Chance to change for those inbetweens
TRANSIT LOUNGE: STORIES
JCL Purchase
By JESSIE NEILSON
With rottenhearted cops, young fireraisers, ageing Elvis impersonators, and murderous bullying felines, the short stories of Transit Lounge flit between the past and present, New Zealand and overseas, leaving dishevelled trails in their wake.
Like the title suggests, many of the characters are stuck in hovering inbetweens. Some are being pushed by others, making the leap before they are glued forever in a rut; others are running for their lives, escaping abusive situations, where all that is left are ‘‘the leavings of a life’’. There are remakings and remouldings, sheddings and battlings, as each tries to interact with their world.
When JCL Purchase's debut collection opens, we are thrown right into theatrical scenes and the world of makebelieve. We find ourselves alongside Elmore the crossdresser at the Classic Supper Club. Well past his best, he is comfortable with mirrors and facades, dedicating his existence to his mother, now departed. Small details drive him on, such as the scent of her skin on her powder puff. Memories linger in an atmosphere of shabby baroque.
Most of the following stories, however, pull back off the stage, to life on a small scale. A performative aspect still guides many, whether it be simply in professional roles such as a teacher at a Far North school with distracted, hormoneraging adolescents, or a puffedup, brawny detective, whose domestic control has long since gone. We have various levels of concern or feeling for the characters, who range from downright dastardly, thoughtless cowards, to rough diamonds scrubbing up for a new direction in which to shine. New
Zealand is the setting for most but not all, villas and backyard sheds a familiar sight.
Purchase is Zambianborn, and while her home country does not feature, the sense of looking outwards, of adventuring, does. Some standout individuals include the man at Maungaturoto Car Wreckers in rural Northland, with his penchant for Johnnie Walker, Pavarotti, and a quiet life; and the industrious Jake, in his old age tending his flower garden. Some characters reappear in different stories and timeframes, as in Charlotte Grimshaw's short stories, as a successful linking device. These make the reader work hard to sift through narrative content and slot events and storylines together. This challenge is welcomed.
Purchase experiments with styles and perspective so that we might expect those that take flight from straightforward narration towards myth and magical realism. ‘‘Queen of the Night’’ is an unusual and slightly wicked piece starring a nocturnal, revengeful cat, stalking his terrain. She delves into local mythology too, rounding off the collection with the haunting ‘‘Under the Pohutukawa Tree’’.
This is a highly varied, thoroughly enjoyable collection which glides along the coastlines of our country, peering in at individuals and how they might be faring. As a mother longs to change her daughter's unhappy ending, so do they all have a chance at transformation.
Jessie Neilson is a University of Otago library assistant