Dark stories to make you brave: That Stubborn Seed of Hope

The short stories that have stayed with me over time are the ones that make me gasp at an unexpected revelation, or sigh when two essentially disparate things (people or ideas or beliefs or understandings or accidents) come together in a way that is both surprising and just right. But my absolute favourite stories are the ones that manage to plumb the depths of human brokenness and this dark world yet still point to a shining glimmer of grace in the midst of it.

So I was a little bit in love with That Stubborn Seed of Hope before I even started reading. The title, pulled from a quote from Bridge to Terabithia (again: LOVE), encapsulates my philosophy of story, and speaks to one of the things I treasure most in children’s and YA fiction. It might stem from the fact that I dined quite heavily on Anne of Green Gables growing up, but I firmly believe that while children and teenagers are forced to look tragedy and heartache and confusion squarely in the face just as frequently as adults, there is often also a beautiful spark of hope intrinsic within youth that promises something more. The best children’s and YA fiction reflects that. While not shying away from grief and grit, it also promises, sometimes in just a whisper, that the story doesn’t end here, that it’s possible to get knocked down and get up again.

That Stubborn Seed of Hope does this admirably. While the stories are unconnected in terms of characters, voice, setting, genre, and events, they are linked in that they stare roundly at something frightening – disease, death, shame, loss – while also offering up a kernel of hope. The voices of Brian Falkner’s characters are alternately cynical, wistful, angry, insecure, bewildered, and even sinister, but there is a warmth to these characters that’s endearing and compelling. "I Am 17" is something like Gregor Samsa meeting Benjamin Button. "The Kiss" reveals a post-apocalyptic Australia -- life, but not as we know it. "Strawberry Lou" is a tiny tale that packs an emotional whallop. "Sins and Griefs" explores blossoming sexuality, otherness, and the longing for belonging. The rest I’ll leave you to discover on your own. I loved each one, but I particularly enjoyed the stories that focus on sibling relationships. There just aren’t enough love stories about families.

In this collection, some of the pieces are funny, others deeply sad. Regardless of outcome, each story offers an emotional gut punch and the reassurance that life is rarely all good or all bad, but usually a little of both at once. The author declares in his introduction that “[w]e can endure almost anything in our lives as long as there remains that stubborn seed of hope.” These stories are a compelling, readable, deliciously-written and ultimately courage-giving testament to that.

That Stubborn Seed of Hope
Brian Falkner
Published July 2017 by UQP
214 pages
9/10

Grief, gladness, and a worthy heroine: The Elephant, by Peter Carnavas

As I read Peter Carnavas's The Elephant last month, I constantly caught myself flickering forward in my imagination to a time when I'd share this book with my nieces. Honestly, I can't think of higher praise to offer a book than this.

 Olive, the star of the story, is a true heroine. She's bright, intelligent, and thoughtful, and she just knows that if she works hard enough and finds the right spark of joy, she can scare away the lumbering grey elephant that follows her father around, weighing him down and making him too heavy to see the wonder of the world around him -- or, indeed, the wonder of the tiny world in front of him in his daughter.

Olive explains it to her friend Arthur, whom she likes "most of all because she [can] tell him anything":

"See, my dad has this really big sadness. He's had it for a long time. And I imagine the sadness is like a big grey elephant following him around. That's what I see."

 "Like an imaginary friend?" Arthur asks.

No, Olive tells him, "Like an imaginary enemy."

Arthur is intrigued, and offers Olive a glimmer of hope: if she can fix her dad, he'll be really her dad again. So that's what Olive sets out to do. She's helped in her efforts by her Grandad, who lives with Olive and her father, and helps fill some of the hug-holes in Olive's life. But he's not her dad, and he can't see the elephant. Only Olive can.

Olive's attempts to make her dad happy are told in exquisite phrases, the kind you want to roll around and taste on your tongue. Olive's imagination is vividly alive; she sees "milkshake clouds", a bike that "must have been something wonderful when it was young, when it was alive." Her grandad looks like "a skinny scarecrow, his old straw hat full of holes." Alongside the word-pictures are joyful, beautiful line drawings that add a further layer to the story and help build towards a final gentle surprise.

