First Edition
“Sorrow”
written by Matt Berninger and Aaron Dessner
Lyrics reprinted by permission of The National
Cover design by: Jessica Dionne Abouelela
Formatting: Jessica Dionne Abouelela
Woodhall Press, 81 Old Saugatuck Road, Norwalk, CT 06855
WoodhallPress.com
Distributed by INGRAM
For my parents
Whoever uses the spirit
that is in him creatively is an artist.
To make living itself an art,
that is the goal.
—Henry Miller
Nothing in any life,
no matter how well or poorly lived,
is wiser than failure
and clearer than sorrow.
—Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram
From: THOMAS FRASIER GALLERY <infothomasfrasiergallery.com>
Sent: Thurs, June 1, 2017 at 8:12 AM
To: Joseph Harper <harperjoseph620@gmail.com>
Subject: OCTOBER DANKO Sorrow: This is Art
The Thomas Frasier Gallery
in collaboration with
the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
is proud to announce the world premiere of:
SORROW: This Is Art
A Living Exhibit by October Danko
October Danko’s work has been a favorite
of art lovers from around the globe, and we are
pleased to invite you to the monthlong performance of:
SORROW: This Is Art
September 28–October 24
The newest piece in October’s Living Exhibit series will find her sitting at a table in SFMoMa’s Roberts Family Gallery from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. daily. One at a time, gallery visitors will be invited to sit across from her and take her hands, wherein she will “hold their sorrow.”
Each visitor may spend up to five minutes with the artist. They will be permitted to speak to her if they wish, but she will remain silent.
October explains: “This exhibit was inspired by my belief that pain can be art, that connecting as humans is the greatest gift we can give each other, and that, for better or worse, sometimes it’s our pain that connects us.”
*Ms. Danko suffers from Mirror Touch Synesthesia, a condition that enables her to experience the sensations of others simply by observing them experiencing the particular sensation. In its more esoteric form, the artist can intuit the emotions of another person by touching them.
October says she was inspired to create this Living Exhibit after a difficult period in her life. “There’s nothing like heartbreak to crack a person wide open. But the cracks can sometimes act as reservoirs too. Not only for pain, but for joy as well. Leonard Cohen once wrote that the cracks are where the light gets in, and this exhibit is about letting the light in. It’s about healing my own sorrow by connecting to the sorrow of others. It’s about letting go of my pain by holding on to someone else’s. Ultimately, it’s about the oneness of love and hope.”
Advanced tickets are now available on the museum website and HERE.
©October Danko, courtesy of The THOMAS FRASIER GALLERY
SFMoMA is closed on Wednesdays.
ONE.
My name is Joseph Harper and if there is one thing you should know about me, it is this: I am not a brave man.
Over the course of my thirty-seven living years I have been called a lot of respectable things: intelligent, sensitive, even good-looking and gifted. But not brave.
Never brave.
And now, a confession. One I’m not proud of. I was recently asked to leave the Whitefish Community Library in Whitefish, Montana, due to intoxication. It wasn’t even lunchtime yet, and the three shots of tequila I’d had before I got there began to hit me in an obvious and somewhat disorderly way.
I am not brave, I said to no one. I have never been brave.
I was alone in a warm, light-filled corner of the Botany section, on a leather recliner where, to my left, outside the window, the leaves of an aspen tree were announcing the steadfastness of spring. That settled me for a moment. Spring. Rebirth. New beginnings. But then I noticed the aspen’s eyes trained on mine with what I was certain was disappointment.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I said to the tree, louder than what was considered polite in a library.
I had the footrest up so my feet were comfortably elevated, and there was a rectangular coffee-table book called Remarkable Trees of the World on my lap. I used the book as a desk for my laptop because I found that if I just set the laptop on my legs, it eventually heated up and burned my skin, even through my jeans.
“Mr. Harper, is everything all right?”
Patty, the librarian, had wandered over to check on me. She knew me by name because I had been going there for almost three years to read and write and check my e-mail. The little guest cabin I lived in on Sid’s property didn’t have an internet connection, and even though Sid said I could get one, I never bothered because I didn’t think I’d be staying in Montana long enough to need it.
“Mr. Harper?” Patty said again.
She was wearing her usual camouflage pants, and I said, “Patty, where are your legs?” but she didn’t get the joke.
“Are you all right?”
I wanted to shake my head and tell her that I was most definitely not all right, but I gathered she was aware of this fact, that her question was largely rhetorical. She’d seen me when I was there an hour earlier, and I had been fine then. Well, I’d been sober. We’d exchanged trite pleasantries about the weather, and I was as right as a guy like me can be, which, if right were the whole, is only a fraction. But then I opened my inbox and saw the e-mail from the Thomas Frasier Gallery announcing October’s upcoming Living Exhibit entitled Sorrow, and the fraction halved.
I read the e-mail, even though I told myself not to. What’s it to me? I thought. Who cares?
I did. I cared so much that I shut my computer, left the library,
