short stories
I recently stumbled across this sci fi/folklore collection from the turn of the Twenty-first century. Jamaican born Nalo Hopkinson has lived in Guyana and Trinidad and resides in Canada. Of this book she says, “And always, whatever burden their skins bear, once they remove them-once they get under their own skins-they can fly. It seems an apt metaphor to use for these stories collectively” and although I was slow to appreciate it, this truly is the heart of this assemblage. These short stories are set in modern times, often featuring Jamaican or Trinidadian expats in Canada. That the tales that unfold are from a vivid and free-ranging imagination is in itself great fun! Some stories are terrific, some interesting, some just weird and most are outside any box I’m used to. Some are harmless yet thought provoking: “Whose Upward Flight I Love” appears to be a two page allegory for a modern relationship where one member yearns to escape, not unlike trees taking flight to flee the winter and migrate like birds. Others are strange or nasty enough that in their rawness and sometimes freakishness, I wouldn’t want to read them while eating my morning oatmeal but if you love Caribbean fiction, they are definitely worth your time! I especially like those narratives that utilize an easy patois.
To clarify Ms. Hopkinson’s quote, some offerings are anecdotes of individuals who shed the familiar, finally standing up for themselves, and learn to face down their own needs and desires. By getting under their own skins, they come to understand their own worth. “Tan Tan and Dry Bone” seems to be a fairly orthodox jumbie story, mixing with a tale of self acceptance and redemption. Everyone knows when you pick up Dry Bone you pick up trouble and it takes Master Johncrow the buzzard, and his sensitive sense of smell, to set Tan Tan on her path to self forgiveness. In another jumbie story, “Greedy Choke Puppy” Ms. Hopkinson maintains an island location but twists to a new point of view. The soucouyant/vampire legend is re-told by an elder, who failed in her teaching role and must now suffer the result. This is not your typical jumbie story of a demon laying its skin aside to fly the night as a ball of fire. “The Glass Bottle Trick” is a duppy story, plucked from long ago and shifted to the modern Caribbean, where bottles hung in a guava tree trap the duppies of the dead. This misogynistic, racially biased horror story makes milder use of island speech patterns than others but all three of these island based stories are intriguing.
Another out of time tale is “Riding the Red”, a re-telling of Red Riding Hood viewed from the grandmother’s perspective where she could look into the wolf’s eye and challenge the wolf’s sexual power. It is a cyclical tale of sexual awakening when girls match the wolf in boys with feminine hunger and wise grandmothers are overruled by practical mothers. The wheel spins again and again on the age old tale with a twist. As the circumstances circle around to each generation this is beautifully ethereal in the prose.
In many of these stories I found myself inside the heads of people I feel I may have unknowingly encountered. “Snake” is a story where we are tied to the inner workings of a child molester and serial killer as his urge to take another life again rises, but he is thwarted by a small magical army of senior denizens of a local park.
Shifting to Canada, ‘Precious’ tells of a woman overcoming a curse presented as a gift for an act of kindness, while her blatantly cursed sister succumbs and ‘And the Lillies-Them a-Blow’ tells a lightly mystic tale of how a woman makes a life change. It’s beautiful in its simplicity and pays respect to elders and the artwork of Africa. A favorite is “Slow Cold Chick”, a story of elementals where Blaise learns to respect and harness her own inner fires. She is helped speak her desires by a couple whose domains are earth and growing things as she harnesses a fantastic creature born of her rage. This is a caustic example of urban fantasy. I loved it.
Included in this collection is a non-traditional Ananci story set in modern and mundane times: “Something to Hitch Meat To” has a pornographic bent to it. So does “Ganger”: science fiction of the future where a woman must rekindle normal communication with her lover by relinquishing sexually enhancing technology. This one is kind of wild! Also in a futuristic vein is “A Habit of Waste” where people can buy new bodies. A granddaughter of Trinidadian ex-pats, tired of her large hipped, dark skinned self saves up and buys a white, slim, always-on-a-diet, almost boyish body: something her family must adjust to. It takes a kind older gentleman from the island, armed with a sling shot to teach her appreciation of old ways and outlooks and self acceptance. This was a beautiful story respecting elders and I especially liked the brief scene where she sees another woman not only wearing but reveling in her previous body.
All of these stories take unexpected turns and I expect they will be completely satisfying if the reader appreciates folklore, science fiction, urban fantasy or stories with a Caribbean aspect to them. (“The Money Tree” incorporates pirate treasure and a mermaid-like Jamaican river goddess and ends in a Canadian YMCA. “The Fisherman” is a fairly straight forward coming out memoir.) The language flows smoothly, the viewpoints often present as odd and unusual and I am pleased with them all.
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Gotta love Nalo and her stories.
Reviewed in Germany on July 8, 2019