Olive's story offers a hopeful ending, but it also paves the way for discussions about the loved ones who may not find easy answers for the elephant that dogs them, people who cannot be made happy again. While never using the words "depression" or "grief", The Elephant nevertheless manages to explore these concepts through a story that is beautiful in its simplicity yet never dumbed down. It depicts self-comfort and a believable coping mechanism in a way that's full of gentle revelations. It manages to be childlike but never cloying or saccharine, full of Australian sensibility but universal themes. This book is a rare treasure.

The Elephant 
Peter Carnavas
Published July 2017 by UQP
180 pages
Rating: 9/10

Understood backwards: Everything Is Changed by Nova Weetman

Can there be any drama to a story when you know the ending right from the beginning?

Everything Is Changed answers this question with a resounding YES. When I closed the book after the final page, I had to pause and catch my breath. My delirious review on Goodreads: "Cinematic and devastating."

Everything Is Changed is told in reverse, chapter about, as Alex and Jake (and occasionally Alex's girlfriend Ellie) move backwards from the moment when everything truly does change finally and forever towards the place where the changes began. The story navigates the near past to the seemingly insignificant, thoughtless moment that sets in process an avalanche of shame, clumsy grief, and regret. It's a chronicle of choices both careful and careless, the unravelling of a friendship and the loss of first love.

And yet, much like Martin Amis's Time's Arrow, this is a story which appears to put back together the lives of its characters, to make whole the brokenness which becomes clearer just as it dissolves, chapter by chapter.

It is gripping and compelling and acutely painful because, in spite of their choices, Jake and Alex are good boys, beautiful boys who love their families and each other. Jake is the sort of kid who watches crime shows just so he can chat to his single mum about the plot. Alex cares about his sister and his education. 'Jake and I are the good kids,' Alex says. 'We get mostly okay marks. We're involved in extra-curricular activities. Last night was a mistake. And now I'm not sure what to do with that.' Both of them are fiercely loyal to one another, a best-friendship for the ages. Until there is no friendship left to speak of.

Because of the format -- the reversed timeline, the alternating voices -- Everything Is Changed should be confusing. But Nova Weetman is a masterful writer and, instead, the story is simply powerful and unsettling. Alex's and Jake's voices are distinct and finely drawn. There is drama, pathos, and suspense. It is beautiful and it is terrible, a powerful fictional exposition on Kierkegaard's belief that life can only be understood backwards.

Everything Is Changed
Nova Weetman
Published October 2016 by UQP Books
262 pages 

Advancing Australia where? A review of Australia to Z by Armin Greder

Although the peaks and valleys of history tempt us to assign ultimate values to events and the people who propelled them along, where nations are concerned, there are no “goodies” or “baddies.” Rather, there are good moments and bad moments. There is greed and there is generosity. There is shame and there is celebration.

Armin Greder’s picture book, Australia to Z, tackles this dichotomy head on in an abecedarium that points to one characteristically Australian idea or image for each letter of the alphabet. With minimal text and vivid illustrations, it resembles picture books more generally targeted to young children. However, this unsettling book provides more food for thought for older readers, right from its opening images: a double-page spread showing the silhouette of an Indigenous man (A for Aborigine) standing on a rocky outcrop overlooking the water while on the B side opposite a little convoy of boat people paddle their way to shore -- not the boat people that popular news media would have us consider when we hear those words, but an earlier group of boat people: members of the First Fleet, arriving from England.

This disarming and surprising examination of Australian culture continues throughout the book. All the icons we think of when we consider what it means to be Australian are present, evoking images of wide open spaces, sunshine, and the laid-back larrikin ideal we’re so fond of. All the things we love to laugh at about our country are present. But they are there alongside the things that shame us, making us grin on one page and pause on the next.

It’s a book that’s gently funny in spots and starkly sobering in others. It’s also darkly beautiful, with a thoughtful, limited colour palette and paintings in fluid, scratchy lines, reminiscent of sketches by Matisse.

In this text, Armin Greder challenges the idea of what comprises our national identity and confronts the mingled shame and pride of our history. Alongside that, he manages to embody all that is important and potent about picture books. The loveliest of them are works of art which engage the mind as well as the senses, and Australia to Z certainly falls into this category.

Australia to Z
Armin Greder 
Allen & Unwin, 32 pages

9/10

Go read a Watchman.

"Now you, Miss, born with your own conscience, somewhere along the line fastened it like a barnacle to your father's. As you grew up, when you were grown, totally unknown to yourself, you confused your father with God. You never saw him as a man with a man's heart and a man's failings."

