Myra Kaspbrak

Myra Kaspbrak is the wife of Eddie Kaspbrak, a successful limousine company owner in New York. She is a large, anxious woman whose physical and emotional presence is a near-perfect echo of Eddie's late mother, Sonia. Their marriage, which Eddie himself recognizes as a form of psychological incest, is built on a foundation of mutual dependence and manufactured illness. Myra's constant solicitude, her tears, and her terror for Eddie's health are the chains that bind him to a life of perceived fragility, a cage from which he must finally break free when the call to return to Derry comes.

Appearance and Resemblance to Sonia Kaspbrak

Myra is described as an extremely large woman. When Eddie first sees her climbing the stairs, he notes that the stairs creak protestingly under her weight. She wears a white nightgown that swells, comberlike, at bosom and hip, and her face, devoid of make-up, is white and shiny. The resemblance to his mother is so striking that Eddie once placed a picture of Myra next to a picture of his mother from 1944, when Sonia was a relatively svelte one hundred and eighty pounds. They could have been sisters. Eddie understands that he has, in a sense, married his mother, and that Myra has condemned him with solicitude, nailed him with concern, and chained him with sweetness. She has reached the same fatal insight into his character: Eddie is all the more delicate because he sometimes suspects he is not delicate at all, and he needs to be protected from his own dim intimations of possible bravery.

The Dynamic of Care and Control

Myra's care for Eddie is a constant, smothering presence. She takes his rubbers out of the plastic bag in the closet and puts them by the coat-rack next to the door on rainy days. Beside his plate of unbuttered wheat toast each morning is a dish of what might be taken for a multi-colored pre-sweetened children's cereal, but which is actually a whole spectrum of vitamins. Eddie's medicine cabinet is a testament to this regime, stocked with Anacin, Excedrin, Contac, Gelusil, Tylenol, Vicks, Vivarin, Serutan, Phillips' Milk of Magnesia, Rolaids, Tums, Di-Gel, and a host of vitamins, as well as more serious prescription drugs like Valium, Percodan, Elavil, and Darvon Complex. Myra, like his mother, understands that Eddie needs to be protected, and there has really been no chance for him. As a young unmarried man, he left his mother three times and returned home to her three times. After his mother's death, he returned home for a fourth and final time, this time to Myra, whom he calls a sweet hog.

The Night of the Phone Call

On the night of May 28th, 1985, Myra and Eddie are watching television when Mike Hanlon calls. Eddie, after a brief conversation, announces he has to go away. Myra is immediately terrified and confused. She follows him upstairs, her voice rising in panic as he packs a suitcase and a tote-bag full of medicines. She tries to stop him, first with questions, then with tears, her final defense. She reminds him of a promise he made to get her Al Pacino's autograph, a task he now tells her she will have to do herself, driving the actor. She protests that she cannot, that her uniforms are too tight, that she will get lost and he will shout at her. Eddie, feeling his own resolve weakening, forces himself to be firm, telling her she will have to drive Pacino and that it will be easy. He lies, saying the actor is very nice and understanding. Myra's desperation grows, and she offers to make him a sour-cream coffee-cake, popcorn, his favorite turkey dinner with giblet gravy, anything to make him stay. She grabs his collar, pulling him backward, but at the absolute end of his strength, her grip trails away.

The Final Farewell

As Eddie reaches the front door, he turns back to Myra, who is weeping. He tells her he will be coming back in a week or ten days, but the words feel like a lie. She screams, clutching her bosom like a diva in a bad opera. For a moment, Eddie feels that he can love her safely, seeing her not as a tyrant but as someone even more frightened than he is. He asks her for a kiss, and she hugs him so tightly that the bones in his back groan. He whispers for her not to be afraid, and she wails that she cannot help it. He tells her he knows, and for the first time, his asthma eases. He leaves her standing in the doorway, a big black woman-shadow cut out of the light spilling from their house, as the cab drives away. Myra Kaspbrak is left behind, a figure of immense, helpless fear, embodying the childhood from which Eddie must finally escape to face the horrors of Derry.