Andrew Pyper has come to be known for his thriller novels. His first book, though, was a collection of short stories. Kiss Me concerns youth, especially the passage to thirty. The narrator of "If You Lived Here You'd Be Home By Now" is on the younger side of the collection's age-span, being in his late teens.
II.
The narrator's new stepmother, Beth, is a woman of strong religious views. Her husband has joined her in belief, and father and stepmother together have sought to persuade the narrator. "For a time they tried to get me, too, but I closed my ears, smiled, nodded, and recited Smiths lyrics in my head." <1>
The narrator lives in a rural Ontario town, "where 'town' is used to describe a collection of streets radiating out from the perpendicular meeting of two dead-straight, two-lane highways." Toronto is to the east, and we aren't particularly surprised when the narrator jumps on a bus one day, and goes "AWOL" to the city. Arrived, he sets about looking for a place to stay.
He finds The Project. The house is on Beverley&Queen streets, and often serves as a hangout for "messed-up people", who also might answer to being musicians, artists, filmmakers, or actors. When asked which of those groups he belongs to, the narrator decides on a "well-told" lie, that he's a writer. Thus far in the story, the narrator has gone unnamed. Passing himself off as a writer in the Project earns him a nickname. Hemingway.
Hemingway attends a Project party one night, where he notices a young woman. He approaches her. In an effort to be interesting in a writerly way, Hemingway riffs on the existential implications of feeling like a piece of dust. "She looked at me with her mouth partly open...and the sweetness was gone. 'Is that the best you can do?' she said."
III.
There is understated comedy in "If You Lived Here You'd Be Home By Now". The humour bears reflection, whether something else is being suggested as well. The sadness that might come with issues of belonging and identity.
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<1>Pyper, Andrew. "If You Lived Here You'd Be Home By Now". Kiss Me. The Porcupine's Quill, 1996.
