Bring on the Shorts! It may still be too chilly to wear shorts outside, but this week I’m sharing some great collections of short stories, in honor of springtime.
The short stories in Lanagan’s Black Juice have some of the best qualities of a fantasy short story—everything is contained within the few pages of the tale, which means that the author can’t waste time with explication. Though these stories are written for a young adult audience, there is plenty here to entertain adult readers. I found them on the whole to be very complex, with settings both fantastical and mundane, American and impossibly foreign. Each story is almost like a puzzle, with different pieces to work out in order to understand the whole.
It’s difficult to talk about what these stories are about, because it takes away something from the experience of reading them. As a reader, you might not figure out what each one is actually about until the ending. “Red Nose Day” is a great example of this; as the story opens, two young hit men are setting up their rifle on a rooftop. They have a hit list, but they’re targeting their enemies at random too; body count seems to be their goal. Interspersed with lighthearted comments about their assassinations, it seems almost as if they’re clowning around; but the killings are real and the assassins are deadly in their accuracy.
“The House of Many” is a coming-of-age story. Dot is a young boy raised in a religious community that relies on austerity and the musical revelation of The House of Three, which contains three aspects of the world: father, mother, and child. As he reaches puberty he travels to the city and is awestricken by The House of Many displayed in a shop window. What happens when he travels home after many years away will surprise you.
Other stories use point-of-view with great success. “Sweet Pippit” is told from the perspective of an elephant in an elephant-ride park. The elephants, with their long names, slow gait, and far-sighted worldview, are perfectly described in this story that moves forward slowly, with the pacing of an elephant’s walk.
“Earthly Uses” is one of the most creative stories I have ever read about a fantasy subject that has been written to death. The main character, a young boy who is never named, lives with his grandparents. His Nan is sick and his Gran-Pa sends him to the angels with an offering in the hopes that they will heal her. But these angels are unlike any I’ve ever heard about before. Their eyes are “red and rheumy as a drunk’s, brainy as a priest’s or showman’s.” You’ll have to read the story to find out the twist.
Lanagan is fiercely creative and writes with real authority about the worlds that she creates. Her laser-beam focus on the heart of the story makes each one shine like a gem.
It’s also worth mentioning that this collection is a Printz award honor book. The American Library Association gives the Michael L. Printz award every year for excellence in Young Adult Literature.
Check the WRL catalog for Black Juice.
liked the book but did not understand it until i found this website