Woman Commits Suicide in Dishwasher
By Debra A. Daniel
$17 from Muddy Ford Press
Author Bio
Debra A. Daniel was named SC Arts Commission Poetry Fellow in 2006 and in 1994. She was awarded the Guy Owen Prize in 2002. Her work has been published in darkskymagazine.com, Kakalak, Emrys Journal, Pequin.org, Inkwell, Southern Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Gargoyle, The Poetry Society of SC Yearbook, The State, the Charleston Post and Courier, Inheritance: Selections from SC Fiction Project Winners, and Twenty SC Poetry Fellows. On the same day she retired from a career teaching elementary school, she accepted a marriage proposal. Now she sings, plays mandolin and percussion in an eclectic acoustic band, and is living happily ever after in Columbia, SC, with her musician husband, Jack McGregor.
Summary
Woman Commits Suicide in Dishwasher by Debra A. Daniel is, in many ways, the poignant, yet hysterical life story of an enigmatic, tap-dancing war bride told from the perspectives of the various characters whose lives she has influenced—some for the better, most for the worse—along the way. Though talentless, Myrtle Graham has high hopes for a career on the stage and plans to make her way to Hollywood by dancing in the arms of an attractive, talented, and, hopefully, wealthy, GI. When fate refuses to cooperate with the lackluster Myrtle she tries to take matters into her own hands by raising an ultra-talented son to be her dance partner. Once again, the universe disappoints Myrtle, forcing her ultimately to the point of despair from which there is no return—the pots and pans cycle of her own kitchen’s dishwasher. Eight different chapters serve as eight different first person accounts of why Myrtle would one day crawl inside her dishwasher and push the automatic ON button. Among the witnesses to Myrtle’s life—and death—are her husband, her neighbors, her husband’s mistress, her late son’s dance instructor and his ex-girlfriend, the yard boy, and her brother-in-law; all of whom offer unique and hilariously disturbing insights into the mysterious Myrtle Graham.
