Meteorites
Julie Paul
TouchWood Editions, 2019
Review by Elina Taillon
In her third short story collection, Meteorites, Julie Paul offers us quiet glimpses into a Canadian quotidian that simmers underneath those thornier, tangled parts of life: a family rift, impotence to help one’s child, a gulf between two friends whose lives have suddenly diverged. Alternating between shorter and longer pieces, we follow an eclectic cast of characters, wading through the various mires they’ve been thrown into. Tension and surprise emerge here and there, but the main flavour of this collection is a writerly levity and patience with these everyday people and their idiosyncrasies, their uncertainties. It has the feel of a long sit-down with a favourite aunt who has a knack for storytelling, in the living room of her suburban Ontario house—moving lightly and easily between stories of cousins, friends of friends, strangers who passed by. There’s an implication that things will work out and life will go on, without reaching any too-neat conclusions.
What really ties all these stories together, though, is that the characters all exist in relation to others, defining themselves by alignment or opposition to their families, children, friends, or romantic interests. Relationships are portrayed in a deeper way than individuals, an effective strategy for story development in the space of a few pages. Consequently, the themes explored have a lot to do with misunderstanding and differing expectations. There is a failure to think or act on the same level as the other. From the seemingly insurmountable divide between twin brothers in “Spilling the Bees” to the church crowd’s disappointed expectations that the newly amputated organist will give up her Sunday duties in “Millie’s Calling,” misunderstanding is the source of Paul’s storytelling. Sometimes, as in the brief character portrait “Clutter,” we glimpse a protagonist grappling with themself, their inner turmoil and desire. But mostly what we see of plot and character is revealed to us through interpersonal conflict. It’s the light that reveals islands in the dark; there’s a sense that without each other, these characters would recede back into nothingness.
Is this uniformity a weakness? It’s difficult to say. Certainly, the stories are superficially different enough to keep the reader’s attention—they range from a man trying to escape his father’s ghost in Hawaii to a young woman grappling with her family’s decaying health and prosperity to the drunken and possibly fatal interference of graduate students in a homeless man’s life in the wintertime. The majority of the stories take place in Canada, or connect to it in some way, and still manage to present an appealing variety of scenarios. Their plots sometimes have twists, and their ends are often ambiguous or unexpected, if in a quiet way. Tension often rises between characters, who sometimes change and sometimes don’t. But the stories aren’t so wildly different once you get past the surface. Familial regrets, ghosts, obligations, and the question of whether one is a good parent (or sister, or friend) all swirl in an undercurrent around these stories which seem so assorted on first glance. For readers who enjoy lingering in these subtexts, it isn’t a weakness, but a strength.
The exception to these commonalities is “The Expansion.” Perhaps in acknowledgement of its dissimilarity, it finds itself towards the middle of the collection, where it has less chance of confusing the reader than if it were at the beginning or end. Two former business owners, Holly and Don, seek a fresh start after people die in connection to their flammable and risqué mom-and-baby clothes. They have moved to an island off the coast of Western Canada as part of a “program” connected to a shady entity known as Can*Carma*Clear™, which seems to own many properties and teach a kind of New Age philosophy about cleansing the sins of the past. Soon they must deal with gigantic wildlife, themselves growing enormous and being unable to fit in their house, and the manifestation of their impossible desires—a baby girl—appearing in a tree. This may be due to an overenthusiastic “special effects team.” No one comes to rescue them. The mention of “glitches” reinforces the suspicion that this is virtual reality or simulation, but we never learn much about C*C*C*™ or the wider world context. While Paul points out in her 2019 interview for the Victoria Festival of Authors that she includes a spec fic piece in all her short story collections, it did feel wedged in there with nothing of the same type preceding or following it. While its heart was still the relationship between Don and Holly—the unusual circumstances have put pressure on them, sure, and delivered a baby to them, and accelerated their growth as characters at an artificial rate, but the spec fic aspect feels more like a backdrop to the same sort of stories that occupy the rest of the collection rather than a productive or necessary addition.
Paul’s style has a mild, conversational quality reminiscent of Mavis Gallant. There’s nothing too fancy here, just clear, informal prose punctuated by quips and common turns of phrase. A range of voices show up across stories, depending on the speaker or the mood, but they tend to share this unassuming, utilitarian, rounded quality. Only in the most extreme situations—a murder-suicide in “Hangman,” for instance—do we see the mildness drop away for something sharper, more inflected. In “Little Stars” and “In the Next Breath,” we see some lines that approach lyricism: “Jack’s heart was crumbling, disintegrating deep inside; and although he was an animal man, well-schooled in cardiac anatomy, if he jumped up and down, he swore he could hear the bits and pieces making music, something slowcore, mournful, and spare.”
Although situations sometimes have an amusing angle to them, the humour tends to fall a little flat, as the characters’ sarcasm is practiced and mild: “To top off the torment, amid all of this, the two beautiful women beside us are plotting their perfect imaginary futures as millionaires. It’s not as if I have an actual love life, so this is what it’s come to—eavesdropping on ladies in bikinis.” The writing is mostly there as a vehicle for the story and a tool to convey character, not meant to shine on its own.
Where Paul excels is in her evocation of mixed moods. Her stories are never one-note; humour mixes with daring, sadness with absurdity. Take “Manifest,” for instance, a complex treat of a story. Jen lives quite peacefully (it seems) with her husband and son, until her stepdaughter Carolina moves into their Vancouver condo. Carolina knits all day, refuses to move or do work, and displays a belligerent attitude. Jen’s plight is funny, frustrating, and absurd. In one moment, she seems unreasonable; in another, completely sympathetic. It’s delightful that we can feel so many things for (and against) Jen in such a short space. When the story ends, it’s difficult to say whether it was more comedy or tragedy, and it feels real despite being so far-fetched.
For readers interested in modern Canadian fiction that portrays the complicated ripples in the lives and relationships of characters struck by unusual circumstances, this is a solid choice. Among the collection will undoubtedly be some stories that hold the attention more than others. The reader’s personal circumstances and preferences will influence this. What’s constant is a complexity of mood and interpersonal dynamics, as well as the ability to raise tension and surprise in unlikely ways—in the midst of the mundane.
Elina Taillon is a current graduate student in UBC’s Creative Writing MFA and holds an MA in French Literature from U of T. She enjoys learning languages, petting cats, and brewing obscure loose leaf teas. In the future, she would like to publish many novels.