I’m a slow reader who squeezes books in around the edges of life, so it took me about a week to read Go Set A Watchman. During that time, the reviews came flooding in. I heard everything from hate to love and all the spaces in between – a phenomenon I suspect says more about the subjectivity of taste and literary criticism than it can ever say about a single book.

As for me, I was joyfully surprised to discover I loved it. It was everything I hoped it would be but was scared it couldn’t possibly.

So here’s a very scrappy list of impressions, mashed together haphazardly because my mind just isn’t… braining.

First of all, Harper Lee can write. I know this isn’t really a surprise, but when you drop the mic and leave just one massive book bomb out in the world, there’s sort of a mysterious sense of this sudden stroke of genius, something that appeared quickly and possibly disappeared even more quickly. But even in all of its unedited glory, Watchman is a masterpiece of words. Really really. It's worth reading for its beautiful sentences alone.

But I’m also impressed at the continuity between To Kill A Mockingbird and Go Set A Watchman. (Now don’t read this as some embarrassing evidence of me somehow thinking that there’s any correlation between my baby apprenticeship in writing and Harper Lee’s absolute master craftsman status, buuut --) When I draft, my stories undergo multiple reincarnations. Characters experience complete personality changes or go extinct altogether. Events get rearranged. What I once thought made sense or was important suddenly looks ridiculous. I expected at least a little of this with GSAW. Since it was rewritten into Mockingbird, I assumed there would be a great variation between the characters and events of one book and those of the other. But Harper Lee knew her characters inside out. Their development, the way their lives pan out, and tiny nonessential but lovely links between the two texts made this first book feel very much like a sequel to the second.

I especially loved seeing Scout as a grown-up. Jean Louise Finch is exactly as the adult Scout should be: smart, fierce, funny, unconventional, and occasionally blinded by her own sense of justice and morality. She loves Maycomb and its people, but, maybe for the first time, she's beginning to see through them and it unsettles her. I love this. I love that she's experiencing a quarter-life crisis before that was even a thing.

A couple of the complaints I've seen mention that the book feels like a draft, that it could've done with more editing, and I agree to an extent. The ending felt a bit rushed and the text's tendency to switch between voices (the narrator and then Jean Louise's internal monologue) without any visual markers make it momentarily confusing in spots. I've also seen criticism that the book wasn't particularly plot-driven, but I am okay with that. Mockingbird was about a town. Watchman is about a woman.

If anything, Watchman feels more literary than Mockingbird. It's less neatly packaged, less clearly black and white, less tied up smoothly. Morality is not so clear cut. Good characters do bad things. There are choices made and opinions flaunted that made me angry when I read them. But maybe that's kind of the point.

Mockingbird's theme feels global; the theme of Watchman feels personal. Mockingbird is about race, and Watchman is, too, to an extent. But it's less of the white author speaking for black Americans thing and more of a white character hanging onto the issue of race as the point of reference forcing her to examine the morality of the people she loves. I don't know if this is better or worse, and I don't think I can speak to that.

Ultimately, though, Go Set A Watchman is about a young woman's relationship with the people who raised her, about maturing as an adult and finding her own feet. I think it's incredibly relatable. It looks at the forces that shape us into who we're becoming. It's about the inherent idolatry of childhood and what's it's like to shear away from that. It's about recognising the humanity in everyone -- not just the people we 'graciously' condescend to out of our perceived social or economic or intellectual superiority (one of the most uncomfortable things about Watchman), but the people we once thought we looked up to.

My consensus is: you should definitely read it. It's less powerful than To Kill A Mockingbird, maybe, but also, perhaps, more real.

The fairytale that is true

Telling the Truth: the Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale is a tiny book – less than a hundred pages – but author Frederick Buechner makes each word count, packing the text with literary beauty and a deep passion for the gospel story. The four chapters are comprised of material from four lectures originally given at Yale University, but they read more like impassioned odes to the gospel than transcribed speech. The book opens with a call to preachers – which we are all meant to be, in one way or another – a powerful call to honestly tell the truth of the gospel. This truth, Buechner writes, is more than mere head knowledge. It appeals to the very human parts of us that cry out for answers, the answers that might fill the ‘emptiness where grace and peace belong’ (p. 4). It is the heart’s cry of every man and woman. It is the darkness and the terror, what we feel and lack as much as what we believe or morally assert. And the answer to all of this, Buechner says, lies in the truth of the gospel which comes to us in the form of a tragedy, a comedy, and a fairy tale.

