Tag: Fiction

  • 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.

  • Personal Review: “First Love” by Gwendoline Riley

    For the life of me, I don’t remember who or what recommended First Love to me. It was on a list of books that I should read, and when I found a copy of it at the Strand, I picked it up without a second thought, nor having any idea what I was about to get myself into. To be honest, I appreciate the joy and excitement that comes from reading a book that I know nothing about, by an author I also know nothing about, because it does afford me the ability to truly experience a work without any preconceived notions. In this situation, I didn’t even read the description on the back of the book.

    First Love isn’t about the “happy” side of love. It’s not about the joy, fulfillment, or really any of the positive side of love. Oh, now and then, that side of love does show up, but on the whole, that’s not what this novel wants to explore. For the protagonist Neve, she shares with us all of people that she first experienced a form of “love” with; her mother, her father, a boyfriend, and her husband. Each relationship is troubled, difficult, in some cases even toxic, and they all overlap on each other, influencing each relationship from actions that happened in the past, and fears of what might happen in the future. For this reason, it is not a traditional novel, and time and events shift – nothing is linear here, but it adds greatly to the theme of these loves bumping and conflicting with each other.

    I found myself thinking about the works of Rachel Cusk and Maggie Nelson as I read this book. Riley’s novel tackles a serious subject, but the narrative never becomes weighed down, as it feels like a conversation. As such, this book was akin to the Outline Trilogy, and the examination in Bluets. It felt very internal, that we were being let in to very personal thoughts and exanimations. I will say that though First Love is a new form novel, like Outline, Riley did have a more traditional climax here, which gave the novel a satisfying conclusion.

    When I read a book like First Love, I am rather envious of writers like Gwendoline Riley, who create drama and self-examining characters, while never making their stories so personal that it becomes dull of whiney. It’s a bit of a magic trick, that is fun to experience. Thank you, to what, or whomever put this book on my reading list.

  • Short Story Review: “Poetry Is Not About the Price of Gasoline” by Amorak Huey

    (The flash fiction story “Poetry Is Not About the Price of Gasoline” by Amorak Huey appeared in Okay Donkey.)

    I am aware that I should know this, but sometimes I just am not sure what the difference is between absurdist literature and postmodern literature. Some of my favorite writers fall into one, or the other, or both of these categories. And I don’t want to get started about what makes something post-postmodernism or post-irony.

    So, what is “Poetry Is Not About the Price of Gasoline” by Amorak Huey? I guess you could define it with one of the above terms, but that feels like a pointless academic exercise. What the piece reminded me of was how many people see poetry as a useless commodity, while gasoline, especially the price of gas, commands an important space in their daily lives. This juxtaposition is humorous, though it does leave a bitter aftertaste in the realization how poetry is vastly undervalued. Not a revolutionary observation, but it is presented well here, especially with this wonderfully encapsulating line:

    “Which is to say this poem is nine-tenths of the way to being yours, with the final tenth of the process being determined by the rest of the laws, the ones written—like poems—out of language and granted meaning by our need to have shared words for how we interact with each other.”

    And then those baboons somehow got on that flight to LA.