Fellow readers and writers: I have decided to commit half of
this blog to voices other than my own (all right, all right, stop cheering). It will be my small effort to
shamelessly promote and support other writers. To that end I offer you a
monthly book review, which will be followed the week after by an interview with
the author.
September brings us South of Elfrida, by Holley Rubinsky.
South of Elfrida is Holley Rubinsky’s newest collection of short
stories, eighteen in all. They are distinct, but they also definitely belong
together, connecting sometimes through landscape, sometimes through voice or
the theme of loss.
I was lucky to hear Holley read
from her collection when she came through Penticton last spring. As both a
writer and a reader, I find it the ultimate treat to hear another writer read
her work out loud and talk about the process by which it was created. Many of
the stories in this collection are about characters who are on the road in Arizona
in RVs. Turns out Holley took a similar extended road trip and had several
adventures along the way, some of which worked their way into these stories.
And you can tell: they have that ring of authenticity to them.
One of the things I loved in
these stories was the way she makes use of animals to echo how people treat
each other (often as predator and prey). In the opening story, a man named
Leonard rescuing his niece from an abusive situation is set alongside the
rescue of turtle eggs: both are an attempt to keep the vulnerable safe from
predators.
The title story is about a group
of women birders headed by a rather severe expert known as the hawk man. The
narrator, a woman named Jean who is down on her luck, sees a similarity between
the hawk man and her military father. “She recognizes the intensity in him, the
coldness. She craves his focused energy; she wants in.” In her attempt to impress
the hawk man, she suddenly understands that she has been bagged, like one of his
birds.
Holley has a wonderful eye for
the telling detail. In “Among the Emus,” Crystal “…remembers going to her first
AA meeting, dirty bra strap showing.” In “The Compact,” a gem of a story, Sally
keeps the ashes from a secret abortion in a powder compact. She rebels against
her redneck husband by spitting in the meatloaf she makes him for dinner. In
“Coyote Moon,” a rooster is mauled by a bear; a husband suffers from
undiagnosed cancer. In the world’s strange arithmetic it is the rooster that
survives. In “At Close Range,” a
mother’s secret about her daughter’s paternity finds its way out in a small and
surprising way.
Holley tackles some challenging
points of view. “Borderline” is told by Paula, a woman with a borderline
personality disorder who craves attention but has trouble keeping herself under
control if she receives it. “He saw me; he talked to me,” she says near the
end, and then must “stand for five minutes until the excitement passes.” Many
of the narrators in these stories are lonely and looking for connection
wherever they can find it. The stories are rendered with gentleness, honesty and humour.
I will leave you with the final
paragraph of “Coyote Moon,” which to me summarizes what so many of these
stories are saying. Besides which, I think Holley has the enviable talent of
knowing how to end a story well:
“What is the wisdom in loss? What
is she supposed to learn? For now, she wants something chased down; she, too,
carries grudges. The stars rise like diamonds from behind the mountains into
the vivid sky, deep indigo and mauve. This is the first truly dark place Lee
has ever lived; nightly she experiences miracles.”
