Charlotte Grimshaw reviews a new collection of stories by a master of the form
'Coming Home in the Dark', the first story in Owen Marshall’s new collection, begins with a car journey. Riding along was your conscientious reviewer and, it has to be said, the trip did not get off to a smooth start.
To set the scene: I like to think I keep up with things, but I was completely unaware of this story. I didn’t know it had been made into a feature-length film. I had no warning of any plot detail apart from hearing a glowing radio review, in which it was described as brilliantly creepy and atmospheric.
So I settled in, the ideal reader, open, unknowing, optimistic. There we were, in a nice family Volvo, motoring towards Mt Cook and the beautiful Hooker Valley. As expected, there was a dark turn (here come the creepy atmospherics) and then there was a twist so unanticipated, so shocking and violent and disgusting, that I dropped the book. My immediate reaction was fury which, once it had receded, seemed interesting, worth recording perhaps.
I thought of another example of reader anger (please bear with the digression.) I once disagreed with my mother and sister about a John Banville novel. Its opening pages contain a reference to Nazis torturing a woman who’s in labour. It’s relevant, not gratuitous, but it’s really shocking, and my mother and sister both threw down the book and refused to go on. Their reaction was along the lines of, "No. That’s it. Too much."
I disagreed and finished the book, only because it was already so brilliant. It went on being brilliant, one of the most controlled, stylish and riveting novels I’d read. The rule should be, I thought: If you’re going to subject me to this, if you’re going to get away with this, you’d better be very, very good.
My mother and sister and I are mothers. For that reason, we all hated the Banville detail, and for that reason I hated the shock Marshall subjects us to. So, does he get away with it by being very, very good?
To my mind, getting away with it would have required a different villain. Mandrake, the story’s principal evil-doer, is a wordy guy. Aggrieved, grand, a brooding philosopher-killer, he comes out with things like this: "The big fucking mistake, Hoaggie, is to imagine that evil and beauty are antithetical. Don’t you think? That’s where people go wrong despite one experience after another. There’s no natural affinity, but no mutual exclusion either."
And this, to one of his hostages, "You never asked me to any dinner party, old son, yet here I am with my hand warmed by your wife’s thighs and my heart by this philosophic discussion. Boredom and truth, they’re the two things that have done for me."
Towards the end of the story I felt like one of its victims. Imprisoned in the back of Owen Marshall’s Volvo, tormented by the musings of Mandrake the windy psychopath (every time he opened his mouth I wanted to kill him myself) yearning for flashing lights and sirens, for the arrival of the literary police. But the road was empty, and I was alone.
Yet (as Mandrake would say) I can’t recall such a strong reaction to a piece of fiction. Marshall can really deliver a punch. For many readers, and for those who’ve admired 'Coming Home in the Dark' and made a successful movie out of it, that’s a powerful recommendation in itself.
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There are 20 stories, chosen by Marshall from his 13 previous works, and the most striking feature of the collection is its extraordinary range of tone. The explosive opener is followed by benign character studies, warm and often comic depictions of ordinary people and their complex relationships. 'Living as a Moon' tells the wry story of a celebrity impersonator. "Mr Van Gogh" is a poignant portrayal of a man who’s unable to fit in, and who is ultimately crushed by misfortune and vulnerability. There are charming, humane studies of friendship, 'The Master of Big Jingles', and close relationships, 'Iris', 'Freezing', and 'Cabernet Sauvignon with My Brother'.
The most appealing of these is 'Minding Lear', in which a university student signs up to spend some days minding an old man. It’s a story of mishaps and elderly accidents (lots of shits and falls and blundering) and it never flags. It manages to sustain interest despite very little happening, to be quietly funny and touching, especially in its depiction of the student as he struggles to deal with the bewildered old guy.
There’s a distinct tone change with 'Watch of Gryphons', a longer and more complex story set in Perugia. A visitor from New Zealand, lonely and unhappy in his work, tries to unravel the mysterious back story of his opaque Italian neighbours. Here there’s such a pervasive sense of melancholy, of domestic, bureaucratic and local bleakness, that it induces a slight reader rebellion. It’s an outsider’s view, flavoured by alienation. There are layers of sadness and disillusionment. Such lengths to extract dreariness from an Italian city.
'The Divided World' seems almost unreadable, so much so that it’s hard to choose an illustrative extract. It’s not a story but a chant or spiel or incantation that goes on like this for five unrelenting pages: "The world is divided between those who make a profession of software and prosper, and those who say they recall garlands, mole-catchers and stone walls. The world is divided between silver spoons and macrocarpa childhoods; between the appalling, and the appalled; between consenting adults; between the devil and the deep big C; between honest toiling forwards and flashy temperamental backs…"
Perhaps the best response to "the world is divided" is, "Indeed, and life is short."
'The Fat Boy' is beautifully written and atmospheric even as it veers from implausible to almost surreal. A fat boy appears about town, seems to be watching folks, is disliked, and begins to be blamed for everything that’s going wrong. He’s the scapegoat, but it’s not clear if he’s real or a figment. It’s a story about prejudice and the distortion of truth, about community violence, rendered in rather broad, not to say fat brushstrokes.
Two stories, 'Mumsie and Zip' and 'The Rule of Jenny Pen' are notable for their violence, and it’s interesting to compare them to 'Coming Home in the Dark'. 'Mumsie and Zip' is subtle, deft and intensely harsh. The atmosphere of threat is only suggested at first; it creeps into the story like a gas, and when it finally explodes there’s still a firm sense of narrative control. The claustrophobic awfulness is as much about what Zip doesn’t say. He’s not wordy; he’s terrifying.
In 'The Rule of Jenny Pen', an old man creeps around a rest home at night, menacing and bullying his fellow inmates. The character of the evil Crealy is so compellingly portrayed and his reign of terror so appalling, there’s a kind of happy relief in the denouement.
From human kindness to powerful nastiness, from beauty to dreariness, there’s a whole lot packed into this collection. 'Coming Home in the Dark' is a lively and rich read. Don’t fly into a rage and drop the book, don’t storm away from the Volvo. Keep reading.
The Author’s Cut by Owen Marshall (Penguin Random House, $36) is a number one best-seller, and available in bookstores nationwide.
