Kathleen Founds

This book is almost too much to classify. The level of glee it elicited from me hasn't happened for a while either. I loved the variety of storytelling happening here; that it made me laugh out loud several times while reading it; that I could so clearly see myself as the early-mid-20s English teacher (it was almost scary); the passive-aggressive digressions; the zombie manikins. READ THIS BOOK.

Some of the cover blurbs on this refer to it as a collection of stories. I find this a little confusing, as to me it's pretty clearly a novel, albeit a very odd, very short novel. I mean, the same characters appear throughout, there's a narrative progression through time, and I'm not at all sure how well any of the chapters would stand on their own as stories. But maybe the confusion is understandable, because if it is a novel, it's an unusually structured one. Parts of it are told in the show more form journal entries, student writing assignments, an online advice column, and various other offbeat formats; the traditional-narrative parts vary between first and second person; and while it can be regarded as a unified whole, it's a very loose sort of whole.

There's also an odd contrast between structure and subject matter. There's a real sense of playfulness in the format, and, indeed, there's a lot of humor here, but it's really dark humor, and the story -- which focuses primarily on the lives of a high school teacher and one of her students -- features such cheery topics as mental illness, poverty, eating disorders, teen pregnancy, miscarriage, suicide, and both the good and bad aspects of religion.

The result is interesting, mostly in a good way, but its inventiveness, for me, teetered back and forth a bit between feeling clever and feeling kind of gimmicky. And in the end, for all its dark subject matter, it feels a bit slight. Still, it was a quick and sometimes intriguing read, and parts of it are surprisingly poetic. show less

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, show more 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.

http://bassoprofundo1.blogspot.com/2014/08/when-mystical-creatures-attack-by.htm... show less

What a delightfully silly book. It wanders all over the place, but never strays far from the story of a madwoman who taught her students how to be crazy too. The tale is told via pages of essays & communications, snippets of recipes, and bits of paperwork from the insane asylum. It is a mishmash of delight that I finished in one sitting.