Monkey droppings - Two for a Chilly September Morn

The shelf monkey has been very, very lax on blog updates and reviews of late.

The monkey apologizes.

The monkey has good reasons, however; some selfish, some not.

The monkey will remain mum on that for the time being.

But in the meantime, the monkey throws you a couple of quickies, to mask his abject shame.

Bad monkey. BAD MONKEY! BAD MONKEY!

Seven Good Reasons Not to be Good
John Gould (2010)

What if Zane isn't actually good at all? What if he's just clever - clever enough to give his compulsion a purpose? You got a big ugly sweater from your mother-in-law for Christmas. It's yellow, the yellow of a smoker's fingers, and festooned with quasi-floral patters in lime green and salmon. It's stippled like a plucked chicken. You wear the hideous thing to your mother-in-law's once and then you donate it to the Sally Ann. Sure, it'll keep some poor soul warm on a winter's night, but that isn't going to get you into heaven, is it? You're just ditching the damn thing.

In 2003, John Gould published kilter: 55 fictions, a lovely collection of micro-stories that went on to become a surprise nominee for the Giller Prize. It was a sterling set of tales, and I'm not saying that because I was the only reviewer in mainstream media to review it, for the Winnipeg Free Press. I liked the spasm of attention I garnered for such a selfless act (got my heartily sideburned mug on the teevee and everything), but the stories certainly stand up to closer scrutiny.

Now, seven years later, Gould finally resurfaces with his debut novel Seven Good Reasons Not to be Good. Does it fulfill the promise of kilter? Well, that depends. Anyone searching for a direct repeat of his incisively concise narratives will be sorely disappointed. Anyone who enjoys a good story well-told will be well-satisfied.

Seven Good Reasons concerns Matt, a film critic (or "kritik" - "way cooler, way kooler than your average hack") on the horns of several dilemmas. His wife is cuckolding him with a female barista. His father (the Dadinator) is on his merry way to dementia, obsessed with crop circles and alien visitations. And his best friend Zane, the one constant he could always depend on, has decided to stop fighting and let his AIDs-related death overtake him. Matt has decided, now that he's newly-fired (no spoilers here, but the reasons are delicious), to visit Zane and stop him from embracing death. So he hops a flight to Toronto, starts up a hotel affair with a comely elevator companion, and decidedly does his best not to confront his problems.

There is a lot going on in Seven Good Reasons; novels about the travails of the mid-life crisis often do. There is an abundance of the hopeful fool in Matt, a man not nearly as smart as he thinks he is, and a character firmly in the mold of the mid-life heroes of Saul Bellow and Philip Roth. Such novels are about the search for self, and possibly of meaning in a meaningless world, and Gould manoeuvres the oft-traversed paths with wit and grace. The humour is at once broad yet subtle, combined with a gentle depth of character that recalls Miriam Toews at her best.

Seven Good Reasons Not to be Good is not a game-changer; there are no elaborate flourishes of poetic license, none of that standard 'CanLit that is good for you' falderal. Rather, it is an insightful and humourous examination of human foibles, placed within a plot that always entertains and oftentimes zigs where a zag was expected.

VERDICT: MONKEY LIKES

The World More Full of Weeping
Robert J. Wiersema (2009)

For breakfast on the morning of the day he disappeared, Brian Page ate most of two scrambled eggs, three pieces of bacon, and almost two slices of multigrain toast. After he was gone, his father, Jeff Page, kept remembering the remaining triangle of hardening bread on its plate on the kitchen counter, the outline of Brian's bite sharp, a bright curve against the right angle.

I am not previously acquainted with Robert Wiersema's novel Before I Wake, despite suffering many people's admonishment for this oversight. After reading his sterling novella The World More Full of Weeping, I plan to rectify this horrific mistake posthaste.

Weeping is a tiny, almost perfect pearl of a story - a story of family loss tinged with elements of magic realism Stephen King might have written in his prime.

Brian Page has gone missing. The locals are not concerned, not at first; boys do have a habit of disappearing, especially when there is an inviting forest just adjunct to the backyard. But his father Jeff is not so sure; there are hints that he once disappeared himself, memories that refuse to surface, something to do with the woods and its mysteries. And if Brian has fallen prey to the same lure, he may never return.

I don't want to give too much away; the story is short, precise, and nary a word wasted with an economy of prose that should be taught in schools (I should take the course, definitely, oh yes indeedy do). Wiersema crafts an evocative yarn of tragedy and magic, very similiar in tone to the recent Tim Lebbon piece The Thief of Broken Toys (also great, and also a ChiZine release, my new favourite publisher). Wiersema also proves himself an expert creator of place, erecting a whole town from very few pieces (the process chronicled in the companion piece Places & Names).

The World More Full of Weeping is a gem, a mood piece for a cold autumn's eve that will make you shiver even as you smile, and lament even as you wish it were true.

