Review: Compelling Stories
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 19, 2013
I'd never heard of Kiana Davenport until I stumbled across Joe Konrath's blog on self-publishing; Konrath had just published a letter from Davenport to him, in which she thanked him for inspiring her to self-publish her short stories, after her publishers had turned them down (despite the fact that her novels had previously been quite successful). Konrath pretty much challenged all his readers to purchase a copy of `House of Skin' for their Kindle. So I did. I love viral campaigns.I am not normally a fan of short-stories, in fact, I actively avoid them, even when they are authored by my favourite writers. But the first story, which gives the collection its title, drew me in pretty much instantly and let's just say (I don't `do' spoilers) that it was rather unforgettable.The following one, "The Lipstick Tree", was equally dark and and took me to the jungle of Central New Guinea. I had to look it up on the globe when I got home because in my utter ignorance, I had never realised that it's so close to Australia. (This is what happens when you tend to stick to reading the same genres and the same authors all the time: you are just not exposed to other backgrounds and cultures.)As a quick preview of the rest, "Dragon Seed" is a journey of self-destruction by illness and opiates; "Rosie and Jake at Top Speed" is, well, it's about undying love; "Fork Used in Killing Reverend Baker" is set in Fiji (another place I will need to read up about).But my favourite story is the one that follows: `War Doll Hotel'; it's the story of a mixed-heritage girl from Hawaii moving "as far from Honolulu as I could get and still be in the United States". Her life at the YMCA, her group of equally `exotic' friends and their struggle to find their place in still predominantly white, WASPy 1970s New York. I absolutely loved that story and I could have read an entire novel on that character. I loved the way in which the story is told, as if describing a photo album. I found that incredibly evocative and I am sure it would make a great film, in the right hands."Her Walking Stick" takes you back into slightly more disturbing territory but then gives you the unexpected relief of character redemption. And finally, the final story, "Bones of the Inner Ear" - a mini-family saga on mental illness, loss but also about hope for the new generations.If one common theme is to be found in all these stories, it's conflict of all the main characters trying to break free from the sometimes oppressive traditions of their cultures and attempting to escape from the poverty, the hopelessness, the lack of future, but finding that somehow, once in the `West', once in New York, or Australia or London, you just don't fit in. The protagonist of each story is a woman, but I am reluctant to label this as `women's writing' because the themes are universal. The sadness is universal. The beauty of the islands is universal. The ugliness of a destroyed natural environment is universal.These stories are not the kind of reading you can binge on. I found myself reading one over a lunch break, and then feeling rather stunned and sometimes almost nauseated. With a couple of them, I had to leave it a few days before I could go back and read the next. You're half repelled and half entranced. It's hard to explain. You'll just have to see for yourself.