estel franklin

Valerie Hsiung’s The pedestrian tells the story of an unnamed “girl thing” through what is hidden. “She remembers two parts to the beginning of her life” is our entryway into the story. Immediately we are aware of a figure, “she,” looking back at her life from an unspecified present moment. This moment of reflection never becomes clearer, apart from the fact that it is taking place after the girl’s “second life” has already begun. The pedestrian holds the magic of a fairy tale in hand with the emotional resonance of a coming-of-age novel. There is a dreamlike quality to the prose that brings to mind the language of Fanny Howe. 

We are confronted with the two halves of the girl’s life as soon as we start reading, and over the course of the book the reader is presented with increasingly complex dichotomies to decipher. Can a life really cleanly be divided in two? Can the world be divided “between people who travel and people who live in a house”? Is “the monogamy of identity . . . an illusion”? In presenting these various contradictions and puzzling so heavily on the concept of twos, The pedestrian demonstrates the power of describing a thing by its opposite. When language fails to present a clear picture, tracing the outline is sometimes the only way forward. It is the refusal to describe the separation of the two lives that gives them their very potency. The trust bestowed upon the reader to find meaning in the gaps of language is one of the strongest aspects of Hsiung’s work.  Hsiung artfully guides her reader through the tangled intersection of language, memory, and grief, giving words to the most intangible of feelings, providing a framework for how one who has “somehow neglected” half of their life might find their way back. 

The central location of the girl’s first life, the house she occupied, is not described—it is mythologized. It is not a “timeless” house but “a house that had no time.” This is one of the clearest descriptions of the house given and the reader is left to distinguish the difference. This narrative is incantatory and spellbinding in part because of its mystery. The instance that separates the two lives of the girl is only gestured towards. It is even unclear to the girl herself: “Was she now living her second life already?” she wonders. The closest we get to the actual division between the two are further subdivisions of time: “the end of the beginning of her second life.” The identity of the narrator—the singular “I” that emerges only rarely from the collective voice—remains concealed. When, in the closing pages, the reader is directly addressed, “This is it for me, you know,” we are no closer to knowing who is telling us this story. 

The pedestrian poses many questions, while deliberately withholding answers. What at first appears to be a third-person narrative soon reveals itself as a collective first-person masquerading as third-person. It draws the reader into this collective through its familiar language, making us feel like we are being confided in. Secrets are shared: “Sometimes we just need someone to help us close our eyes for us.” And then, just when we are feeling comfortable, it forcibly pushes the reader to the outskirts by acknowledging the act of telling a story: “By now we have told you about the screen.” A wall is put up between the narrator and the reader; or maybe more accurately, a wall has been there the entire time, at times opaque, at times transparent. In some ways, the audience’s experience mimics that of the girl, whose story is told externally, as if she is a mere observer, not worthy to be the narrator. “What you see of her is never what she sees in the mirror of herself.” And what she sees of herself can never be known as long as someone else is telling her story. She is the perpetual exile—from her life, from the telling of her life. 

Reading Valerie Hsiung’s The pedestrian is like attempting to complete a color-by-number painting where the numbers are never revealed and the colors can only be seen under UV lighting. It is painstaking; it requires care and precision; it is a task worth undertaking. It may tell us more about our modes of perception than it does the things we perceive. 

This book should be read by those who have trouble defining their own lives; by those who feel they have defined their own lives; by those who have no interest in defining their own lives. In short, this book should be read by everyone.

the pedestrian is available now from Nightboat Books. Catch Valerie Hsiung on her international tour with the book this summer and fall. Hsiung is an associate professor of creative writing and chair at Naropa’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.

estel franklin writes poetry and prose with equal passion. originally from Michigan, it now lives in Boulder, CO where it is pursuing an MFA at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. its work appeared in the 23rd Annual Café Shapiro Anthology published by the University of Michigan, where it received its BA in Creative Writing and Literature. estel is a film enthusiast and has watched one of its favorite movies The Nice Guys twenty-one times in two years. estel franklin is the folio editor for BG Issue #51.