Re-reading Spalding Gary’s Swimming to Cambodia, I came across the passage where he meets the Navy guy on a train. I was thinking that the story had taken a hard right turn, but then I remembered what came right before: him admitting he had no idea what Cambodia was but also that he had no idea what America was. So here was an example of what America was and a person sure of what America was. Right after I had that thought, I turned the page, and someone had written in “What does this have to do with the story?”
Spaulding Gray gives a false ending in his book. When he turns the corner and sees the Indian Ocean, he talks about the joy, but then says it was a 9 and he needed a 10 for his perfect moment. This felt a little like cheating to me, but I’m glad that feeling that way helped me to notice it. There is a long history of the false ending in art. One thing it does (in a performance, such as Gray was doing) is wake up any audience members who might be dozing off. “Have we reached the end?” they ask and perk up to get ready to leave.
