In the Money

The Stecher Trilogy #2

by William Carlos Williams

First published by New Directions in 1940, In the Money is a sequel to White Mule, and the second volume in Dr. Williams’s “Stecher Trilogy,” but it also stands alone as a novel complete in itself. White Mule is a study of childhood––of the baby Flossie Stecher and her sister Lottie, and their parents, Joe and Gurlie Stecher, of German and Norwegian origin, living in New York before the first World War. In the Money is Joe Stecher’s success story––the tale of his fight against graft and injustice to found his own business and get “into the money.” Joe is by nature quiet and reserved. But his wife Gurlie is full of ambition and drives him on toward the things she wants––position and a home of her own. It is a simple story, yet a meaningful one––a typical American situation. As a novelist, one of Dr. Williams’s strengths is his striking use of detail, an “objectivism,” related to the style of his poetry; which achieves great, even symbolic force in its enlargement of the minutiae of American life and character.

Genres: Fiction

382 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1940

About the author

William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine. Williams "worked harder at being a writer than he did at being a physician," wrote biographer Linda Wagner-Martin. During his long lifetime, Williams excelled both as a poet and a physician.

Although his primary occupation was as a doctor, Williams had a full literary career. His work consists of short stories, poems, plays, novels, critical essays, an autobiography, translations, and correspondence. He wrote at night and spent weekends in New York City with friends—writers and artists like the avant-garde painters Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia and the poets Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore. He became involved in the Imagist movement but soon he began to develop opinions that differed from those of his poetic peers, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. Later in his life, Williams toured the United States giving poetry readings and lectures.

In May 1963, he was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems (1962) and the Gold Medal for Poetry of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. The Poetry Society of America continues to honor William Carlos Williams by presenting an annual award in his name for the best book of poetry published by a small, non-profit or university press.

Williams' house in Rutherford is now on the National Register of Historic Places. He was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2009.

Reviews

[Mariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The night stood outside the window this time and didn't come in- but smiled. "See you later. But don't forget me. She won't," he said, pointing to the baby. "You'll see. You did it. I touched her. There will always be night a little written upon her brain. To some extent, my fine lady and gentleman, who think you know so much, to some extent she is mine. See that you take good care of her henceforth, for me." And the thing was gone.

The white mule crawls on the floor with one leg tucked beneath her body. The little spider grows so fast. All who meet her wish she was theirs. She's only a little baby. It seemed that way to me that bringing a grin to the white face would make it all worth it for anyone responsible for it. It seemed that time went by too fast and in a hurry. A big hurry for Flossie the baby to forget her father Joe when he's on holiday. To not remember or mind her mother Gurlie any longer. When is she going to get big enough to remember her own life. It must be time to grow up and survive all of it somehow. Gurlie talks all of their time about wanting to be rid of her two kids. They called the little baby the white mule after the liquor. She's tougher than she looks, the little baby. I haven't read the first book in the Stecher trilogy, by the way. It's called White Mule. In the Money is the second book and I've read that one alone. She must have been known as the white mule in the book about her and her sister. I am glad that she's stronger than she looks.

What about Lottie? They have another little girl named Lottie. She's a little thing with a sad dreamer's face. The book isn't called the little dreamer's sad face. I think I would want to see her face take in something she's heard and take it in too seriously. She's not grown up yet.

People must talk about how lucky Gurlie is to have her husband Joe. They must think he's so great. Gurlie would tell you how he's not so great if you didn't think she's so great. If she suspected that you didn't think she was so great. I don't think she really likes anyone because she's got too many fallen stars in her eyes. If she's not going to get what she wants. It would be nice if the next child was a boy. It's a shame about these little girls. If her eyes alight on the prize in her grasp she knew it all of the time. She is the woman behind the success. I'd want to strangle her if I had to be married to her but it must have felt something all right when she speaks up in a room full of men and there are looks of surprise that the little lady is speaking. I had the feeling she talks and talks so much about her discontent because she doesn't have anything else to do with it. She misses a Norway she never really had.

