Editor's Note: An outstanding collection and an essential book for all serious readers of dark and fantastic fiction. Not to be missed under any circumstances!
Narrative and story can lead us to visions of that which is impossible — that which can drive us mad, or make us feel as if we already are mad. The horror story in particular offers the possibility of a temporary release from sanity and safety. The fifteen stories in 'Darkscapes' by Anne-Sylvie Salzman, translated from the French by William Charlton, offer a literary taste of madness, an intense inversion of reason that is powerful, sometimes unknowable, and almost always unforgettable. Salzman is the perfect 21st-century bride for Edgar Allen Poe.
The book is divided into four sections; "Lost Girls," "Crucifixions," "The Story of Margaret" and "Wildlife." The titles are pertinent, if sometimes a bit oblique. They suggest and enhance the stories within, but don't confine them. Once you dig into this collection it becomes clear that Anne-Sylvie Salzman is not a writer who can be confined.
The collection starts strong with "Child of Evil Stars," a story that involves two friends and the denizens of a traveling circus. Using these familiar ingredients, Salzman manages to serve up a superbly-drawn surprise. "Fox Into Lady" evades any expectations you might bring to such a title and offers a glimpse at Salzman's more hallucinatory style. "The Old Towpath" is a smart turn on what happens when you stray from the road, while "The Opening" takes readers on a beach journey that will be unfortunately difficult to dislodge from memory. The first section concludes with "Mennanaich," a tale about a father's obsession with his dead daughter that does not work out well.
Readers will immediately notice that Salzman brings a very different voice to these stories; it is a womanly voice, with a grown woman's concerns, not to be confused with a feminist voice. Salzman is not fighting for a cause, but offering readers a unique, generally terrorizing vision of the world around us, where men and women are equally powerless, while reality and nightmare are fighting for equality.
The second section of the book, "Crucifixions" begins with "Passing Forms," in which a man named Bale goes upon a vacation and encounters a most unfortunate form of roadkill. "Under the Lighthouse" takes us with great ease into the world of nightmare, while "Pan's Children" puts us in the mind of a nightmare. "Brunel's Invention" and "Shioge" work with powerful, hallucinatory prose to craft first-class horrors that are easily experienced as a reader by working at the edges of story and sanity. Salzman is adept at using narrative to explore mental instablity.
The third section, "The Story of Margaret" is sort of one long story split into two different perceptions. It involves artificial eyes, two women who are friends and so many layers of cross-talk and echo that it feels as if you're reading the book in a large, blood-splashed operating theatre. It is nothing short of astonishing and an utterly original work. You'll not read anything like it soon, and it conjures up imagery you won't forget.
The book finishes up with a section titled "Wildlife," and by the time you get there, you'll know that Salzman is ever-able to sidestep your expectations and deliver a searing series of sentences that will take you into a visionary world of borderline madness and gorgeous insanity. In "Hilda," the narrator acquires a pet selot (akin to panther) and finds herself infected by its vision. In "Lamont," a young man meets a girl he likes, but their relationship is rather more complex, original and unusual than anything you've ever read. The book concludes with "Feral," about a young girl who leaves civil society behind. Read it with care, as Salzman's prose might make you feel a sense of vertigo as you hover above those fleshy, clothed figures on the street around you. Salzman's sense of character captures the amoeba-like, squirming monsters that humans can so easily become; her plots take those sidewise steps into the unfamiliar that lead to painful tragedy.
As usual, Tartarus presents Salzman's work with class. William Charlton's translations are at least as amazing as the work presented, since they capture Salzman's oblique approaches with effortless ease. 'Darkscapes' is an important work, and owning one of these books is going to soon be very difficult. Salzman has a very unique and interesting voice. She speaks as a woman; her concerns and observations are those of a woman, not a girl. But she's on the bleeding, distressing edge of human madness. Salzman knows that we live in our heads, and she takes readers there to plant sentences and words that drag us to a place where pain and shame and terror and lust are indistinguishable. For those seeking a collection of stories that truly are tales of mystery and imagination, stories that are all too human, 'Darkscapes' offers a series of maps that will lead you to places from which your reading mind will find it difficult to return.
08-19-13:Ivy Pochoda Maps 'Visitation Street'
Pragmatic Magic
From the first sentence, Ivy Pochoda's 'Visitation Street' transports the reader to a whole world — Red Hook, New York, in the present day — crafted with gorgeously detailed language. For all the grit and intense realism that Pochoda puts into her novel, there's an otherworldly feeling at work as well. This is not simply the world as it is — this is the world as we feel it.
'Visitation Street' is a remarkable, intense and compelling story that unfurls with the lazy ease of a late summer afternoon. June and Val are fifteen; June plays more the adult, while Val is holding back, holding on to their shared past. On a lark, they decide to take a trip on a raft out into the bay. The changes that follow, the lives that are spun in Pochoda's luminous prose, will ripple through readers' minds long after the book is finished.
Red Hook, New York, as conjured by Pochoda, is a world unto itself, a pocket of decay and pride, of poverty and just-making-ends-meet. Pochoda's prose is pitch-perfect, detailed when it needs to be, gritty and poetic. But it's also immersive and readable. She tells her story from the perspectives of a variety of characters; shop-owners, street kids, a musician with talent but not the ability to use it wisely, and Val, a smart girl who is not so keen on growing up as fast as the circumstances would like her to. Pochoda carefully differentiates the prose for each character, but unites them in the character of Red Hook itself. It's a memorable and enjoyable performance, and a joy to read.
Red Hook is also a major character in the novel, indeed, arguably the main character. Pochoda's vision is the result of careful world building; her descriptions are sensual in that they address all the senses. Pochoda is careful to stay on the right side of immersive writing; she never overplays her hand.
The people we meet in Pochoda's novel are as achingly realistic as the place they live. Part of the power of this novel is figuring out just who will prove to be important in the scheme of the book; there's more than a little plotting by character revelation. But as we get to know these people, Pochoda displays a gift for telling us just the right details to craft a character who feels like a whole person. There are no heroes or villains here, and nobody you might not meet if you walked these streets. Indeed, you'll find some of the characters you want to like making decisions you cannot like — and those bad choices prove to be the very glue that makes them whole. Pochoda creates a cast of characters who are real and always a joy to be around.
The story in 'Visitation Street' is both intense and atmospheric. Pochoda infuses her prose with a certain undercurrent of urgency and intensity, even when she is describing circumstances that seem languid. The fallout from the raft trip affects the entire neighborhood, which itself is in flux with the anticipated arrival of the Queen Mary. Pochoda's reach is quite intense, with reverberations in this world and perhaps the next. But even when she is describing the ineffable, Pochoda's prose has a grip that anchors her story in the world she has so meticulously crafted.
Novels have the capability to come to life in our minds like no other experience; the best become analogous to dreams and memories. 'Visitation Street' crosses that border easily. Ivy Pochoda builds a world as eerie and spirit-haunted as the one each of us must wake up in. From the solace of sleep, we build our lives anew, we build our dreams anew, and breathe life into the fragile hopes of a coming day. We haunt ourselves so easily, and those ghosts we conjure are not afraid of the light. We are.
New to the Agony Column
09-18-15: Commentary : William T. Vollman Amidst 'The Dying Grass' : An Epic Exploration of Simultaneity
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with William T. Vollman : "...a lot of long words that in our language are sentences..."
09-05-15: Commentary : Susan Casey Listens to 'Voices in the Ocean' : Science, Empathy and Self
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Susan Casey : "...the reporting for this book was emotionally difficult at times..."
08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]
07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."
04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
