Source of book: Audiobook from the library
Let me say at the outset that this collection of 11 short stories is both excellently written and also a bit rough in the subject matter of a few of the stories.
So, if you have issues with certain themes, you might either want to skip a story, or at least be forewarned.
I also am going to, as I often do with short story collections, go through each in order. Thus, there will be spoilers. If you want to read the stories first, stop after the next few paragraphs and come back later.
The book is about relationships - family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances. It is also about traumatic incidents and how they unite or divide. It is about the less comfortable truths about interracial encounters, whether marriage and parenthood, or in less intimate settings. It is about the vulnerability humans have at transitional times: puberty, pregnancy, illness, marriage, death of a parent, abandonment.
As I mentioned, the book is really well written, and emotionally compelling. The fact that I wanted to yell at various characters is an indication of how real they felt. So if you like good writing, good characters, and believable scenarios, you might like this book.
But be warned that some terrible things happen in this book too.
Okay, if you don’t want spoilers, here is where you stop.
***
“Milk Blood Heat”
The author starts right in with what I found to be the most traumatic story. Ava is a middle-class black girl, who is best friends with Kiera, a white girl. They go so far as to make a blood pact - cut their palms, let the blood make milk pink, then drink it.
The two of them are a bit of trouble together, although probably not more than the average middle schooler dealing with puberty and all the really big feelings of the age.
So much about this story is beautiful. But from the beginning there is the ominous fact that the two of them talk a lot about death and what it would feel like to die in various gruesome ways.
It all goes to hell at a fancy birthday party for a mutual acquaintance, when the girls sneak off to the hotel roof to talk, and Kiera, on a whim, throws herself off it to her death.
Yeah, that’s a rough story to start with.
The thing is, I kind of understand Kiera all too much. To be clear, I am not suicidal, and I don’t tend that direction. (I used to joke as a kid that I was more homicidal than suicidal, but really I’m not violent by nature.)
That said, there is a weird human psychological phenomenon where some of us feel a weird urge to jump from heights. It affects about one-third of people, most of which do not have suicidal ideations or other risk factors for suicide. Christopher Walken actually talked about his experience in one of his films where he felt this.
More recently, and more seriously, a 14 year old boy walked off a cliff hiking down from Mt. Whitney last year. Fortunately, he appears to have recovered well, but scary as hell. (Lack of sleep may have been a factor, but probably also “the call of the void.”)
I love to walk up mountains and love views, although cliffs are not really my vibe. In the course of my many hikes to tall places, like Half Dome, I have experienced this, and it is not fun. I don’t think I am a risk to do anything rash, but the fact that my psyche does this is one reason why I tend to stay well back from the edge.
Anyway, I should mention that the ending of this story is pretty incredible. If you can handle the trauma, it is worth it.
“Feast”
This is the one where I really wanted to yell at the protagonist. Rayna is a black woman married to a white man, Heath. He has a six-year-old daughter from a prior. Rayna has just had a miscarriage, and is experiencing psychotic issues afterward. Thinks like seeing body parts from her lost baby everywhere.
She needs help, but is masking her symptoms from her husband. Until her stepdaughter, trying to make her feel better, triggers something.
Fortunately, in this story, only the pregnancy is lost. Nobody dies. But damn, poor kid is going to have some trauma. And the ending on this one is frustrating. One worries that later, Rayna is going to harm herself or someone else. I want to shake her and get her some therapy and medication.
And really, if you are experiencing post-partum or post-miscarriage depression, please get help.
“Tongues”
This one has some trigger for sexual assault, although it is a lot less traumatic than the first two stories.
Zey is a 17 year old girl who is losing her faith. Largely because her pastor (who is creep-ass too) insists on the subordination of women.
After her younger brother Duck gets bullied due to the rumor that she is “possessed,” she takes matters into her own hands, literally, in a seriously crazy incident that leaves the bully pretty shaken. And he deserves it.
I certainly get the deconstruction stuff, and I have dealt with my own creep-ass pastors over the years. I have also seen how bullies operate. So I was mostly with Zey in this story.
“The Loss of Heaven”
All of the stories are from the point of view of women other than this one and a really short one that has more of a group narrator.
Fred is in his 50s and is facing the loss of his beloved wife Gloria, who has chosen not to undergo a second round of radiation and chemo after her cancer returns.
This story is really perceptive, about the ways that many men struggle to process or discuss their feelings. The stoicism, the isolation, the projection of fear and grief onto more “manly” emotions like anger and arrogance.
This is all complicated by Fred’s belief in traditional gender roles. He loses control and cannot deal with that loss well.
Fred is a sympathetic if frustrating protagonist. I can see in him so many from my grandparents’ generation, my parents’ generation, and even my own.
He is unable to truly feel the legitimate grief and his impending loss, and this means he cannot really share with his wife, or anyone else.
The story is also about the loss that comes from putting freedom and wealth over relationships. In the end, those things are mostly meaningless when you lose the one you share your life with.
