Description:
The monument with an excerpt from Ethan Canin's Lies is located to the right of the brick pathway that leads to the main entrance of Forest Hills Station. It is on a patch of elevated grass set several feet back from the pathway, but still very much in the line of sight of commuters entering and leaving the situation. The two granite monoliths that compose the monument come together in the middle at an obtuse angle, giving the impression of a large granite book which has been opened and propped up. The monument is supported at the base by three circular pieces of granite that are attached to a concrete base.
About the Author:
Ethan Andrew Canin is an American author who has written many short stories and several novels. He lived in the Boston area for several years during his youth. He graduated from Stanford University with a BA in English and enrolled in the Iowa Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa. He received an MFA in 1984 and subsequently enrolled in Harvard Medical School. Canin practiced medicine from 1991 to 1998, but eventually accepted a position on the faculty of the Iowa Writer's Workshop. His short story The Palace Thief was adapted into a film titled The Emperor's Club in 2002.
Response:
Ethan Canin's Lies is an excerpt from a short story from his Emperor of the Air collection. It tells of an 18 year-old man who gets kicked out of his house by his father, gets his first job as a movie projectionist, and falls in love with a girl named Katy. The story derives its name from the protagonist's musings on how we all lie to ourselves and others. He relates how his mother lied to him when he was young and told him he could be anything he wanted to be, saying "Anybody can rise up to be President of the United States." Now older and wiser, he realizes that he is limited by his socioeconomic position. Lies also uses the cinema as a metaphor for life. The protagonist works as a projectionist, and the cinema becomes representative of the fictionalized realities people create around themselves. He notes how people prefer to come and escape into a movie instead of living in reality. In a general sense Canin's Lies is representative of the working class neighborhood that surrounds Forest Hills. The protagonist does not seem to have a particularly bright future ahead of him, instead he seems resigned to a life of manual labor and working class conditions.
The theme of Lies seems fitting, since many of the commuters are on their way to and from work, but the monument sits unnoticed as the crowds stream past.
By Eric Weber.
