“Oh, Joseph, I’m So Tired” is considered to be one of the best stories by Richard Yates, a writer who perhaps didn’t enjoy a lot of accolades when he was alive and publishing his work.
One of the reasons this podcast even exists is precisely because of authors like Richard Yates.
Maybe most people would say, “never heard of him” about Yates and his novels and stories.
That’s the kind of response that’s become practically a cue for us on this podcast to get going on talking about a largely unsung writer we hold in very high esteem.
“Oh, Joseph, I’m so Tired” is an unusual title, but by that I mean it’s glorious. And you have to read the story to know why I’m saying this.
Or better yet just listen to what Peter Orner has to say about it. And he talks about a lot of other things that make him adore this story.
Richard Yates was the mentor of Peter Orner's mentor, Andre Dubus. So there’s a strong kinship there already.
Something Peter Orner recognizes about Yates is the way he can align beauty with the minor tragedies of our lives—our childhoods. And that makes for a kind of nostalgia that borders on something kind of wondrous.
Richard Russo wrote that “the reason we’re pulled to Yates’ stories so quickly has to do with our understanding of what his characters so desperately desire,” and “what often keeps us turning pages is the more gradual revelation of those same characters’ anxieties.”
And it’s not just simple resonance I’m talking about here. It’s just that we see whole worlds mirrored there. We see them and we recognize them. “The most primal of these,” writes Russo, “is loneliness, the fear of which causes the people in Yates’ stories to endure terrible humiliations.”
In our discussion, Peter Orner refers to the story as something delightful. But it’s so dark. Is delight incongruous with darkness? Oh, no.
This notion really lines up with what Richard Russo says about Yates’ stories: “The excitement one feels reading these dark stories, I believe, is the exhilaration of encountering, recognizing, and embracing the truth. It’s not a pretty truth? Too bad. That we recognize ourselves in the blindness, the neediness, the loneliness, even the cruelty of Yates’ people, will have to suffice.”
For story lovers and lonely voices, it’s more than enough.