“The Hearts of Our Enemies”
I think this one may be my favorite of the collection. The central relationship is between the mother, Frankie, and her teen daughter, Margot.
Frankie has come close to having an affair with her daughter’s teacher, Mr. Klein. When she breaks it off and confesses, her husband leaves for a while. Her daughter pretty much disowns her, but, as we find out, not because of the affair per se. Rather, it is because her mother lacked the courage to actually have the affair. The sort of yes, sort of no, strikes her as cowardly.
To make things crazier, Mr. Klein starts pursuing Margot - and Frankie finds the love note.
Here too, there is a creative and interesting revenge scene. But it is the psychology of both Margot and Frankie that is the best part of the story.
“Outside the Raft”
This is another story about failure to connect, failure to be honest with one’s self. In this one, young Shayla is close to her cousin, Tweet, who has a reputation as a troubled child, probably because her parents are in prison.
Shayla overhears her mother saying that Tweet has “darkness” in her that she hopes doesn’t rub off on Shayla. Since Shayla knows that she has her own dark impulses, she fears that she will not be loved if she is herself.
A near drowning at the beach where Shayla panics and nearly kills Tweet in her attempt to get back to a raft confirms to Shayla that she is unworthy of love. There are a lot of “what if?”s in this one.
“Snow”
Another interracial marriage story. Trinity is newly married to her husband Derrick. They are going through a rough patch, though, where the sexual connection is struggling and both are feeling that the problem is their fault.
Most of the story takes place at the restaurant where Trinity is a waitress. She flirts with a co-worker, who clearly has a thing for her.
Then she meets Snow, a Vietnamese-American woman, who is stunning and confident, and also a bit daft. They bond over the course of the evening, in part over how their darker bodies are fetishized by men, and which ends up involving both holy water and cocaine - it’s a weird story.
In any event, Trinity has to decide whether to put in the work with her husband, or chase a new experience.
“Necessary Bodies”
Hey, so many stories about women with ambivalence! Billie has found herself pregnant. Her partner is supportive, and she is on the fence as to whether to keep the pregnancy or terminate.
In part, this is driven by her narcissistic mother, who is turning 50. She wants an elaborate party. She wants a grandchild. She wants to be the center of attention at all times.
So Billie assumes that she herself will be an unfit mother. There is also the question of the effects a child will have on her life. Is she willing to put in the time to parent?
Her younger sister Violet, who has that naivety and wisdom of the young, suggests Billie pretend that she wants the baby, and see how she feels.
While the story isn’t entirely clear about what her decision is, Billie does come to understand her feelings a lot better.
And Violet is completely correct: none of us are prepared for parenthood. Nobody ever has been. You figure it out as you go, more or less, sort of, and not all the way. Welcome to being human.
“Thicker Than Water”
Another one with sexual assault warnings.
Cecelia’s father has died, and his ashes need to be scattered across the country. She travels with her brother, Lucas, from whom he has been estranged since her father’s death, and Lucas’ white girlfriend, Shelby.
As it becomes clear, there is a lot of backstory to this situation, none of which Shelby knows or understands. This is no shade on Shelby, who is actually a great character. She has the usual white girl blind spots at times, but she is good-hearted, and wins Cecelia over pretty well.
But what do you do with a situation like this? Cecelia was sexually abused by her father, and Lucas never forgave him for it. Cecelia seems to have repressed most of the memories, but they come back. Shelby can’t know this, though, so I feel bad for her having to be in the middle of an emotional vomit.
This story too has an ambiguous ending. Will Lucas and Cecelia reconcile? Will Cecelia retreat again into denial, or use her father’s death as a reason to process her own damage?
One hopes so, because both siblings are decent people in a bad situation. And Cecelia and Shelby really should be friends.
“Exotics”
This one is a very short vignette, a riff on the Explorers Club, a club that used to eat exotic - even endangered - animals. Neil Gaiman did his own version of this idea, with a very different direction.
This version is from the collective point of view of the staff. And in this one, it is strongly implied that in the final dinner, the club members eat a human infant.
So, trigger warning. It’s also really short.
“An Almanac of Bones”
The final story is about a pre-teen girl, Sylvie, who likes to collect animal skulls and other bones. She lives with her grandmother, because her mother is a world traveler who can’t handle parenthood.
Her grandmother is a real hippie sort, with “moon festivals” that often involve nudity and other more adult pursuits.
When her mother shows up for one of these, Sylvie ends up discussing the issue of motherhood with her mother. It is an interesting and somewhat ambiguous conversation. Nothing is resolved, shall we say, but I think mother and daughter understand each other at least a little.
I have a hard time identifying with the mother, because I have always been an involved parent, and can’t imagine just leaving a kid. But that is me, I guess - plenty of others do otherwise.
Those are the stories. As I said, it’s a good book, well worth reading, but it does have some rough stuff in it, so be warned.
The audiobook was narrated by Machelle Williams, who does a good job. No complaints.
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