Picture a person putting nails to a chalk board in front of an audience of self identifying genre police, watching them all cringe, and then saying, ‘There was a point to that.’ That’s roughly what it felt like reading this, at times.

Some of this works some of it doesn’t. The writing is overall quite good and eclectic in its ability to go from one genre convention to the next, slipping in and out of voices convincingly. The stories do not care to telegraph what they are genre-wise. Some remain in the tone and genre established, others morph. There seems to be no rhyme or reason or hint of consistency. A realistic portrayal of a late 30s woman partnered with a self-centered, obsessive writer of a science fiction graphic novel, suddenly has him becoming a character in his own story, disappearing into its pages completely. Gone from the world. An old woman sets up a dating profile and dies under ostensibly suspicious circumstances. Just as we get to the heart of the
‘mystery’, the story is over. No catharsis. No resolution.

On one hand, it’s easy to admire the boldness of statements made in these pages. But they come to feel like they’re being made about conventions rather than actually serving the reader, or even in service to the best possible outcome for the story, even.

With all short story collections there are highs and lows but this was too much for me. There isn’t a hint of cohesiveness, despite the marketing material trumpeting. There are some definite good stories that I enjoyed and got on with the voice well. The next story, though, is a completely different voice, maybe genre. Structures vary widely. Flash fiction type stories become chapters in a multi-part overall story.

It’d be interesting if it wasn’t incredibly jarring so often and had it remotely telegraphed to the reader that this was _going somewhere_. Perhaps some stories are circled back to later on in the book? I put it aside with 100 pages left to go. Far more than I typically would have given a book, and only pushed through that far because it’s a Giller Prize shortlisted book and I wanted to finish them all. I suspect that while the structure may have held a meta kind of satisfaction for me in the end, if it does come back to previous stories or character, I began encountering stories at the mid mark that were simply uninteresting and continued in a voice that I didn’t enjoy or resonate with me, made further frustrating because I’d just read several stories that were good and were well constructed and enjoyable.

Honestly, one of the rare books that left me actually annoyed rather than just saying it wasn’t for me and putting it down, knowing it was for a different kind of reader. No idea who I could recommend this too. People who hate conventions and somehow delight in the idea of encountering authorial voice at the opposite ends of the spectrum from one another, so you are almost certain to dislike one or the other. And why why 2 stars, then? It’s trying something new and some stories did work. There is some interesting structure too, possibly, I just never found out if it pays off or not. Clearly it did work for some people, the judges are authors and clearly liked it.