The gospel starts in silence, Buechner writes, the silence of no answers, the silence of the bleak realisation of our own filthiness. It is a tragedy before it is anything else. It ‘is bad news before it is good news’ (p. 7). The bad news is that goodness is entirely out of our grasp. We are consigned to an emptiness of existence; we cannot save ourselves. We are shown our inability to be the men and women we always thought we could be. We are Pontius Pilate, as he agonises over the man who calls himself the king of the Jews. We are Henry Ward Beecher, fearing he has destroyed the message he dared to preach because he did not remain faithful to his wife. The gospel starts here, Buechner writes, because it must ‘strip us bare in order ultimately to clothe us’ (p. 33).

Then, when the way is steeped in tragedy and we know that we are empty, grasping, futile, alone, then comes the twist, the great comedic surprise: that things can turn around and the whole messy situation can be reversed. Buechner calls it the comedy of grace, grace which ‘can’t possibly happen because it can only impossibly happen’ (p. 58). If ‘the tragic is the inevitable,’ then ‘the comic is the unforeseeable’ (p. 57). We cannot expect it and yet somehow it happens. It is a comedy which set Abraham and Sarah laughing in the face of the angel of the Lord. It is a comedy in which the bums living on the streets get invited into the kingdom of God. It is startling and laughable and Jesus tells us we will not understand it unless we become like little children.

Finally, the gospel is a fairy tale. Fairy tales revel in transportation into impossible worlds, making unreality into reality. Dorothy somehow found herself in Oz. Alice ended up through the looking glass. Lucy stumbled into Narnia. The appeal of these stories is universal, and the heart wonders if these worlds of magic and mystery are closer than we think. The gospel answers yes. Fairy tale worlds burst into the everyday lives of Dorothy and Alice and Lucy (p. 77) and in the same way, the gospel bursts into our everyday world. In the fairy tale the lowly one becomes the princess, and so in life it is not always the beautiful or the powerful who triumph in the end. Jesus was not the least bit kingly to look upon, and his manner was only humble. ‘But the whole point of the fairytale of the Gospel is, of course, that he is the king in spite of everything’ (p. 90). It is impossible but it is true. It happened and is happening yet. Darkness meets light, and though darkness might loom large and light looks feeble, it is only a charade: light wins and will always win. The fairy tale of the gospel is surprising. Everything gets turned around, and it takes our breath away.

The preacher’s job then, Buechner insists, ‘is to hold up life’ (p. 16) and to express the truth of the gospel through the truth of human experience. Buechner himself does this by drawing out the humanity of the people we know from Scripture. He is, first and foremost, a storyteller, and he pulls truth from many Bible stories, retelling them so that the reader becomes a part of the story, recognising the prodigal son in him or herself.
Buechner’s writing is vivid, beautiful, and evocative. Within his sermons-turned-chapters he quotes from Scripture throughout the Old and New Testaments. He speaks of the poetry of prophecy, and explores truth in the ancient origin stories, as well as in Jesus’ parables. He revels in the literary beauty of the Bible along with the classics of English literature, quoting Herman Melville, CS Lewis, Shakespeare, and others.

Telling the Truth is not only an exposition of the truth of the gospel, it is a celebration of story and of literature. Buechner’s text fully exploits the Bible as literature, recognising and affirming the power of the biblical literature not just as bare truth written down, but as truth powerfully communicated so that it resonates in the mind and heart of the reader. He examines symbolism in the gospel and draws attention to the great themes of the Bible, which are literary themes as well as expressions of truth. He praises the emotional connection that biblical literature provides the reader, discussing its power to evoke truth in a way that ‘can at best be only pointed to by the language of poetry’ (p. 25). And of course, he couches the gospel in the three distinct literary genres of tragedy, comedy, and fairy tale.

Buechner ends Telling the Truth with the earnest invocation that each reader strives to do exactly that. ‘Preach this overwhelming of tragedy by comedy,’ he writes, ‘of darkness by light, of the ordinary by the extraordinary’ (p. 98). It is, he adds, ‘the tale that is too good not to be true.’

