Later at the Bar

Later at the Bar, by Rebecca Barry, is a short story collection whose structure resembles its own setting, a bar. The stories interconnect and mingle with one another, just like the characters in the book do at Lucy’s Tavern. Both the stories and characters build a relationship with one another, forming a community, or even a family. However, this familial relationship forms mainly to satisfy the need to not feel alone. In the tavern everyone knows everyone and they are at least sociable to one another, or even friends in some cases. But during the daytime “the rules were different,” (56) and that person who seemed friendly or open in the tavern would “pass...without speaking” (56). The tavern was a place where people went to escape the loneliness they experienced in their everyday lives. This loneliness stems from broken relationships, as in Harlin and his many ex-wives, alcoholism, as in Cyrus and how his drinking ruined his relationship with his ex-wife not once, but twice, and the atmosphere of the town. The small town in upstate New York was plagued with not only cold, depressing winters during which the residents would “crave warm sun and longer days” (57), but also a feeling of unconnectedness to the world. Lucy’s Tavern is where people would go to find this connectedness. However, the feeling of loneliness seems to permeate throughout the book and the town. For example, on page 152, Elizabeth, whose ex-husband left her for another man, is so lonely that she prays for one of her students to “Please…kiss me…I need to kiss someone” (152). This sense of hopelessness plays a major role in the book. This theme is present as early as the opening chapter, where the owner of Lucy’s Tavern, Lucy, kills herself by sitting out in the cold all night. The description of her body the next morning, “stiff blue and dead, her face titled upwards…as if she was waiting for something wonderful to happen,” (7) also serves to foreshadow the fact that perhaps this loneliness is only escapable through death.