There
it lies, a deer, spotted and innocent. It seems to have just settled
down for the evening, perhaps in tall grass or leaves in the forest.
Perhaps other deer lie nearby. It is a clearly recognizable thing,
its posture, its form. But the jade green fur? It appears so
natural to the eye, like with any deer. And yet the brain knows it
is not, leading us to pause, then think. Such is the delicate power
of the stories in Julie C. Day’s 2018 collection Uncommon
Miracles.
In
single-author collections I assume the author themselves played the
greatest role in selecting the sequence, which in the case of
Uncommon Miracles
means a post-apocalyptic story wherein women become pregnant with
rabbits via Immaculate Conception sets the tone. “Everyone Gets a
Happy Ending” matches the cover image: at quick glance things
appear genre ordinary: post-apocalypse, cross-country trip, shortage
of supplies, etc. But pregnant with rabbits? That is the figurative
jade green fur, and leads the character to reflect on the nature of
pro-creation and existence, and likely the reader.
The
small difference in reality leading to a larger shift in perspective
for the main character of “Everyone Gets a Happy Ending”, the
story likewise offers a taste of things to come in terms of
individuals’ paradigms. For example, “One Thousand Paper Cranes”
tells of the teenage, inner-city children of a drug addict. Day
unflinchingly presents some the tangible realities such teens face,
juxtaposing them against the hope that flickers in their peripheries.
Ending on a magical moment, the tectonic plates of their lives,
shift. In perhaps the most ostensibly fantastical tale in the
collection, “The Re’em Song” tells of unicorn bone traders, the
bloody and blood-dependent region they live in, and the major changes
breaking with tradition brings to their lives. A very dark riff on
Little Red Riding Hood, “Raven Hair” tells of a different sort of
girl, a less passive variant, who visits the big, bad wolf, and takes
the story beyond the woodsman.
Another
tale looking at paradigm shifts, “Idle Hands” is a bizarre
combination of asexual reproduction, parallel universes, and heroin
addiction that looks at chemical dependency in an allegorical,
transitive light. A black widow story, “Level Up” is about a
woman named Tara who experiences life and sex the hard, defensive
way, but ultimately learns something she can take forward. A story
of betrayal, in “Pretty Little Boxes” Day projects the fragility
of holding, having, and releasing sadness onto a troubled
relationship. The couple’s tension balanced by the iridescence of
insect antennae and chitons, it is another strange yet strangely
affecting tale from the collection. “Faces between Us” is a love
story about two young people in rural Oregon. The pair’s hopes
intermingle with redneck habits and snorting the ashes of the dead,
making for an atmospheric, evocative, and quicksilver good story.
Another
major theme of Uncommon Miracles
is loss. Poignant (sans
anything resembling drama let alone melodrama), “Woman in the
Woods” tells of a brother and sister who lost their mother, the
ether of memory, the strength and sadness of hope, and makes for one
of the best stories in the collection. Another story about the loss
of a family member, in “A Pinhole of Light” Day parallels the
ideas of ghosts and people in photos. Living beyond death in
pictures, the main character tries to regain/retain normalcy with the
family he has left. In “Holes in Heaven”, a bitter, handicapped
hoarder lives in subsidized Arizona housing. His parents having
ascended to live elsewhere in the solar system, he spends his days on
Earth in envy of his NASA-whiz brother while making as big a mess as
possible in his own life in order to get kicked out of his apartment.
Though getting the fight he wants, it may not be the ultimate battle
he desires.
Day’s
writing style is no nonsense yet lock tight in terms of thematic
focus; one of the real joys of the collection is its skipping stone
solidity. Showing a sophistication the majority of her peers do not,
several of the stories break freely from the mold of standard
storytelling to positive effect. Framed as a grant application, “The
Thirteen Tuesdays of Saint Anthony” looks to a small Massachusetts
town which has been abandoned by its patron saint. Suffering abound
in the town, some of the leaders believe an art project will appease.
The atypical form, while engaging in itself, likewise makes the
story’s ultimate resolution all the sharper. “Mourning Food:
Recipes Included” is outwardly an article or magazine piece telling
of the success of three elderly Polish sisters in the kitchen. A
layer deeper one finds a synesthesia of
food, flavors, and emotions, and ultimately the personalities of the
three sisters.
YA
fiction that is more sophisticated than a lot of ‘adult’ fiction
these days, “Signal and Stone” is the story of a 14-year old girl
who makes a mistake with her cell phone and pays for it on social
media in ways that millennials understand all too well. Needing to
get off the grid, she and her mother go to the island of Vinalhaven,
and it’s there she learns how to rid herself of the ghosts that
haunt her (in strongly allegorical fashion).
As
can easily be discerned from the review thus far, Uncommon
Miracles is a wonderful collection of short
stories that will likely not be on many people’s radar but
absolutely should be. Day has quietly but steadily built a small
oeuvre of intelligent, quietly
rebellious, and inclusive short fiction
wholly deserving of a place on next year’s World Fantasy Award
ballot, not to mention the shelves of discerning genre readers. The
focus is never the fantastical—the wow factor many mainstream genre
readers are looking for these days, rather, the
supra-natural elements are used in more sophisticated,
theme-informative, sometimes metaphorical fashion. There are
witches, parallel universes, unicorns, etc. but the characters and
the particulars of their lives—highs and lows, issues and
discoveries, circumstances and transitions—are the focus, making
for a dynamic yet cultured collection bolstered by vibrant, affecting
bits of fantastika. Day’s range is truly superb. From the
pitch-perfect cover, through the minimalist prose that etches meaning
in incisive fashion, to the intellectual and emotional meaning nested
inside every story (like a jade green deer lying down for the evening
in the forest?), this collection is a real winner.
The
following are the eighteen stories included in Uncommon
Miracles:
Everyone
Gets a Happy Ending
The
Woman in the Woods
A
Pinhole of Light
One
Thousand Paper Cranes
The
Thirteen Tuesdays of Saint Anthony
Raising
Babies
Holes
in Heaven
Florida
Miracles
Mourning
Food: Recipes Included
The
Faces Between Us
Idle
Hands
Finding
Your Way to the Coast
Level
Up
Pretty
Little Boxes
The
Re’em Song
Signal
and Stone
Raven
Hair
I
Want to Be Here
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