Melodrama at its Finest

Safe Passage 
by Ellyn Bache

p. 1988

I’ll admit that Safe Passage is a book I picked up only because I’d seen the movie many years ago and had vaguely fond memories of it. Interested to see if the book stayed true to the movie or revealed more about its characters, I picked up a copy amongst several of the secondhand copies hanging about and am happy to report that I was not the least bit disappointed. In fact, I tried to put this book aside several times to read something else I held higher on my priority list, but I couldn’t help but peek at the first chapter and from there, I couldn’t put it down.

Safe Passage, by Ellen Bache, is the story of the Singer clan, particularly the matriarch (and only female) Mag Singer, spread out over three days as they go through the turmoil of wondering whether one of their members—troubled son, Percival, now a marine—has perished in an explosion where he is stationed in Beirut. It is melodrama in its highest form, but strangely compelling and well-spoken melodrama nonetheless. I unfortunately could not benefit from the element of suspense this book would have for new readers, as I already knew the outcome from the movie, but Bache keeps you guessing until the end, and the tension is so thick, it begs to be felt.

The question of Percival’s fate is not the only thread in this story. When word of the explosion hits, the entire family floods into the house to await further news and clash in the meantime. To be more accurate, Safe Passage is a character study about Mag—a middle-aged woman who feels trapped in her life yet fiercely protective of her children. It’s not an easy task, as there are seven of them, all boys, and Mag never wanted children in the first place. Only one child—youngest son, Simon, who suffers from a birth defect that has left him partially deaf and is questioning a life-changing operation—is left at home, which means Mag works overtime worrying about her boys. There’s eldest Alfred, who is involved in a relationship with a single mother whom Mag despises for stealing her firstborn and shoehorning him into fatherhood, Izzy the genius student, Gideon the runner and champ, and Darren and Merle, who are twins. I don’t mean to denigrate them, but that’s really all there is to the twins. They don’t do anything noteworthy or have discernable personalities; I’m quite sure they exist solely to increase Mag’s burden and the aesthetic that she has produced a ‘litter’ instead of children.

Mag is a deeply conflicted character, and her feelings about her family may incite offense, if you were so inclined to be sensitive. She frequently claims to have favorites (though the favorite changes depending on who needs her the most at that time), she repeatedly thinks about running away from her life, rues that she ever started having children at all, and constantly takes on the burden of guilt whenever something happens to her children, believing the evils of the world to be ethereal punishments for her own failings. Adding on to that a general dissatisfaction with her marriage, and Mag is whole mess of complicated emotions that are just waiting to explode.

Impeding matters even more is the declining health of husband, Patrick, who suffers from undiagnosed and inexplicable periodic blindness. Mag often thinks about leaving him and finally starting the life she left behind twenty-odd years ago, but will not abandon him in his feeble state, though he appears to be independent. It is clear through flashback scenes that Mag is not, and possibly never was satisfied with her marriage. Patrick, though he appears to have grown and taken a sincere interest in his family, was not always the family man that he is when he attempts to take charge of the crisis. He was inattentive and often absent in the boys’ younger days, leaving Mag to take care of everything by herself, hence the weight of the world Mag seems to always take on her shoulders. Being the embodiment of stubbornness, Mag refuses to forgive his past discretions and cannot let go of her bitterness.

In an alternate but related thread, middle son Gideon, who is the last to come home and does so despite his parents telling him not to come, feels an equal amount of guilt in regards to Percival. The two were once close, but the relationship was diminished when Gideon began to outshine his older brother at running. You see, Percival, a scrawny kid with a sizable attitude, picked up the sport first, as a way to channel his incorrigible behavior into something useful, and he was pretty good at it until his brother came along. It wasn’t enough to Percival to be second best and he was always second or third or fourth in a family of boys that all exceeded at something. Gideon blames himself for being better while Mag blames herself for bringing Percival into the world in the first place. After all, she views it as her duty to provide a ‘safe passage’ in life for her children, and if she can’t even do that then she’s failed them just as she’s failed herself, and that will not do.

Safe Passage is a story comprised mostly of talking and waiting, but it is never boring. Each new chapter reveals layer upon layer of this complex family, and with the exception of the twins, each of them have their moment to shine. There is still so much more to know, and the ending is left open-ended in regards to these characters’ futures. Not everything is solved in those agonizing three days, but something has moved within Mag and her family, and Safe Passage is a peek into that world when it’s been shaken to its core.