Tag: Andre Alexis

  • Short Story Review: “Consolation” by Andre Alexis

    (The short story “Consolation” by Andre Alexis appeared in the May 20th, 2024 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Illustration by André Derainne

    If you have read any of my reviews, then you know that I am a sucker for a story about death, especially if it’s a story dealing with the death of a parent. “Consolation” by Andre Alexis is such a story, as it deals with the death of both the narrator’s parents, but it is also about how parents’ shame can affect their children, can affect a marriage, and can affect the community they live in.

    The piece begins with the narrator telling how he got in an argument with his elderly mother over driving directions, and the narrator was so hurt but his mother’s anger, that he didn’t speak to her for two years. Only when they reconciled, did the narrator learn that his mother had dementia, and most likely the fight was a precursor of her disease. This leads the narrator to recount the death of his father, which happened a decade earlier, and though we feel that the son loves his father, we also learn that the father was a serial philanderer, thrice divorced, and despised by the narrator’s mother for the infidelity. Then the narrator tells us the story of his father, who was born in poverty in Trinidad, worked his way up and out by becoming a doctor, and then married the woman who would become the narrator’s mother. Together, they started a family, and moved to Canada, to a small all white town, where the father dealt with the indignity of the town’s prejudice, to become a respected member of the community. It is also the place where the father’s infidelities began to be noticed, and affect the family.

    This is a well thought out, and written, short story. The characters are compelling. The family dynamic is honest, complicated, and uncomfortable. It’s paced well, has a very unique climax, and I just didn’t like this story when everything is telling me that I should. I have been thinking about, and thinking about it, and I should like this, but something just feels off to me. And today, it came to me; it’s passion. Which is even more striking as there is a paragraph in this story that is about passion – between the father and another woman, and the son realizing that this moment of discovering this passion lead him to his career as a lawyer. That this is a story about passions, between lovers, between family members, how they can spark trust and betrayals. Yet, I found the narration less than passionate, which I can only say was done on purpose. This passionless narration juxtaposed with these lives driven by different forms of passion which elicit reactions of shame, desire, and anger. I go back to the start of the story and the narrator describing the argument he had with his mother. The way it is described is almost clinical, factual, without any hint of what the narrator was feeling. It is an event that is only described and not felt. I get the decision to write this story in this way, to make the point that is needed for it to have its conclusion. This artistic choice left me feeling divorced from the emotions of these characters, which explains why I couldn’t connect with the story.

    I will fully admit that I am the odd man out here. I can totally understand why people will love this story, and be dumbfounded by my inability to relate to this piece. Yes, it’s me, and it is not Andre Alexis. You should read this story, enjoy it greatly, and then shake your head at me for not getting this story.

  • Short Story Review: “HOUYHNHNM” by André Alexis

    (The short story “HOUYHNHNM” by André Alexis, appeared in the June 20th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Photograph by Vanessa Winship

    (I’ll probably SPOIL it)

    Did you ever have a simple turkey sandwich but for whatever reason, was just amazing? Like, it’s made up of all the same simple ingredients that you have in your house, but somehow the person in the kitchen put it together in a way that somehow was spot on. Man, it’s just a turkey sandwich, but it’s great turkey sandwich.

    I mean no disrespect, but that is exactly what “HOUYHNHNM” by André Alexis was to me. The title of the story is taken from the name of a race of fictional intelligent horses from Gulliver’s Travels. The story is told by the adult son of a well to do but modest doctor who is all scientific logic, and buys a horse. This isn’t his first horse he’s owned, but soon a special bond is formed between the doctor and the horse, to the point where the doctor spends all of his free time with the horse; walking, reading to him, talking to him. It even gets to the point to where the doctor builds the horse a special barn to live in. Suddenly, the doctor passes, and the son takes on the responsibility of caring for the horse, only to find that the horse can speak. The son realizes why his father spent so much time with the animal, and also the son begins to do the same things that his father did when he was attending the horse.

    I used the metaphor of the simple ingredients here because nothing in this story took me by surprise. I knew where it was going, I saw all the pieces, I knew was Alexis was going to build. I knew that with the son now spending time with the horse, he was gaining a deeper understand of who his father was. And when the horse’s decline set in, I also knew that the story was alluding to having a parent who is succumbing to dementia, and the pain that can cause when the loved one soon no longer recognizes you. Even with that said, it was an effective story – honest and authentic. Not a word seemed false or forced. The title of the piece was clearly there to say to the reader that this horse was real, and not a figment of the narrator’s imagination, though, that was the only aspect of the story that I kept expecting to surface, but it never did. And I apricated that dedication to the premise – this is a talking horse story.

    Maybe it’s me. This is a story about losing a parent, and that subject still holds a soft spot in me. But I do think that there is more to this story. Though I did know where this story was going, I experienced a special catharsis in the son gaining a better understanding of his father. That might be a very basic desire of all children after their parents die, and though it might be basic, it is still a wish I hope comes true.

    (Say! If you like what you have read, please like, share, and leave a comment. It would help justify my existence.)