Scrublands
Funky, weird and wonderful, Daly's surprisingly compelling collection is a fever dream of a place, with landmarks reminiscent of both South Africa (Daly's homeland) and Haight-Ashbury circa 1968—possibly the author's spiritual home. In this robustly drawn world, drenched in shades of orange and yellow, Daly follow a troupe of Furry Freaks whose daily lives are a series of surreal episodes involving drugs, sex, art and the hypocrisy and cruelty of contemporary culture. In one vignette, a character becomes erotically obsessed with a friend's art class project, a sculpture of a giant pair of breasts; the climax of the tale comes when the artist receives an "A" for his work's "savage social commentary"—while the obsessed character attempts to copulate with it. Daly's characters engage in mundane tasks such as grocery shopping and then come home to watch the apartment wall give birth to a small child. The centerpiece is a lengthy, wordless piece entitled "Prebaby," which takes place in a red landscape of bumps and tubes and, at one point, the naked female form. It's beautiful, and quite opaque, in contrast to the rest of the work, which is anything but subtle. Overall, a strong, strange debut.(June)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.