White Mule

The Stecher Trilogy #1

by William Carlos Williams

Williams was foremost a poet, but the novels are of great interest. They are important books in their own right, because they present with a poet’s insight, and in a prose style of striking originality, aspects of American life which few other writers have approached. White Mule and its sequels, In the Money and The Build-Up, form a trilogy, the saga of the Stecher family, but each volume is a complete novel by itself. Joe Stecher and Gurlie, his wife, are a young couple of European origin settled in New York at the turn of the century and working to make a place for themselves in the new world. White Mule is the story of Joe’s inner struggle between love of fine craftsmanship (he is a printer by trade) and Gurlie’s ambition to get ahead, to have him get “in the money.” But it also the story of the awakening consciousness of their children; the real heroine is the baby Flossie––she had a kick like “White Mule” whiskey––whose birth begins the book. Everything revolves around the baby and she is surely unique in literature. Dr. Williams was a pediatrician, and without sentimentality he makes of this little being, who cannot even talk, a full-scale, three-dimensional personality.

Genres: Fiction

291 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1937

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]

After five days of rain this was one of those cool moist mornings in May when the country calls to the instincts with a voice of leaves and of flowers. Joe knew he was a working man, he had to be, that's all he asked them to expect of him. But very deep inside him moved another man- under water, under earth- among the worms and fishes, among the plant roots- an impalpable atmosphere through which he strode freely without necessity for food or drink, without breathing and with unthrobbing heart. How could a man exist there otherwise?

The white a speck if seen from outer space baby is born unhappy. You could hear hear her from the other side of the world. Why would she be anything else under the sun, under the roof of her tiny New York City apartment too small to hold her. She will asphyxiate on adults hovering about under their own sleep. Another girl when she should have been a boy. That's not for them to decide, but just yet she is in their world. She is born to a turned mother's back (let me alone, or be something you're not) and clock watching father (it's time to go to work). Her five year old sister slaps her in the face (I never know where she is for she is not letting into the communicators). It is the reaction that comes into her small hand when she doesn't get the baby brother that is promised to her. I still wish I knew Lottie and I feel her absence. She's growing up out of her family already. Everyone still wants Flossie as their own baby, save for those who got her. Why doesn't anyone want Lottie? Maybe they did and that means Flossie has to find her place now or lose forever. It is boys, boys, boys. I don't see what is so special about boys. Gurlie wants six of them. Gurlie wants Norse dreams of illegal drawers and mandatory baby machinations from sunset to sundown. I wish she would have had them and they would have performed for her a choir of caterwauling. Frogs croak and no princes here. Never mind that now. I have the feeling that Gurlie's resentful dreams will embarrass her into reality soon enough. Babies make me feel as if I have to hide myself from a contagious disease. If I see photos of Christmas elves with curled feet I will draw mine underneath me to ward off the curse. It's a kneejerk ritual opposite to an empathy moving concurrently within me. Who would want to be alive? The afterbirth was intimate and under the covers. I wanted to leave the room like the most cliched father fainting scene in a sitcom. I wanted to change everything. Gurlie's bizarre boy baby fantasy aside, why was everyone expecting her to have a perfectly organized pantry after a home birth? If her family didn't notice her agony on the bed I sure did. She expels the curse from her body. No child of mine. I felt the why would anyone want to be alive stinging the flesh made from her flesh. Mama Gurlie's flattened breasts refuse to make milk for the baby that will not eat. I heard the babies cries and I heard them renounce human feeling for the little thing. Mrs. D the hired nurse feeds baby Flossie rancid camphor oil and drugs her into sleep. The soft spot on her head is almost too tempting. I felt like a cliched horror movie audience within a film screaming don't go up the stairs. The family put her in the room where she will be the least bother. When they refuse doctors (what do they know?) I felt the familiar judgement turned on myself. I was afraid of the scene from Alien going live action on my womb merely reading about a new born baby. I can't handle listening to the clicking of someone else's computer mouse any longer (I'm serious that this is recently akin to torture for me. I have been afraid to ask anyone if the outside world is too much to this stupid detail). What would I do about a baby? I feel inhuman and human for her both.

I reviewed the second book In the Money here. I read that book first. This might have influenced my reading more than a little.

