In these sticky, sweaty, extraordinarily queer tales, Laura Chow Reeve writes in regards to the individuals, histories, traumas, locations, and concepts that may hang-out a life. Some characters are haunted by uncommon, unplaceable reminiscences, some by the deaths of family members, and others by their very own obsessions. In a single story a girl turns right into a lizard; in one other, a woman learns from her popo the way to pickle reminiscences. Ghosts—although not standard ones—are all over the place. So are transformations. Reeve’s characters are continuously shapeshifting. They hear and see issues different individuals can’t; they transfer by the liminal areas; they’re comfy (and uncomfortable) straddling genders, views, worlds.
Lots of the tales revolve round a bunch of queer buddies dwelling in Florida (principally Jacksonville, although the characters do transfer round—there’s one story referred to as ‘Migratory Patterns’). The setting is vivid, stuffed with Southern warmth, swamps, and good flowers. Reeve brilliantly captures the restlessness, pettiness, and closeness of this pal group. There’s hilarious dialogue and messy breakups, limitless drama and the gossip that goes with it. It’s deliciously enjoyable to learn, nevertheless it additionally cuts to the bone.
The world we dwell in usually feels so unusual to me, so impenetrable. What I really like most about this assortment is the best way Reeve addresses this strangeness in so some ways: in tender, intimate exchanges between lovers, in scenes of queer buddies making jokes at a going-away celebration, in a personality’s obsession with mirrors, within the sudden energy of a tarot studying. Nothing is sort of what it appears. The tales are continuously shocking, and but stuffed with familiarity, moments of recognition. By writing into the unexplainable, and by analyzing the ways in which ghosts—each metaphorical and literal, violent and loving—form the lives of her characters, Reeve explores how typically what’s unseen shapes the world.
These bizarre and unsettling tales are full of strange happenings and unexplained mysteries. They’re about our bodies and want, reminiscence and queerness, multiracial id, grief and grandparents. Each story dazzles, dances. There are not any misses.