When Mystical
Creatures Attack! won this year’s John Simmons Short Fiction Award from the
University of Iowa, and it’s damn easy to see why. The writing is a splendid
and arresting combination of irreverence, counterculture rebellion, and gallows
humor. It portrays a Catholic upbringing – complete with nuns – in the heart of
Texas, which as I always suspected, is another country altogether. It also deals with juvenile delinquency,
unwanted pregnancy, drug addiction, mental illness, and suicide. In case you
were thinking its humor makes it light reading.
These short pieces are linked very closely together, moreso
than usual in a short fiction collection, although they can certainly be read
independently. The experience would be very different in that case, although
not as deep or affecting. I have to honor and thank the Simmons award committee
for singling out this multifarious work, because it clearly, clearly deserves the recognition.
Besides all the adjectives above, in main it’s a moving, disturbing, topical
collection.
The narrative threads follow Laura, an inexperienced high
school English teacher in her early 20s, and her student Janice, whom Laura
calls “a feral raccoon devoid of impulse control,” in honor of her excessive eye
shadow. The two are not enemies, however, or even adversaries, for very long. They unfortunately share too many toxic and alienating influences in their
lives: distant and/or suicidal mothers, deep and dangerous problems with men,
drug use – in Laura’s case, coerced, in Janice’s, not so much. These two vivid creations
come packaged up in a raucous, rebellious, frightening, hysterically funny set
of stories.
And the stories are worth every bit of their award. Consider the fanciful: a giant squid that hugs
you until your unwanted pregnancy goes away, a wood nymph who could save the
environment, a wax figure battle at a museum that pits George Washington
against Moses. Or the plain bizarre: Laura is confined to a psychiatric
treatment program in which she must try to earn negotiable “Wellness Points™”
which purport to measure her progress, but are really punitive and
counterproductive. Consider the all-too-real: young women trying to navigate
through a universe that might be indifferent if it weren’t so treacherous.
Through all the wisecracks and comic effects, Mystical Creatures has a serious, compassionate soul, and I am
quite impressed. Do take it up, you won’t regret it for a minute.
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