Tina May Hall draws you into her bizarre collection of stories The Physics of Imaginary Objects, by leading off with the perfectly composed, traditional workshop tale Visitations. It's a glorious little story about a squirrel trapped in a kitchen wall and a pregnant woman's teetering relationship.
There are a few quirky lines and descriptions in Visitations -- "On the ultrasound, its spine had been a line of seeds, its fingers twigs finer than anything I could have cut." However nothing in it, including the language, the structure of the characters prepare us for the oddness that permeates the rest of the book.
Erratum: Insert "R" in "Transgressors" is a repetitive incantation based on statements from the American Microscopical Society in 1899 and 1900. Statements like "one man was missing, one dead." "I was engaged as a trained observer," are repeated through the piece. Somehow, Hall weaves this material into a satisfying story.
In Skinny Girls' Constitution and Bylaws she assembles the stories of 13 girls into a mythic fairytale. "Martine is 115 years old and still flat-chested. In her cold, blue heart, three little men live. By night, they write love poems and keep her awake with their sighing." To say Hall's descriptions are original would be to do her a grave disservice of understatement. Here are a few gems from Skinny Girls': "We fit six across the backseat and shiver together, arms and legs wrapped like eels around each other." "She is the corpse-bride running after the soccer ball." "She is pretty as a stream, kind as a blizzard, graceful as a schooner a thousand feet under water."
Story after story veer in unpredictable directions. She gives us a cycle of sonnets, instructions for contacting the dead and a tale about a growing sinkhole that swallows up a newscaster. Finally, she presents a fully formed masterpiece -- the novella All the Day's Sad Stories.
Orginally published as a chapbook by Caketrain, this tale of a relationship struggling under the burden of infertility is told in pithy, poetic single-page chunks. Each page, individually titled, can stand alone although most of them gain power in proximity to the others. Mercy and Jake are a couple navigating modern life with it's vague threats and empty promises. Those threats eventually become real when chalk marked Xs begin appearing on their house.
There are a few quirky lines and descriptions in Visitations -- "On the ultrasound, its spine had been a line of seeds, its fingers twigs finer than anything I could have cut." However nothing in it, including the language, the structure of the characters prepare us for the oddness that permeates the rest of the book.
Erratum: Insert "R" in "Transgressors" is a repetitive incantation based on statements from the American Microscopical Society in 1899 and 1900. Statements like "one man was missing, one dead." "I was engaged as a trained observer," are repeated through the piece. Somehow, Hall weaves this material into a satisfying story.
In Skinny Girls' Constitution and Bylaws she assembles the stories of 13 girls into a mythic fairytale. "Martine is 115 years old and still flat-chested. In her cold, blue heart, three little men live. By night, they write love poems and keep her awake with their sighing." To say Hall's descriptions are original would be to do her a grave disservice of understatement. Here are a few gems from Skinny Girls': "We fit six across the backseat and shiver together, arms and legs wrapped like eels around each other." "She is the corpse-bride running after the soccer ball." "She is pretty as a stream, kind as a blizzard, graceful as a schooner a thousand feet under water."
Story after story veer in unpredictable directions. She gives us a cycle of sonnets, instructions for contacting the dead and a tale about a growing sinkhole that swallows up a newscaster. Finally, she presents a fully formed masterpiece -- the novella All the Day's Sad Stories.
Orginally published as a chapbook by Caketrain, this tale of a relationship struggling under the burden of infertility is told in pithy, poetic single-page chunks. Each page, individually titled, can stand alone although most of them gain power in proximity to the others. Mercy and Jake are a couple navigating modern life with it's vague threats and empty promises. Those threats eventually become real when chalk marked Xs begin appearing on their house.
Physics of Imaginary Objects is a book that takes constant risks. Hall seems to always being on the edge of absurdity or perhaps even self indulgence and yet in the end she leaves the reader with a sense of awe and wonder. By the time I was 20 pages in, I trusted her completely and was eager to go in whatever direction she wanted to take me.
The pleasure of reading Hall wasn't just intellectual or emotional it was also visceral. The University of Pittsburgh did a sterling job with the hardback. It's a small book like Algonquin used to put out. It fits perfectly in your hand. The cover image somehow conveys the folktale-like weirdness contained within. The page numbers are only on the right hand side and denoted with a slash. You'll see 20/21 or 104/105. I can't explain why I love that but I do.
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