Telling the Truth
Frederick Buechner
9/10

I almost cried (and I never cry when I read)

I just (as in, a minute ago) finished reading When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead, and it so amazed me that I had to crack open this neglected blog and tell you all about it.

The story begins simply enough in the voice of the narrator, Miranda. She's an almost-twelve-year-old girl balancing the sort of things that almost twelve-year-old girls juggle in 1978 America: school, growing up, being a daughter, getting to know the man who will soon be your stepfather -- that kind of thing. However, the story swiftly offers a hint that there's going to be more to Miranda's every day life than what initially appears, and the first clue to this mystery is the fact that Miranda isn't simply writing a record of her days; she's writing a record of her days for somebody.

Sometimes I work on it in my head, Miranda writes, trying to map out the story you asked me to tell, about everything that happened this past fall and winter. It's all still there, like a movie I can watch when I want to. Which is never.

In Miranda's characteristic voice -- sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, and always warm -- the reader is pulled into a story which feels in many ways like a gentle coming-of-age tale, but which provides markers and clues throughout that point to another whole story running under the surface. Also: Madeleine L'Engle references!

Gah! It's hard for me to say much more without giving anything away, so I'll just recommend the story to you and leave you to make your own conclusions. When I finished this books, I closed the cover, made a little gasping sound, and wished I'd written it.

When You Reach Me
Rebecca Steadman
9/10

Facing unimaginable challenges

I am frequently disappointed by the low-quality writing of a lot of contemporary Christian fiction. One Christian writer who never fails to surprise and delight, however, is Angela Hunt. I've read almost ten of her books by now and each one has been a treat to digest both as an eager reader and a hopeful writer. The reader part of my brain revels in Hunt's personable, highly-relatable characters and her surprising plot twists. Meanwhile, my writer's side is gaping at the obvious amount of research invested in the story and the clear, concise writing that maintains a lot of internal and external tension, keeping me captivated all the way through.

I finished her 2008 book, The Face, today and loved it. Not loved it in that I was left with a syrupy sweet all's-well-that-ends-well kind of contentment, but loved it in that I was challenged and provoked and captivated. The Face is the story of Sarah Sims, a girl born with severe facial deformities resulting in a lack of facial structure -- no eyes, nose, ears, or a mouth. But there is more to her story than this huge challenge. Her past and the deaths of her family members are buried government secrets, and Sarah grows up sheltered from anything resembling the real world in a remote intelligence agency's safe house. The story is one of intense personal growth and thrilling spy adventure, Alias-style. I'm going to make my sister read this one, right away.

The Face
Angela Hunt
Rating: 9/10

PS. In one of those coincidences which are too interesting to be called such, while I was reading The Face, I stumbled across About Face, a blog providing "a forum of hope and encouragement for those suffering from perceptual disabilities, facial deformities, and cranial birth defects." I've only explored a little, but already I've been challenged by the faith and grace shared in the posts there. I recommend you check it out.

Reading writers writing on writing

In my picture of an ideal world of words, I would spend equal amounts of time making words and reading words. However, this is an imperfect world and sometimes -- like lately -- there is only opportunity for one of those pursuits. My solution has been to read words about making words, and thereby develop the warm, fuzzy feeling that, although I might not be doing much writing, I am at least learning about it and potentially storing up inspiration for when it should come in handy.

This month, I've completed four books in some way associated with crafting words and making books. I'll share them with you over the next little while.

The first I finished was the famous Elements of Style, by Strunk and White. I'm ashamed that it took a school assignment to actually get me to read this from cover to cover. I'd dipped into it in the past but this time I actually read it right through, discovering as so many others have that this little book is not only incredibly commonsense and practical, but it's also surprisingly readable. Readable and funny.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, the Elements of Style (sometimes simply referred to as 'Strunk & White') is a simple how-to book containing guidelines for clear, concise speech. It began life as the text for an English class by Strunk, who taught -- and inspired -- writer E.B. White (Charlotte's Web, anyone?). In later years, White was asked to revise the work, and did so with grace and humour. The end result is a grammar book that is surprisingly unlike a grammar book in that it is fun to read. I definitely need a copy of my own to keep and refer back to.

Elements of Style
William Strunk, Jnr., and E.B. White
Rating: 9/10

PS. The edition I read was this one, with charming illustrations by Maira Kalman. Delightful!