I missed In the Money. Have you ever had that feeling when someone you felt you could be close to (or at least open with, people to people) was suddenly a stranger? The door slams in your face and you are forever put in the only talking about the weather box. You have no idea what it was you did. Trying to suss out what it was that you possibly could have done to redirect all antennas to stranger frequencies is too disheartening. Joe and Gurlie made me feel like someone who is watching a show. Joe mugs and brags about how it all worked out in his government money order printing scheme. Gurlie pin balls between nagging and gloating. I've got the looks, I've got the brains, give me and give me. Their American dream is to be the people in the newspaper. You'd read about their success. Look how happy they are. Joe is suspicious of the cheap and expensive glory of his new country. I agree and yet I don't know his idealized Germany. He talks to himself about where it could all go wrong, to strike or not to strike with the workers. Should he go out into business for himself. I agree with him about how it should be, that you should work hard and profits fair, and I wondered if his unspoken inner misgivings weren't akin to my own. That maybe you didn't want to live in a pulpit and couldn't you swim, fly, breathe freely. He's a man I just met and I don't care about the newspaper and public speaking. I knew what he wanted if he didn't say it in In the Money. Beyond the dinner table talk there was, well, dinner. People with people and his kids. Gurlie turns her back and in White Mule he still feels he could love her. I feel when it wasn't work and I loved this. I feel the trying too hard more and I don't like the dinner table talk. I wish that wasn't what life was about. If you talk about the weather you should feel happy when it hits your face. Anything else makes me feel alone.

The baby is born to be unhappy. They finally take her to the doctor. I was dying until they took her to the doctor. The doctor can do nothing for her but he says to take her to the country, take her to the sunlight. Feed her good food. I would have known that but I can't step inside of a book and be people to people with her. The doctor says that we are generations of mules. We are herded into schools and we are Pink Floyd songs and meat products of despair. It is a speech and Gurlie can't disagree with it. It is a speech to wash hands of you. He wasn't wrong. Schools are prisons. She takes Flossie to the country (we meet them when they are leaving in In the Money). I didn't need it in a speech because I felt it that the baby was living in a place like that and no one asked her if she wanted to be born anyway. Williams didn't need the speech in In the Money, either, to live them for or with you.

Flossie and Lottie play with the other kids in the country. She'll be okay and she is stronger than she looks. She will get caught up in things. She can join in and find a place. I wonder about her secret misgivings, those she won't be able to name. I wish there was some other place for those to go than red-handed speeches and holding hands and catching yourself falling in with other people. That's what I loved about In the Money. It did feel like you were going to fall in with someone else. I already knew how Joe's work doings turned out so that was pretty dull. My feeling is it would have not been that interesting to me because his out loud thoughts are much louder than his private ones. He loves his daughters and he wonders how Gurlie couldn't be happy with them in the second book. This time I cried him for a hypocrite when he stands in the doorway and is dismayed over a second girl. You didn't do all you could and you judged and you had other ideas about how things should be. But what did you really want? I believe it in In the Money and I missed that book this time. The William Carlos Williams voice of a person who has a big heart and is most definitely not a fool is there and I find it more comforting than I can say (I get so depressed thinking about being mules, if we aren't stronger than we look after all). But I wonder why would anyone want to be born if it is going to be this lonely? A baby is born into this family and it is great because she's got this crooked little grin. She can be happy. But it is also not that great because, well, look at everything else. I loved her even though she's not real and I know that I would also be of no good to her. What good could you be when you don't even know what to call those inner misgivings? I don't know what to call that inner space and finding yourself caught in life and sun is so hard to do sometimes.

[Mat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. I'm starting to agree with Charles Olson - William Carlos Williams is one fine prose writer, perhaps better at prose than at poetry.

White Mule is the first instalment in the Stecher Trilogy, a story which centres around the daily life of the Stechers, Norwegian immigrants living in New York City. First there is the father Joe Stecher who runs a small press and who has to keep a tight watch on things at work. He seems like a fairly typical working man, putting his job ahead of everything in order to put more bread on the family table. His wife, Gurlie, hassles him constantly about not making enough money or not pushing his boss enough to give him a raise. Gurlie is an interesting character. She likes to try and boss Joe around, at times really dotes on him and doesn't seem too happy about being stuck with two girls - she wanted to have six boys.
Lottie, the eldest daughter, is probably the most interesting character and the reader is able to see the different sides to her when she is alone, with friends, at the park or around her mother. And finally there is the baby Flossie, who is not too healthy after she was born. They soon find out that either Gurlie is unable to produce enough breast milk or for some other reason Flossie has an aversion to it and Joe, quite by accident, discovers that his baby loves condensed milk. She starts to rally much better but about 6 months later, a family doctor tells Gurlie to take her to the countryside to get fresh air and more sunlight before New York City kills her. And so the last few chapters are set in the beautiful, plush hills of Vermont. As my wife is due to give birth to our first baby (a daughter) in early January, I'm really glad I read this book - it gives me a little bit of an idea of what to expect.

