Land Mammals and Sea Creatures by Jen Neale
CARLY ROSALIE VANDERGRIENDT
In Land Mammals and Sea Creatures, a finalist for the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize, twenty-something Vancouverite Julie Bird returns to her far-flung coastal hometown to follow up on messages from concerned townsfolk that her father, a Gulf War veteran, is struggling. Marty’s longstanding post-traumatic stress disorder—explored thoughtfully through the points of view of both father and daughter—is nothing new for Julie, whose mother died when she was six, leaving Marty’s care to her.
Upon Julie’s arrival, a blue whale beaches itself on the shore in an apparent reflection of Marty’s own desire to end his life. But the whale’s death isn’t a one-off. As its massive body is left to putrefy and then explode, casting a stench cloud over the town, the titular creatures of land and sea—bald eagles, ravens, salmon, raccoons, opossums,
caribou—start offing themselves en masse. It’s an original statement that feels relevant to our environmentally devastating present, while also suggesting that self-destruction isn’t as unnatural as we might think. As one character puts it: “Self-destruction can be a lot of things. Sad. Devastating. Quiet. Glorious. Sweet relief. Comfort.”
The present-day story spirals back to 1992 with the arrival of Jenny Lee Lewis, an offbeat Jerry Lee Lewis impersonator who also claims a connection to Marty’s past. Ostensibly, she’s there to help both Marty and his steadfast daughter face his impending death by suicide. While JLL’s piano performances—evoked in brilliant detail—take the sleepy town by storm, Julie is miffed by this purported stranger’s self-insertion into her father’s small life.
Neale, whose short fiction garnered her the prestigious Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers in 2012, among other accolades, is masterful in her descriptions. Among the most vividly drawn is the fictional town of Port Braid, along with its human, animal, and plant inhabitants. Cedar bark is like “string-cheese,” a raccoon’s ribs are “toothpick-thin.” Neale succeeds in avoiding cliché when describing Marty’s mental state: “. . . his brain felt like a loose stack of paper.”
A few characters—like Julie’s nagging roommate back in Vancouver, the cheery Alan Cheung, or the fish-proffering Fran Tucker—feel mildly superfluous to the story. At other times, characters’ motivations are unclear or implausible. In a flashback from Marty’s past, for instance, he meets a park ranger and her young daughter who, instead of returning to their own home after the workday, decide to camp next to him for the night, uninvited. But these are minor hiccups. The narrative moves at a fair enough clip, sweeping the reader up in Marty’s suffering and the difficulty of Julie’s position. As Marty’s bleak memories circle his role in a heartbreaking act of violence, it is a reminder that it’s not always possible to see through suffering.