VERDICT: MONKEY LOVES

Monkey Droppings - two short (and sweet) tales of death

Today, the Monkey fights his innate timidity and delves into a duet of terrors both subtle and gross.

Mind you, these are rather offbeat terrors, so the worry of night screams is diminished somewhat.

These'll be quick reviews, but heartfelt.

One Bloody Thing After Another
by Joey Comeau (2010)

There's something a little spooky about the girls, but Charlie can't put his finger on it. Everything's spooky these days. A headless woman in the lobby, haunting them from beyond the grave. A creepy little girl isn't going to make much difference.

Scary stories are not for everyone, neither as a listener nor a teller. Some people don't know how to handle being scared. Some people don't know how to scare.

Joey Comeau does not know how to scare. The writer of the wonderful web comic A Softer World and the absurdist storytelling of Overqualified does not, in his 'horror' novel One Bloody Thing After Another, scare the reader. Unsettles, yes, but never scares.

This may sound like a negative, but it isn't meant as such, because Comeau - despite crafting a story filled with monsters, death, and one absolute corker of a scene involving kittens and a baby - isn't out to scare. What he is out to do isn't exactly clear, but as One Bloody Thing After Another has stayed with me for days, I'm going to call it a triumph, albeit a goofy and off-kilter one.

Throughout the pages of Comeau's short narrative, we are introduced to several characters. There's Charlie and his elderly dog Mitchie, both being haunted by a headless apparition - "The ghost takes a shaking step toward them. She's off balance, not that Charlie could blame her. Having your head cut off would certainly affect your equilibrium." There's Amy, troubled by an uncertain relationship with her friend Jackie, and nearly unhinged by having a zombie mother chained up in her bedroom. And there's Jackie, an unbalanced young woman who may be able to communicate with the dead, perhaps because of some prenatal disturbances; "You know how mothers play Mozart against their bellies during pregnancy? Jackie's mom went around swinging a tire iron, bashing headlights in the street all night, belly enormous. Who else could say their mother had been in a riot while pregnant?"

Like Andrew Kaufman's similar (in tone) All My Friends are Superheroes, Bloody is a sneaky beast, content to let the reader parse out the story from glimpses and hints. Comeau is not out to write a horror novel per se. He's far more interested in presenting little snippets of tales, letting his unique voice weave his fables together in a method designed to subtly dislodge the reader from the limitations of conventional storytelling and simply let Comeau's mix of sly humour and genuine unease co-mingle in the brain. Comeau's story is weird in the best definition of the word, melancholy, disturbing, and unexpectedly uplifting. I can't say that One Bloody Thing After Another is a perfect novel, but in its own gentle, meandering way, it is perfectly wonderful.

VERDICT: MONKEY ENJOYS TO THE DEPTHS OF HIS ODD LITTLE SOUL

The Thief of Broken Toys
by Tim Lebbon (2010)

Now, every day is the last day of the past.

First off, let me say that ChiZine may well be my new favourite genre publisher. For such a new company, there track record is already stellar, as Lavie Tidhar's and Nir Yaniv's The Tel Aviv Dossier is an expert piece of theological lovecraftian weirdness, and Douglas Smith's Chimerascope is an absolutely stunning short story collection of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror, one of the best I've ever read.

Tim Lebbon's The Thief of Broken Toys continues the streak. The English horror writer has penned a deeply affecting ode to loss and loneliness, wrapping it in a fantastical riddle that makes the heart ache.

Lebbon's novella sets itself in the scenic seaside town of Skentipple, where we find Ray, a man without a reason to live. His son Toby has died, his wife has left him, and Ray, like most grieving parents, spends most of his time alone and unwilling to grasp the enormity of what has happened. All he has are his memories, which suffuse his being to the point that Ray isn't much more than a walking tragedy.

Into this, Lebbon injects an element of magical realism in the form of a strange old man who takes an interest in Toby's old toys. I don't want to give too much away (the novella is not that long), so suffice to say, there is a price to be paid for everything, including finding a way out of grief.

I've never read any of Lebbon's other writings, but if Thief is any indication, he is a master at evoking mood and atmosphere. There is a rough-hewn yearning that permeates every sentence, a sense of foreboding that magnifies every action. Lebbon knows that grief both dulls and enhances every moment of life, but he's wise enough to keep his tale brief. Were this story to expand to the length of an average novel, the pain would be well-nigh excruciating.

The Thief of Broken Toys is far more of a mood piece than a horror story, and where there is horror, it is of the more cerebral variety. This is the horror of loss and memory, and the horror of recovery. As Lebbon's fable wends it's way to a close and the importance of grief is made apparent, it is clear that he's a writer of vast talents and sublime emotional wisdom.

VERDICT: MONKEY ADMIRES THE HELL OUT OF