Williams is a real wizard with words. He conjures up a world so vivid, I felt like I was really there. I felt like I was riding in the carriage along with Charlie (the carriage driver) as they rolled over the hills of Vermont. I also love how Williams blends conversation in with his 'narrator talk'. You have to really pay attention because there are no inverted commas to tell you who is telling what. But I like it - he makes you work your imagination.

This is definitely the best American novel I have read in a while. The only novel that I have read recently which possibly tops it is The Brotherhood of the Grape by John Fante - another great American writer born from immigrant (Italian) stock.

Can't wait to read the second volume of the trilogy - entitled In the Money. My guess is that Joe Stecher, or his printing company, make a lot of money in the second book...but we'll have to wait and see.
Thank you to Rikkyo University Library for lending me a copy of this great, great novel!

[Moon Captain · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is basically a boring book about nothing. It starts out really crazy with details of infant abuse and child abuse. This really fucking sickened me but I thought maybe I should push through and see what happens. What happens is that men take charge as businessmen and doctors driving the plot forward and presenting logical solutions and good advice. The women in the book are all insane and stupid and don't know how to do anything. I understand the author was a poet as well as a pediatrician. I would guess Part of why he wrote this is to teach people how not to treat their babies and what a doctor wants them to do instead. The main characters are so awful! The husband is ferociously anti-union and ruins people's lives. The wife/mother is a total shrew and a moron who hates her children and has no personality outside of her faults. I hated this book and I just read it because it was in my hand and I thought I'd see it through. The writing style is fucking awful in the very beginning but it becomes more natural and easy to read after about 50 pages. I can't recommend this book to anyone. If you like his poetry, that's nice, but I don't know why anyone would read this it's a real bummer and you don't learn or really feel anything from it. I was frequently horrified and wondered if this was some sort of genre fiction like Cormac McCarthy style or if these are real normal things that happened at that time. I've never felt so glad to be living my own life here in this day and age and that's really saying something

[Erin Bottger (Bouma) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've long been a fan of William Carlos Williams' poetry and I had no idea what to expect about his novel with a title "White Mule". Whatever I thought it might be about, I was greatly surprised.

This is a quirky story, told partly from an infant's perspective, of a Scandinavian immigrant couple's struggles in New York written in the 1930's. The characters of Joe and Gurlie, their friends, employees and relations are revealed episodically as they face challenges and score victories.

This passage of a cat and catnip illustrates Williams' powerful skills of observation:

"It had been five cents worth of catnip which Gurlie had tied to a little cotton bag with a red ribbon at the top and hung on a low branch of the [Christmas] tree. The cat had chewed a hole in it and scattered the stuff on the carpet the first thing in the morning. They all watched.

"The cat was now walking slowly over the carpet, his head down, his nose just touching the floor delicately, regularly as he walked, snuffing the aromatic dust. Now he found the bag again. He batted it with his paw and it disappeared under the tree. The cat stopped suddenly not having seen where the bag had gone and looked right and left a little bewildered. Then lifting his head high and cocking it to one side he saw the bag and crouched down at once, his neck stretched out, and began to tread quickly with his back feet, wiggling his haunches eagerly from side to side. Then with a dash he pounced on the object, tossed the thing into the air, rolled over holding it in his arms and biting it while he brought his back feet in play, jabbing with spasmodic tearing motions.
There's a wild beast for you, said Lindquist. Look at that.
And again the cat batted the collapsed bag, then with a long run and a slide, the forepaws held rigidly before him, he drove it under the cloth around the tree and as suddenly turned his back on it and sat down, turned up his rear parts and began to lick them carefully. After which he flopped once more to the ground, completely at rest, as though nothing had happened and in another moment was fast asleep-- his forepaws folded in under his furry breast, his eyes closed and his head sunk forward until his nose rested drunkenly on the carpet."

