I was immediately seduced by Heather Birrell’s first collection of short stories. It’s true that the pleasurable texture of the definitive Coach House laid-finished paper made me purr, and the quirky collaged sourpuss girl on the cover stood out while the book taunted me with it’s bratty title. But the stories themselves could have been scrawled on loose-leaf paper and they’d still hold their own.
Birrell’s characters don’t attempt to explain how and/or why they’ve become so transitory and malleable; readers are simply dropped in on a few moments or months of their lives, and sometimes aren’t given much in the way of resolution. While some readers may find this frustrating, I found it innovative and purposeful. The characters don’t follow coming-of-age trajectories, and as such, there’s no reader handholding, and no neatly unfolding tedious revelations. While the back of the book mentions “kleptomaniacs, convicts, roof walkers and homicidal hippies,” the stories in it don’t just present you with bizarre personalities for the sake of. The characters in I know you are but what am I? are multifaceted and unpredictable.
The book opens with The Golden Hour, where Marion, an alternative school teacher from Toronto, rides a greyhound bus away from a weekend with her married lover. Along the way she meets a convict and they exchange questionable truths as she reflects on forgiveness. Her sentences scintillate: “There is something about the last leg of a journey home that brings to mind the golden hour: anticipation and absolution. The mood on the bus, once raucous with engine noise, impatience, has settled into something almost sweet, more refined than regret.” Marion is a warm character who invites you to keep reading.
In Not Quite Casablanca, Carla, a woman secretly dying of cancer, takes her teenaged niece on a six-week trip to Europe. The two awkwardly circle one another, negotiating generational chasms, while Lisa suspects, but doesn’t know – or want to know – of her aunt’s diagnosis. Closing with a symbolic retextualization of 9/11, the story leaves readers feeling that the tale has only just begun.
The only story lacking in punch and promise is the second to last offering, entitled The Present Perfect. I found this ironic, since it was this piece that was nominated for last year’s Journey Prize. It’s a run of the mill heterosexual break-up story where a bland and lonely girl moves to Montreal, finds refuge in its unique Mile End district (which she compares to Narnia), and has an affair with her ESL student. The lack of real resolution in this story left me asking, “So what?” He doesn’t come back, and I’m not sure I’d really care if he did.
The last story is really the gem in this collection. Trouble at Pow Crash Creek brings us into the world of a young home-schooled boy named Rational, who is unaware of just how out of control his family is. His father is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and paranoia after the Gulf War, and his mother is compliant and abused. Enter a young university student to tutor him in Math, and Rational slowly glimpses the outside world. Birrell delivers this young narrator’s voice in an unrelenting manic rhythm that makes your head spin.
If you normally shy away from short stories because you fear they don’t offer the weight or journey of a solid novel, make this your exception. Birrell is a bright new talent to watch out for, and a pleasure to discover – hers is a read that incites breathless absorption within the quirks of her offbeat narratives.
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Zoe Whittall is the editor of Geeks, Misfits and Outlaws and author of The Best 10 Minutes of Your Life.
