Review of North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud

It's one of reading's top three joys to discover an excellent new writer. (Don't ask me what the other two are.) It literally opens a world to be explored. The best part may be, however, you don't know the writer is excellent until you are several stories deep. Such is my discovery of Nathan Ballingrud, something which his debut 2013 collection North American Lake Monsters (aka Monsterland, 2020) has hammered home.

Before getting to the stories, it's good to highlight the things they have in common which make the collection excellent. All the stories are hard-hitters examining the darkest recesses of America's poorest, least educated people. More human than victim, Ballingrud has a true knack for presenting the reader with a living, breathing member of the US's lower class haunted by proverbial (and sometimes literal) demons of varying origins. But that is just the beginning. Many a literary writer has successfully gotten into the head of their blue-collar characters. But Ballingrud takes these broken people on atypical journeys. There is not one story in the collection which can be predicted or follows the traditional arc of intro-body-climax-conclusion. Somewhere between vignette and story, there are recognizable beginning and endings to each selection, and upon the conclusion of each the reader feels as though they've been upon a journey. It's only that the traditional landmarks of plot are irregular, leaving the reader feeling surprised and refreshed at such an approach. And lastly is the usage of the fantastic. Every story has splashes to varying proportions, and in every story the fantastic complements and enhances the tale being told without overtaking or interfering—a key facet considering the ultimate goal is realism of character. Like a hat that complements an evening gown, you can't imagine one without the other despite the fact both are successful on their own. I did say this was an excellent collection, yes?

I grew up in small town, middle-class-slipping-into-lower-class America. “You Go Where It Takes You” captures a huge portion of the people I knew living semi-nomadic, paycheck to paycheck lives. About a laborer drifting through a small town who charms a cafe waitress into a romance, the man takes his time revealing he has a few skins—not skeletons—in his closet. The closing scene is emotionally brutal but hits a socio-political nail on the head for some people's sense of responsibility. In “Wild Acre” a down-on-his-luck construction sub-contractor lies in ambush at one of his housing projects that is being vandalized at night. Hoping to catch the perpetrators red-handed and beat them with baseball bats, he drinks beers with his buddies in wait. The vandals do eventually show, just not as expected.

In “S.S.” Ballingrud presents an all-too-real portrayal of a poor high school boy forced to drop out of school to work to take care of his single, disabled mother. Hanging out with the wrong crowd in his free time, the claws of white nationalism start to sink in, leading him down some dark roads, making for a dark, dark story. In what is likely the most overt horror story of the collection (and perhaps an homage to Lovecraft?), “The Crevasse” is about a doctor assisting a team of Antarctic explorers in the 1920s. Haunted by the trauma of WWI and loss of his wife, the doctor battles psychologically even as the exigencies of Antarctica lay waste to him physically. When a crevasse collapses and his team has its first tragedy, the doctor experiences a numinous moment, but one not all silver and gold.

“Monsters of Heaven” tells the tale of a man whose son has been kidnapped. His life disintegrating around him, he feels the boy may return given tv sightings of angels around town. He pins his hope on finding one. The story does not have a happy ending, but certainly its grayness renders it unique by contrast. In “Sunbleached” a teen in a single-parent home makes a deal with devil, in fact, a vampire living under his house. And when you deal with the devil…

The title story is about a father, recently released from a three-year prison sentence, trying to rebuild life and rebuild the relationships with his wife and now teenage daughter. A dead monster washing ashore the lake near their house, the man forbids his daughter to go near it. But this decision may in the end cause more harm than good. Technically a ghost story but far, far removed from anything Lovecraft or Ashton Smith produced, “The Way Station” tells of a homeless father in New Orleans desperate to reunite with his estranged daughter. Haunted by the ghosts of Hurrican Katrina, he reaches out from his shelter to someone, anyone who can help, and meets a variety of people. A heavy note to close the collection (as if the other stories weren't heavy enough), “The Good Husband” tells of a depressed man who finds his wife has finally succeeded, on her fourth try, to commit suicide. Compared to the aftermath of her previous attempts, the man tries a new direction, and surprises await.

As a debut collection, I can't say Ballingrud emerged from the womb a fully fledged writer. There are moments the reader can see the author feeling their way through a story. Solid land greets the foot he extends, but occasionally steps can feel a touch cautious and exploratory. But again, the characterization, the scenes, the emotional impact, the psychology through actions, and the manner in which theme is intertwined with character, story, imagination and atpyical endings is something the majority of career writers have never achieved—a huge amount of maturity and novelty for a debut. It's obvious to me why Small Beer re-released this collection in 2020 under the title Monsterland. It's worth a second look.

In the end, North American Lake Monsters (Monsterland) is a stellar collection. It's truly excellent. Ballingrud's ideas are rock solid and he has a wild confidence to capture them on the page, particularly the willingness to utilize non-standard plot arcs and jolting but effective denouements. These are some hard, brutal stories of hard people living hard, broken lives. But it's the strength of depiction that makes them feel so brutal and broken, in turn presenting characters' soft insides, as well. We all play by the rules of emotions and psychology after all, aspects which Ballingrud superbly captures in action and dialogue. If you can bear the onslaught of people living in shitty situations not always able to rise above, this collection is highly, highly recommended. It's as real as real.

The following are the nine stories in North American Lake Monsters (aka Monsterland):

You Go Where It Takes You

Wild Acre

S.S.

The Crevasse

The Monsters of Heaven

Sunbleached

North American Lake Monsters

The Way Station

The Good Husband