Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link
01/09/2005 . Source: Shaun Green 
pub: Small Beer Press Creative Commons license free ebook download. 266 pages PDF ebook. Price: free. Download or buy from ISBN: 1931520003. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.smallbeerpress.com
Kelly Link's first collection of short fiction, 'Stranger Things Happen', mixes fairy tales, modern myth and a diverse selection of fantastic and SFnal themes, resulting in an entertaining, thought-provoking and always compellingly human set of stories. This is perhaps magic realism as it should be: sly, clever, referential, dream-like, empathic and never patronising.
The collection opens with 'Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose'. A story about a professor who appears to be dead and is stranded in an empty hotel by a beach. For the most part, the story takes the form of a series of letters written to a lover whose name the deceased cannot remember. As the story continues, we learn little more about the nature of the place, but much more about the dead man and his relationship with the partially-forgotten lover.
'Water Off A Black Dog's Back' deals with loss in a quite different manner. Saying too much would spoil the story, suffice to say that a young man's relationship with his enigmatic girl-friend becomes confused and hazardous with possible resolution coming in a quite unexpected manner. World Fantasy Award-Winner 'The Specialist's Hat' concerns two young twins, who live in an old and isolated house with a past both tragic and sinister. This ghost story is approached tangentially and works well, although I found the conclusion mildly frustrating.
In 'Flying Lessons', a borderline kleptomaniac hotel maid meets a young man with a most interesting lineage. The story is constructed of small passages, some of which help to fill in gaps in the primary narrative. This is inevitably a little jarring, but harms the tale little. 'Travels With The Snow Queen' is constructed more linearly, although the lateral approach to the fairy-tale narrative turns things on their head. This story is both funny and touching and was one of the more memorable stories in the collection, although I would not count it among the best.
A bizarre and somewhat tragic story titled 'Vanishing Act' follows, which toys with perception and, again, loss with only hints of the fantastic up until the conclusion, which offers a resolution with a possibility of happiness for some, at least. 'Survivor's Ball Or The Donner Party' might be an obvious story to those familiar with the relevant historical incident (I was not, leading to a little research after reading) but is nonetheless a haunting and hopeful story.
Themes of love and fetishism are examined in the first part of 'Shoe And Marriage' with a Prince desperately pursuing the girl who left behind her glass shoe, despite being happily married to another girl whom he loves. A sudden shift in part two sees a couple watching the Miss America Show on television with contestants being a mix of simple stereotypes, politically correct inclusions, fantastic figures and hellraisers. Part three I found the most powerful with an old women telling the story of her marriage to a dictator who massacred her family to gain her hand in marriage. She collected a shoe from every one of his victims. A comfortable and cosy and wise fourth part wraps up the story, as a fortune-teller scries the future of two newly-weds. Subtle links between the stories exist, as well as the unusual thematic subjects of shoes and marriage. This was one of the more powerful stories in the book as its strangeness gave it a power beyond its component parts.
'Most Of My Friends Are Two-Thirds Water' is a bizarre Dickian story about sexy blonde women with Barbie-doll crotches taking over the world. Under-achieving characters and a constant sense of doubt as to reality and sanity enhance the power of what would otherwise simply be a daft but amusing tale.
One of the collection's best stories follows in 'Louise's Ghost' about two friends named Louise. One of the collection's best stories follows in 'Louise's Ghost' about two friends named Louise. The supporting cast are the eight cellist lovers of one Louise, her daughter, and the ghost who likes Johnny Cash and haunts the second Louise's apartment. Friendship, love, sex, responsibility and betrayal are all important parts of this story, which utilises the fantastic to explore the relationship between the two Louises in a tremendously moving fashion.
The collection closes with 'The Girl Detective', a disjointed, weird story about the titular girl detective's adventures told from the perspective of the narrator who is her follower and sometimes lover. This is not quite Nancy Drew, as the girl detective journeys to the underworld to find her mother. The story itself characterises much of what is great about Kelly Link's fiction: the unsettling narratives, the unreliable nature of the narrator, the deep and sympathetic characters, the playfulness, the freedom of interpretation and the ambiguity of understanding.
'Stranger Things Happen' is perhaps the most personally important book that I have read in some time and its stories are so well-written and such a delight to read that I cannot recommend it enough.
Shaun Green |
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