The clueless man group
When people consider the Canadian short story, the name that pops instantly to mind is Alice Munro, probably followed by Mavis Gallant and Alastair MacLeod. Only infrequently do people seem to mention Bill Gaston, and this is a shame because Gaston’s short fiction could fit comfortably on the shelf with those other, more lauded writers.
Though he has written a number of strong novels, along with work in genres from drama to non-fiction, the short story is Gaston’s true métier. Collections such as Sex Is Red, Mount Appetite and Gargoyles showcase an author who has found a comfortable middle ground between style and storytelling: Gaston is well aware of literary history, and uses it to good effect in his own writing, but he never lets his technique overshadow the emotional impact of the tales he tells.
His latest collection, Juliet Was a Surprise (Hamish Hamilton Canada, 201 pp; $22), contains a number of stories that easily rank among the author’s best. “To Mexico” focuses on a romantic relationship that unravels while the couple is on vacation in the titular country (a place they’d ended up largely because it felt preordained before their inevitable breakup: “At some point she’d said, ‘Let’s at least get to Mexico.’ ”). The story is elliptical and suggestive, though the relationship was probably doomed from well before the realization that the woman’s favourite novel is Under the Volcano, while the man gravitates toward the books of Carlos Castaneda.
“Black Roses Bloom,” another standout, is something of an outlier, being told from the perspective of its female protagonist. Katherine has embarked on an affair with her co-worker, and the great sex they have (including the 45-yearold woman’s first orgasms) is marred only by the strange dreams that befall her in the afterglow. This brief, open-ended story effortlessly negotiates the ironic distance between the midlife discovery of real sexual bliss and the intimations of mortality that accompany it.
Sex is a pervasive subject in the book (see also “Any Forest Seen from Orbit,” the source of the collection’s nicely oblique title), as is male paranoia, especially in the opener, “House Clowns,” about a man who rents a cabin for a holiday only to find it has apparently been double-booked by a suspicious, hippie-like young couple.
The odd misfires don’t detract from the general effect of this collection, which is versatile and highly entertaining. Be warned: There is one unforgivable spoiler in the flap copy. So do yourself a favour — avoid the marketing bumf and just read the stories. You won’t be disappointed.
In addition to being a stellar writer, Gaston is a teacher at the University of Victoria, one of the schools attended by first-time author D.D. Miller, whose debut collection, David Foster Wallace Ruined My Suicide (Buckrider Books, 250 pp; $20), appears with a blurb from Gaston. It isn’t difficult to see what attracts the older writer to Miller’s stories: Like Gaston, Miller focuses on the lives of men who are largely clueless when it comes to navigating relationships, be they romantic, familial or otherwise. There is also something slightly off-centre about Miller’s work: One of the best stories in the collection, “Son of Son of Flying Pig,” takes place during the 2009 Toronto garbage strike, and features a marauding parade float that has cut loose of its moorings and flies through the skies above the malignant city, eventually ending its errant trajectory in a ball of flames.
This story attests to Miller’s sensibility, which is a bit odd and somewhat over-the-top: You don’t choose a title like David Foster Wallace Ruined My Suicide unless you’re unafraid to push some buttons. Unfortunately, the title story also exemplifies themes that become repetitious over the course of the book. Miller’s male protagonists are awkward and careless, and always their own worst enemies, but too many seem like undifferentiated variations on a theme, particularly when it comes to their relationships with women.
Many of Miller’s men are aficionados of Internet pornography (most obviously the lead character in “DinosaurPorn.com”), but the majority of them also make assessments of the women in their real lives primarily on the basis of their relative “hotness.” “My wife is beautiful,” says the narrator of “Seeing Your Own,” going on to describe her as “thin in a muscular, run-five-K-a-day kind of way” and to position her in terms of a clichéd fantasy of the sexy librarian. Angela in “The Wrong Numbers” is “attractive in an undergrad kind of way.” Brie, the roller-derby player in the title story, is “exceptionally pretty” with “a thrilling body from a lifetime of sports.”
A pair of stories — “Fool’s Paradise” and “The Tutor” — feature men whose proximity to women they find sexually attractive leads them to spectacularly inappropriate actions. Positioned in the middle of the collection, these two stories serve as the apotheosis of the failed relationships and bad decisions that surround them. In both cases, the reader is a helpless witness to the self-immolation of these hapless males. There is nothing wrong with this, and many readers will certainly feel uneasy recognition in many of the situations Miller offers. After a while, however, the parade of clueless, bumbling bros does begin to feel a bit too familiar for its own good.