Reviewed by Tobias S. Buckell

Baxter, Charles; Burning Down The House. Graywolf Press, 1997, Saint Paul, Minnesota. $22.95

The premise behind Charles Baxter's collection of essays on writing in 'Burning Down the House' is that a writer must be aware of the social matrix surrounding him. In classic historicist critical mode he notes the various influences our modernity has on the very writings of the times. "We often pretend, these days, that public lying by politicians has no effect on the stories we tell each other," he says.

The first thrusting essay, tied in neatly to Baxter's preface, deals closely with exactly that. As the dust jacket notes 'lately I've been possessed of a singularly unhappy idea: The greatest influence on American fiction for the last twenty years may have been Richard Nixon.' Passing the buck has become not only a political ideology, but also crept into our way of lives in a manner that has to be seen by stepping back a little.

No one is answerable from within it. Every event, every calamity, is unanswered, from the S&L collapse to the Exxon Valdex oil spill.

So we have created for ourselves a paradise of lawyers: We have an orgy of blame-finding on the one hand and disavowals of responsibility on the other.

 The buck, in the seventies, stopped stopping on a certain desk in the White House. Although he could hardly have anticipated this last school shooting, Baxter's words hold their own in the political situation still. Since the school-kids were shot people, from estranged slightly wild eyed mothers to child care specialists, have crawled out of the woodwork to point out who exactly was at fault. Never their own, instead vaguely nebulous entities such as 'Hollywood', and 'society' are blamed for the problems.

A truly good writer, Baxter notes, should not only be able to write well, discussed briefly as technique in his essay 'Rhyming Action', but use these aforementioned historicist technique to enrich his story.

He (the author) knows his story is not especially subtle, although it is a page-turner, so he tears it up and starts over…what is called sensitivity has entered the picture…

I have a feeling that the literary short story took up secular epiphanies because the movies didn't need them, or at least didn't require them as much as other more visible and dynamic narrative ingredients.

 Baxter's essay style makes for an interesting read, but often a frustrating one. While he does warn the reader from the beginning that he is not offering a 'how to' book on writing, rather the attempted effect was to 'stimulate the listener to think about a social and literary matter in a way that would be naggingly helpful.' Though one is duly warned, often the lack of conclusion in parts of the book leaves one slightly aimless.

Yet that would seem to be a part of the whole atmosphere Baxter is trying to explore and unearth, the social ambiguity he discusses is not limited to the world but to his own work.

In this he succeeds quite well. "Where are the antagonists in modern fiction?" One of his students asks in class, prompting the first essay on passing the buck. While Baxter has no comment on how to change society for the better, by exploring this trend, he is showing a writer how to forge characters more in keeping with the modern world.

Talk shows have only apparent antagonists. Their sparring partners are not real antagonists because the bad guys usually confess and then immediately disavow. The trouble with narratives without antagonists or a counterpoint to the central character- stories in which no one ever seems to be deciding anything or acting upon any motive except the search for a source of discontent- is that they tend formally to mirror the protagonists' unhappiness and confusion… The visual details are muddled or indifferently described or excessively specific in non-pertinent situations. Baxter suggests that in a modern narrative, the bad guy no longer can be simply just the bad guy. He was beat by his mother as a kid, and maybe she in turn by her father. He explores the muddiness of detail further in 'Dysfunctional Narrative', a neatly dove-tailed piece exploring how to bring freshness to narrative by focusing on something separate from what the reader expects. "Characters are under no obligation to be good; they only have to be interesting." He encourages putting random details into things that are normally considered pat, or even stereotypical, so that they stand out.

Despite the fact that 'Dysfunctional Narrative' seems to be a perfect primer to a reader on how to write modern muddled confused counter-antagonist literary story, it is another facet of Baxter's exploration. He is a guide. He condones, but does not act, suggests, but does not participate.

I recommend the book, not only to writers, in order that they may better their skills through the social historicist perspective Baxter offers, but to anyone who is interested in learning how to take a step back and look hard. At both society, and its literature. Because literature is a mirror held up to the society that produced it.