My New Directions Paperbook copy says this is German immigrant Joe Stecher's "success story". He does stick to his guns as they say. People he meets tells him what balls of steel he has. What nerve! What gumption! He leaves his printing day job and makes the lowest bid for the government contract to print money orders. I felt like I was one of the New York City neighbors sitting around their success after party to toast his arm wrestling skills and gloat over paranoia put behind them. Those low life rats would have done anything to prevent him from securing that contract. He talks like he's a man in front of a crowd of reporters. I had the feeling about him that he was a man who didn't know what to do with his discontent rather than hide it under the covers and wish he could play with the two little girls. I see a lot of people who love him. The girls who worked for him in his old job stand around shyly in his kitchen and miss the great man while his wife suspiciously fidgets and hovers. I see a lot of people who didn't really love Gurlie. Mostly because she's too good for anyone. She has a lot of nostalgia for the future she wishes she had. She's suspicious of what you want from her. I don't want anything. I could have easily sat in her kitchen over a baked goods party with fellow immigrant city dwellers. We're on the rise and up and up. It's a restless feeling. I felt restless for her without wanting anything for her, or for him.

When the little ones need their shots for the smallpox they are treated by a physician with the gift of gab. He tells you he should have been a writer. He's only up to year two in his pamphlets. He means to write about the lives of children in their shooting up like trees. I liked the man with the dog in the next yard that Flossie and Lottie can't stop thinking about. I liked a lot how they live these little day things and the people in their lives with them never think they are going to remember any of it. Sometimes they do remember it too. The next day comes and they are hopeful for what Joe told them something good was going to happen. I liked that feeling about this book a lot. I liked that as suspicious as Gurlie is, as much as she picks and fights with her family, there's a little girl part in her that is like when you went off by yourself to sulk that no one else was going to remember what it felt like to be YOU in your days. I thought that was pretty cool how William Carlos Williams managed to do that in this book. My New Directions Paperbook copy says it is the "typical American situation". I don't know about that. I just felt like it was a miracle that anyone ever survived any of it and how great it is that people are tougher than they look. It reminded me of a favorite book from my childhood. Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (no doubt I thought of it because of the immigrants in pre WWI New York). I remember feeling so lucky to have found that book that felt believable that people can get through life stuff because it doesn't pretend anything. You're living their lives with them in this intimate hand holding book so you know they aren't pretending. You know them.

[Julia Williamson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmm, I don't have the patience to add all the info about this book, which must be out of print. Funny, I found it on the shelf at my fairly small library branch.. It took me SO LONG to finish this book that it's hard to remember how well I liked it. Seems more like really well written vignettes of a certain time and place and personalities than an actual novel - a little light on plot. However it is so beautifully and descriptively written - trust a poet and a doctor to be both lyrical and pragmatic enough to make almost 400 pages of trivia so interesting and so lovely... So yes, I'd recommend it, as a pick it up and put it down and don't worry about remembering all the names kind of book.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

An admission: I was surprised to learn that the brilliant poet also wrote historical fiction. Who knew?

One of the impressive aspects of the work is the changing perspective of the narrative. Through the work the reader inhabits the mind of a variety of characters. Oddly, at least to this reader, the children's perspective is far and away the most captivating. There is a beautiful rush of writing drenched in sensory images and emotions of a youngster on pages 224-226. Of course, there are exacting descriptions of features that pop up occasionally. While there is a wheel of rotating perspectives, Joe is the dominant character within the shifting tracks of the story. The entrance of the brother, Oswald, is a welcome burst of energy within the story.

Teddy Roosevelt is the central figure of the story's genre. President Roosevelt holds a vital meeting with the hero of the story, Joe (176). Roosevelt's crusade to clean up government corruption is one of the many subjects presented within the novel. Another historical subject includes the veracity of information in the newspapers. Mr. Williams presents a number of events from of the perspective of the character which is constantly in conflict with newspaper accounts of the same events. Manipulating information while trying to reshape the public perceptions of the story is a central tenant of the newspaper modus operandi.

One fun aspect of the story is the ending. Mr. Williams end the novel with a fragment of a vision from one of his most favorite poems. The final scene is a lovely evocation of the poem.

[Mat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant!
(Review in progress...)