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An elderly man retires and watches his wife slowly die from cancer. What It Takes chronicles his grief. Sometimes he tries his best to surmount his grief; sometimes he wearies and coaxes his own end along. He tries to fathom who his grown children have become, especially his son, Freddy, who in turn is attempting to salvage his own life. The old man also travels down his memories growing up with his brothers — one of whom met an untimely end, another layer of grief — and his parents. He tries to navigate the will to live, the desire to be close to others and at the same time wrap himself into a spiral of withdrawal. Torra takes us on a journey in this man's mind as he grapples with finding out — maybe too late, or possibly too soon — what it takes to not just survive, but to live.
Praise for Joseph Torra’s previous publications:
"[Torra's] deadpan tone leads to touches of hunor and pathos, while his highly compressed prose at times achieves the intensity of poetry."—London Observer
“Boston-based Italian-American writer Joseph Torra has consistently, intelligently and eloquently written about those Italian-Americans who have not escaped (or abandoned) their working-class lives, who may still use their ‘hands and heart’ but live on the margins of an Eataly corporate world. His protagonists are not stock exchange presidents or urban restaurateurs, but rather the restaurant waiter or the machinist out-of-work in a digital world. Torra—in fiction such as They Say, What’s So Funny, The Bystander’s Scrapbook, and Call Me Waiter—has for more than twenty years been our Howard Zinn of Italian-American culture. As Torra wrote in his poem ‘May Day’: ‘Forced to work / I brandish my / pen as banner, / garden hoe, / pick and ax!’ Torra asserts a proletarian presence into a world that has long ago declared the death of the worker.”—Dennis Barone
“If words were lug nuts, he’d spin them in ways the guys down at the garage never dreamed of.” —New York Times Book Review
“A brilliant read.” —Esquire
“…brings it all back to where it came from.” —Robert Creeley
“The way Mr. Torra flows from one event to another, to a memory, to an observation is quite an accomplishment... this book is always a joy to read.” —Hubert Selby Jr.
“[Part of a]n entire prose tradition that includes everyone from Kerouac to Creeley to Melville...” —Ron Silliman
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From What It Takes...
I had an abrasion on the surface of my eye. It hurt enough that I knew I'd better go to the emergency room and they made me wear a pressure patch and use antibiotic ointment. It was plenty sore at first, and swollen. Lying in bed watching television with my good eye I binged on pizza and soda. Freddy called every day to check in did I need anything? At the follow-up appointment they removed the patch and everything seemed fine. In the dream I'm running through the woods being chased by a giant bird swooping down and pecking at me with an oversized beak. Every time the creature attacks it lets out a caw-like shriek. I try to hide in thicker cover but get tangled unable to move while the bird circles overhead. I free myself and once in the open the bird is relentless in its quest. I read somewhere about turning to face your demons in order to put an end to their pursuits, so I stop in the middle of a small meadow and watch the bird dive. I take off my jacket, swinging it wildly over my head, shouting come and get me as the bird drops down and attempts to pounce. I whack it full-force with the jacket and knock it to the ground then pick up a large rock with both hands and smash its head until the creature is dead. At the edge of the woods I see two animals copulating—deer, of sorts. They're not animals but humans—Laura and another woman. The woman is on all fours and Laura penetrating her from behind. I turn and run in the opposite direction, straight into a small pond where I'm trying to swim but Laura is dragging me under. I wake in a sweat. It's Thanksgiving morning. Against my objections, Freddy insisted on dropping by tonight. The restaurant's open for special holiday hours and closes at six. Around eight he arrives with a bag full of delicacies and a half bottle of wine. The wine is for me. Freddy drinks sparkling water and serves fish chowder, green salad, turkey with his own sausage-sage stuffing, cranberry sauce and a duck breast with some kind of glaze—all of it unlike anything I've ever eaten. Not the same as cranberry sauce out of the can Freddy remarks, what we grew up eating. Laura had always been a good cook, her dishes were simple and side dishes, like cranberry sauce were never made from scratch. During dinner Freddy talks about his job, his daughter who he's seeing again, and a woman he met in the program. They're taking it slow. She's been sober for eleven years. He hasn't been around so doesn't know how long the paint supplies have been sitting in the living room. The accident set me back I tell him, I planned on finishing the job by Thanksgiving. The wine lightens my head after a few sips. He asks do I remember the Thanksgiving when Laura dropped the cooked turkey and it smashed on the floor and she picked it all up, removed the meat from the bones and ordered us to remain silent when her family arrived to eat. I've forgotten. Laura told her family that she decided to debone the turkey before dinner that year. What they didn't know wouldn't hurt them. We laugh...
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