There are a number of colorful characters and their antics to follow in this loosely-developed novel. Williams explores dialogue and points of view, making the text rather uneven, but interesting.

[Dane Cobain · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not really sure what I was expecting going into this book, but I’m pretty sure it was something different to what I actually got. Fortunately, that wasn’t a problem, and it turns out that Williams’ prose is almost as powerful as his poetry.

One thing that I wasn’t expecting from this was for it to be so intense. In fact, there’s a massive trigger warning here for anyone who might be upset by cruelty to babies, although there’s an argument to be made that it’s not cruelty, it’s just indifference.

The story itself is basically about a Dutch immigrant family in New York, trying to pursue the American dream. The wife keeps having a go at the husband and attacking his manhood by saying that he needs to ask for a pay rise but he hasn’t got the guts. The husband keeps saying that if he gives the company an ultimatum and they fire him, the whole family will be out on the streets.

But to be honest, I spent the majority of the book feeling sorry for their baby and hoping that social services would come along and rescue her. But I guess parenting was very different back in the day and it was perfectly fine for mothers to carve out soap and shove it up a baby’s bottom.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

An imaginative novel of family life in New York.

[Christian Schwoerke · Rating 3 out of 5]

The birth of a baby opens the novel, and the language is stark and blunt, almost forbidding in its tenderness when describing the child’s afflictions, as if there is imminent calamity. It’s a peculiarly positioned portrait of the family around this baby, Flossie, whose life seems to be in the balance in its first six months. Young immigrants from Europe in New York City in the early 20th century, Joe and Gurlie Stecher are people on the move. Joe is a printer, proud of his work and Gurlie is eager to have him succeed and get them to a new location, away from the crowded inner city. The story’s progress encompasses a little less than the first year of Flossie’s life, and the novel ends media res, with Joe about to take on a more important managerial job and Gurlie summering in rural Vermont with the children.

Most interesting is Williams’ odd in and out focus on different aspects—random without regard for importance—shifting from one character to another, one situation to another, using almost impressionistic techniques to build a composite picture of the family and milieu. Their speech is unfiltered; there is no attempt to make the family more than it is, nor is the speech of others adorned (all part of Williams’ approach to language and poetry in general).

In the Money follows…

[Carl]

Plain and mundane, but, like Williams's poetry, there's a heart in there even if the muscles move with tectonic slowness and simplicity. This strikes me as a book I'd enjoy more as I get older.

[Mills College Library]

Fiction W7286w 1967

[Daniel Grenier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beaucoup aimé. Un Bonheur d’occasion trash se déroulant à Manhattan au tournant du XXe siècle. Syndicalisme, immigration, mauvais traitement des enfants, rêve américain. C’est pas rose, c’est plutôt gris foncé en fait, mais c’est très bien mené. La famille Stecher revient d’ailleurs dans deux autres romans.

La prose de Williams est étonnamment limpide. Je m’attendais à ce que ça soit hermétique comme certains de ses écrits plus expérimentaux (comme The Great American Novel), mais il se révèle un romancier d’une relative simplicité. Dialogues non-marqués, passage d’un monologue intérieur à l’autre, mais chronologie et causalités respectées.

Prochain de la trilogie: In the Money.

[Kellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well . . . It kept me reading . . . But I was left hanging a bit too much by the ending. I liked it, and think there were so many mini dramas set in this one single book that it would be kinda neat to see what other authors could do with the mini tableaux WCW set up.

[John McNulty · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's the day to day of a family on the East coast of the Unites States. Early immigrant root stories. The working class trying to be middle class. You can notice William Carlos Williams poetic style can be noted in the approach to prose.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is an oft-heralded trope to many people. Williams reminds us that, even for earlier immigrants to the United States, that narrative is more of a fairy tale, with many evil sorcerers abounding in the structure of our society.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

7/10

[Marko]

I have the german edition.

[Sharon L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The newborn Flossie’s struggle to survive was heart wrenching. Hard but wonderful to read. Williams the pediatrician observed in fine detail infant vulnerability and pain.

[Gabriela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this trilogy. Such a vivid image of New York City and surrounds. And then add the drama of Joe and Gurlie and kids! Wow.

[Rick Seery · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Garden Utensil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was ok, but I really liked the opening chapter. Baby loves to cry.

Also some vivid descriptions of country-living once they escape NY, doctors, dealing with sick babies, servants, managing through strikes.