Debut novel is worth savoring
Columbus resident Ruth Emmie Lang’s first novel, “Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance,” feels effortlessly imaginative and charming, as if derived more from magic than careful planning and grammar rules.
Of course, that is likely the result of Lang’s careful planning and hard work.
Her main character is Weylyn Grey, and the book jumps around to different points in his life. His mood, from birth, inspires intense changes in the weather, and he can understand animals and vice versa.
In the hands of a lesser writer, those ideas could come off as cheesy, but the novel’s structure — stories told about Weylyn from others’ points of view — helps make his abilities mysterious and wondrous, sometimes even eerie.
Instead of a book about a boy who grows into a man ■ with superpowers, Lang tells the story of Weylyn doing amazing things without understanding how or feeling in control. Imagine being a child who gets upset, which creates a blizzard that kills your parents, and the scars that that would leave.
This darker edge cuts through young Weylyn’s relentlessly positive attitude and each of the stories. For example, after his parents die, he lives with wolves. When a girl befriends him and runs away with Weylyn and the pack, they almost starve. (The girl and her father take turns telling this story.)
When a preacher’s family later adopts Weylyn, the image-obsessed mom resents having the strange kid in her house. (That story comes from Weylyn’s new sister and a teacher.)
Those telling his stories are also telling their own. They’re characters fully realized and flawed (or funny) in a way that feels true to life. Because they’re well-meaning, it is a pleasure to spend time in their heads, even as their stories take on that edge.
Each of the stories has a slow-to-boil tension, which, coupled with the timeline jumps, makes it tough to quickly discern what kind of book Lang has written. I remember noticing that I’d hit page 100 and I had no idea whether I was in for 246 more pages of short stories loosely connected to Weylyn. The book doesn’t have that “I-must-get-to-the-endasthread that often kicks off for readers in early chapters.
Lang risks losing some readers with her leisurely pace, but her lovely writing and details should keep most hooked.
“There was only one set of tracks that led from my cabin,” a new character thinks as one story starts. “I used to fantasize about a second set of tracks, a woman’s, ones she made walking to the yard to split logs or the coop to feed the chickens, two sizes smaller than mine with treads that left star-shaped impressions in the snow. But there was no woman.”
When some of the storytellers reappear, the plot starts to solidify.
Readers will be enchanted, as long as they’re up for a read meant to be savored, not rushed.