People Like That Are the Only People Here by Lorrie Moore
"People Like That Are the Only People Here" by Lorrie Moore explores the emotional and psychological journey of a mother facing her baby's cancer diagnosis. The narrative, delivered in the third person, follows the mother as she navigates the harrowing experience of her child undergoing a radical nephrectomy at a pediatric oncology unit. The story begins with the mother noticing a blood clot in her baby's diaper, leading to a swift series of examinations that reveal a cancerous tumor. While the father adopts a practical approach focused on logistics and finances, the mother grapples with her fear and uncertainty, reflecting on her lack of faith and the surreal nature of her circumstances.
Throughout this challenging ordeal, the mother observes her surroundings, noting the demographics of other pediatric cancer patients and the shared experiences of their parents. She feels a sense of alienation yet also finds herself grounding in the resilience of others. The narrative raises themes of vulnerability, the unpredictability of life, and the search for meaning amid trauma. Ultimately, the mother’s reflections serve as a form of catharsis, suggesting that the act of storytelling itself represents her way of coping with such profound fear and hope. Moore's work poignantly captures the complexities of parental love in the face of illness, highlighting both individual struggles and communal support within a hospital setting.
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People Like That Are the Only People Here by Lorrie Moore
First published: 1997
Type of plot: Psychological, autobiographical
Time of work: The 1990's
Locale: An unnamed midwestern town
Principal Characters:
The mother , a writerThe husband , the father of the babyThe baby , a boy about one year old
The Story
"People Like That Are the Only People Here" is told in the third person through the perspective of a mother who discovers that her baby has cancer. The principal characters and the doctors are not named. The mother is a writer who must use her utmost intellectual and emotional resources to get through her baby's radical nephrectomy in a pediatric oncology unit at a children's hospital.
With little warning other than the baby's appearing to be slightly ill, the mother discovers a blood clot in her baby's diaper. She phones a nearby pediatric clinic and is urged to bring the child in right away. After a quick examination, the baby is whisked away to the radiology unit. The surgeon soon appears to announce that the baby has a cancerous tumor, requiring a radical nephrectomy and possibly chemotherapy.
The husband's response, although alarmed, is practical. The first thing that he tells his wife is to take notes, and then he begins to worry about money. He soon attempts to devise a step-by-step plan for them to get through the ordeal. The husband is not cold; he simply talks and acts in a way that might be expected of a man.
The mother, however, is not one to take such a practical, mechanical approach. Her next impulse is to turn to God, in whom she does not firmly believe. Her god ends up looking a lot like the manager of Marshall Field's, and as such, she initially attempts to bargain with him. The manager of Marshall Field's (now God) offers the mother only the reassurances she might easily glean from fiction-writing techniques: One cannot know the narrative of his or her life in advance; there must be surprises or otherwise it is not life; the idea that anyone really has a clue about how the world works is laughable.
The husband continues to urge his wife to take notes, even to write a piece of nonfiction or journalism for money. The mother initially balks at the idea, but she does begin to note things (the reader never sees her actually writing). She notes that nearly all cancer victims in the pediatric oncology unit are males. They come from deceptively sweet-sounding towns like Janesville or Appleton, places undoubtedly poisoned by agricultural and industrial pollutants. The mother notes the dress and demeanor of the other cancer patients' mothers; she initially feels alienated from the large, cheerful women. The mother hears the usual platitudes such as "one day at the time" but finds little comfort in them.
Before the operation, the surgeon tells the parents that this tumor is not particularly aggressive but that it does tend to metastasize on the lungs. This cancer, the surgeon assures them, is the best kind of cancer that the baby could have. The mother and the husband are left to get through the last day before surgery. In a hospital lounge, they hear many war stories from the other parents who are battling the cancers of their children. These parents have pulled through the first shocking diagnoses, multiple hospitalizations, and even comas brought on by chemotherapy. The mother has momentary thoughts of hopping a bus and running away, but she is grounded by these parents who have suffered for a long time without allowing themselves to fall apart.
The baby's tumor turns out to be relatively minor (for cancer, that is), and the parents are allowed the option of careful monitoring rather than chemotherapy. On the way out of the hospital, one mother offers the consolation that there is a great deal of collateral beauty in their experiences. The mother is too distracted to consider collateral beauty at this time; she just wants to get herself and the baby out of the hospital as quickly as possible. However, in the last lines of the story, she suggests that the story itself is her notes on this experience.