Aimee Bender inhabits a strange
world. It is a world populated by people who fight and love and work and cry
and laugh just like ordinary people, but with Bender as their author they are
fated to live lives that are anything but ordinary. Even those who are not
physically grotesque are warped, or shrunk, or bent into some extra-ordinary
shape. Willful Creatures is a
collection of fifteen stories involving a cast of characters so diverse that
you never feel you’ve met them before, but they share your world, and with
characters like these that’s a discomforting thought. There’s a fairy tale
quality to these stories; some like The
Leading Man can only work by dint of the reader’s surrender to a world of
fantasy, but for all that it still conveys the sense of a father’s untold
tragedy. Others, like Dearth veer
towards horror; how else to describe potatoes that sprout toes and evoke
maternal instincts?

There are few stories in this
collection that don’t test the reader’s tolerance for suspension of disbelief.
A miniature man purchased at a pet shop (End
of the Line), a couple with pumpkins for heads who (due to a recessive
gene) give birth to a child who, instead of a pumpkin has — horror of horrors
— a steam iron for a head! (Ironhead),
a child with keys for fingers (The
Leading Man). Each of these stories meets the challenge of evoking human
sympathy for their oddball characters; there are scenes and developments that
are genuinely moving. But at times the devices outstrip their own capacity to
carry a message. When Ironhead dies
of exhaustion there’s a sense of relief that you don’t have to endure anymore
unlikely encounters and you ease back into the comfortable world of his
pumpkinhead parents. Well, at least they won’t burn you.

The stores cover a range of
recognizable situations. In Death Watch
a number of men are given a diagnosis of terminal illness, and the story charts
their reaction to the news. The story is told in simplistic terms, the messages
are plain, the characters developed only as far as necessary to carry the plot.
End of the Line is a parable about
relationships of power, using the vehicle of a little man bought by a big man
from a pet shop and kept as a pet. After a period of sadistic abuse the big man
releases his captor then realizes he has lost the opportunity to understand the
man and his community. Good idea, perhaps, but I didn’t engage with this story
sufficiently to feel moved by it.

Off
is a spooky little story told by a cynical narrator intent on making three
conquests at a party. She makes two, but the ruse she adopts for the third
steals the show, and empties the party. The story is laced with acid
observations of manners and taste. It is driven by an engaging and credible
plot, and, like any proper social butterfly, never lingers for long enough in
one place to get stuck there. The narrator ends up with an ex boyfriend, Adam,
intent on talking some sense into her. This is a compelling story; you finish
it wanting to know more. Of all the stories in this collection this depended
least on stylistic devices; the story is driven by the character of the
narrator. Debbieland has a similarly
commonplace narrative structure, and the story is the more compelling for the
recognisability of the characters. Motherfucker
is a creepy story of a stalker, made creepier by his giving up the chase at the
point of its consummation. Bender’s insight into the dark corners of her
characters’ minds make these stories powerful and unsettling. She spares the
reader no discomfort in revealing the twisted natures of her protagonists. 

The strengths of this collection is
Bender’s skillful, even playful use of prose, and her inventive imagination. At
her best these qualities fuse to produce stories that are both affecting and
memorable. Bender’s prose is taut. There is no relief from the sometimes
frenetic pace and the highwire tension of these stories. Short, punchy
sentences jab at you, and yet there is a magical, dreamlike atmosphere to
Bender’s writing. She displays a dexterity with words and ideas that can be
disarming, even alarming. Her vision is not of an ordered world of conflicts
driven by the relatively tame laws of psychology. Bender lives in a dream world
of archetypes and myth; people are driven by chaotic, rather than predictable
laws. This collection is well worth reading for its fresh and imaginative take
on life. If you feel, as I did, a little let down by some rather glib devices,
you will still feel that Bender has revealed something other writers don’t.
Read Willful Creatures and see for
yourself.

©
2005 Tony O’Brien

Tony O’Brien is a short story writer and lecturer in mental health
nursing at The University of Auckland, New Zealand: a.obrien@auckland.ac.nz

Categories: Fiction