Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link
Jul. 13th, 2016 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckro“You are probably wondering why I am living in my father’s garage. My father is probably wondering why I am living in his garage. It worries his neighbors.”
A collection of short stories that Jethrien got in a Humble Bundle years ago, and I discovered on my phone while bored and away from the rest of my book collection.
The worlds of these stories are…wrong. Off, somehow. Realistic and yet not. Narration tends to be a choppy, stream-of-consciousness affair that you have to read carefully (and between the lines) to actually get what’s going on. And even then, details are sparse. Sexuality features highly into these: She’s clearly fond of creepy, often disturbing sexuality that hits disturbing well before it gets anywhere near “sexy.”
She’s also fond of open, non-committal endings. I’m not sure how much I liked these stories, because while they’re all very interesting ideas and settings—often very disturbing ones—none of the stories really resolve. There’s rarely a climax, and never any sort of explanation/resolution. It's a bit frustrating, really, and makes me annoyed that there's no TVTropes WMG page for the stories, or some similar fan theories collection.
The stories are peppered with references—mostly literary, but some pop-culture. I’m certain I missed a bunch of them, but I caught a lot of references to gods and fairy tales.
The second part of “Shoe and Marriage,” as they discuss the beauty pageant contestants, is definitely my favorite part. It’s ridiculous and hilarious and really worked for me. One the other hand, I was clearly worn-out by Link’s style by the time I reached “The Girl Detective”, because two-thirds of the way through it I decided the narrator had to be Detective Chimp.
Overall: These stories are evocative, but deeply weird and often unsettling. (One Goodreads reviewer called it, “If David Lynch did urban fantasy,” which is apt.) I may eventually read Link’s other collection, but I’m going to give it a bit of a break first.
A collection of short stories that Jethrien got in a Humble Bundle years ago, and I discovered on my phone while bored and away from the rest of my book collection.
The worlds of these stories are…wrong. Off, somehow. Realistic and yet not. Narration tends to be a choppy, stream-of-consciousness affair that you have to read carefully (and between the lines) to actually get what’s going on. And even then, details are sparse. Sexuality features highly into these: She’s clearly fond of creepy, often disturbing sexuality that hits disturbing well before it gets anywhere near “sexy.”
She’s also fond of open, non-committal endings. I’m not sure how much I liked these stories, because while they’re all very interesting ideas and settings—often very disturbing ones—none of the stories really resolve. There’s rarely a climax, and never any sort of explanation/resolution. It's a bit frustrating, really, and makes me annoyed that there's no TVTropes WMG page for the stories, or some similar fan theories collection.
The stories are peppered with references—mostly literary, but some pop-culture. I’m certain I missed a bunch of them, but I caught a lot of references to gods and fairy tales.
The second part of “Shoe and Marriage,” as they discuss the beauty pageant contestants, is definitely my favorite part. It’s ridiculous and hilarious and really worked for me. One the other hand, I was clearly worn-out by Link’s style by the time I reached “The Girl Detective”, because two-thirds of the way through it I decided the narrator had to be Detective Chimp.
Overall: These stories are evocative, but deeply weird and often unsettling. (One Goodreads reviewer called it, “If David Lynch did urban fantasy,” which is apt.) I may eventually read Link’s other collection, but I’m going to give it a bit of a break first.
