Elegies for Uncanny Girls
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The ordinary and the extraordinary merge in the strange and complex lives of young women in this “frequently luminous” debut short story collection (Kirkus Reviews).
Unsettling and perceptive, this debut story collection challenges our notion of American girlhood in all its delusions, conflicting messages, and treacherous terrain. Alternately wide-eyed, wise, and mysterious, the girls at the center of these stories leave their realities behind for curious new places where the barrier between real and unreal begins to blur. Still others hover over their Midwestern homes in interior worlds of their own creation.
The stories in Elegies for Uncanny Girls take place at a boundary where both the girls’ bodies and their narratives belong either to themselves or to the cultures that surround them. A young woman whose body continually shrinks and expands moves to Los Angeles to make a movie about tragic merpeople; bewildered and seeking guidance, a new mom strikes up a conversation with a woman with detachable hands; and spurred on by a new ally who might just be a figment of her imagination, a girl decides she can choose her own friends.
“Brisk, satisfying, and fiercely observant.” —Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The 10 resonant tales in Colville's debut depict the inner lives of mothers, daughters, sisters, brothers, and the occasional best friend. The opener, "Other Mothers," tells the story of a newly minted Ph.D.'s desperate worry for her infant, with knowing wit and exceptional figurative language. In "Center," an aspiring poet/scholar visits her brother, a struggling artist now supported by his wife, and Colville's crisp, revealing dialogue delves into the adoration and resentment of siblinghood. Sibling strife also informs the shorter "Costume" and "Dora," and the longer "Winona," in which the titular teenager comes of age surrounded by her overly enamored younger brother, her unintentionally caustic mother, and Norm, her symbolically named father, who objectifies his wife and daughter while depending on their domestic labor. A few stories feature fantastical elements Jill in "Jill, or the Big Little Lady," for instance, fluctuates from Barbie-sized to giantess but these daring inventions don't always pay off. The endings, likewise, range from the transcendent benediction of the wistful quasi-romance "When Maggie Thinks of Matt" to the inelegant moral of "Audra," a playground drama about friendship and class. Still, the book as a whole is brisk, satisfying, and fiercely observant.