Sunday, 26 October 2014

Juliet Was a Surprise



Bill Gaston's short story collection Juliet Was a Surprise is just my taste -- small bursts of insight into the sticky muddle that is interpersonal relationships, with characters who don't know as much about each other as they think they do; who don't even know themselves. These stories reminded me somewhat of Lynn Coady's Hellgoing, but where her characters were mostly angry and trapped, Gaston's are confused and surprised; like the naïve babies some accuse each other of being.

What to make of a situation where, on returning to a vacation house that's been rented for a solitary respite, an aging man finds a young couple who insists that they've also paid to be there for the week. When they make it plain that they won't be leaving, the young woman says:
"We can be your house clowns." Eden put her hands to her head like antlers and swayed back and forth, big-eyed and unsmiling. Her eyes were playful but ironic and -- he didn't know why he thought of this word -- literate. But still possibly dangerous.
Well, why did I find that image in House Clowns so menacing? I was caught up in the paranoia of the unnamed protagonist -- who wouldn't want to identify more with the staid professor than the scruffy hitchhikers? -- right up until he started acting oddly himself. When the ending comes, it's totally satisfying because the seeds were planted all along; I was just distracted by those swaying antlers.

Or what about the self-identified twerp in Any Forest Seen from Orbit -- a middle-aged virgin arborist who thinks of trees as sexy, to whom a deodora cedar is "not unlike a geisha in traditional pose: hips tilted one way, head tilted another; face down, demure; arms at dramatic angles, holding fans" -- what is he to make of Juliet, a married client who:
...spun around at the door and mouthed, ferociously, "Ten after seven."

And then, good God, she pointed. Not at me. Not at the ground beneath her feet. No, she pointed at herself. Below the belt. She pointed at the prize, while announcing the time it would be claimed. I'd never seen a human do that. I understand now that it is something an animal might do, if it had fingers, and could tell time.
That was so bizarre that I thought the twerp (another unnamed protagonist) was imagining it until he returned at the appointed time and was asked to begin by combing out all of Juliet's body hair, She'd lift an arm and I'd draw the brush, once, twice, through her pit, the tines softly tugging through. Well, how did Juliet think that her game would end?

And again I'll note that this collection speaks to my own taste -- I am always open to a touch of the supernatural and was intrigued by Cake's Chicken and its tale of "two things science can't explain". Like Dale in To Mexico, I too read all of Carlos Castaneda in my youth (and unlike him, I did eventually muddle through Under the Volcano as well) and I enjoyed being in on the allusions. I loved the slow revelation of Chantal's dilemma in Tumpadabump (and also love that that perfect title doesn't actually occur in the story). Several stories are told well from a woman's perspective (although Geriatric Arena Grope wasn't my favourite), but it's the oblivious and unself-aware men who stand out: in Petterick, At Work in the Fields of Bulwer-Lytton, To Mexico, and Four Corners, male leads act aloof, as though that's their preference or a commentary on the women they find themselves with, but it's repeatedly revealed that it's the flaws in themselves that cement their isolation. And, overall, these stories are simply well-written.
Cake and Danny stood there taking in the sunset. It was a good one, no question -- a glorious wall of orange and purple, with little ruptures that looked like balconies, from which shot rays of sacred light, behind which God made vast, heart-breaking decisions. Because they were so still, I glanced at the two friends' faces. Cake's expression was complex, for once. He seemed chastised by the sunset, humbled. But in his look there was also hope that what it was telling him might be wrong. Anyway, that's what I imagined I saw. As for Danny, his take on the beauty was simpler -- he sneered. He was basically daring it.
And that's all you'd need to know about Cake and Danny, and how you feel when you look at a sunset might be all you need to know about yourself. A quick and consistently interesting read, Juliet Was a Surprise is easy to recommend.



The 2014 Governor General's Literary Awards Shortlist, with my ranking:

English Fiction:

The 2014 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction winner is The Back of the Turtle. Meh.
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