I'm extremely excited to share my short story "Small Animals" that has been published over on Expat Press.
This story started as a much smaller, kind of experimental piece, but turned into what you see now. While I do think it still has a place in its original form, I fell in love with what it turned into, and luckily Expat Press did too. Told as a tetraptych, one woman examines people’s self-perception through the names of small animals others give us, and that we sometimes give ourselves, allowing the story to deep dive into some complex themes. As always, I'm grateful to share everything that it is with you.
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PREFACE: If this is your first trip to my blog, I write a lot of transgressive fiction and my blog posts are resources for other transgressive writers. I offer book reviews, transgressive topics for inspiration, research on social change, and creative writing techniques. The article below is meant to support writers looking for information and/or ideas. Welcome! Young Adult (YA) Literature is another tough genre to pinpoint. Romance is easy, horror is easy, but YA and transgressive fiction both seem to include other genre elements, thus hiding under other genres.
When defining YA lit, I ask myself: Is it a genre written for young adults? Do the characters need to be young adults? Do the stories need to be about common topics that young adults like? Is it all of the above? I think about things that I read as a young adult, which included transgressive fiction. I asked for Chuck Palahniuk’s Haunted for Christmas and my mom, who bought it for me, told me that the bookstore clerk told her that people had passed out from reading it (I couldn’t wait to get through it — and I didn’t pass out). There’s no way this would be considered YA, right? But I was his audience and, indeed, YA. So what makes something YA Lit? Southern Connecticut University says this: “The term “young adult literature” is inherently amorphous, for its constituent terms “young adult” and “literature” are dynamic, changing as culture and society — which provide their context — change. When the term first found common usage in the late 1960’s, it referred to realistic fiction that was set in the real (as opposed to imagined), contemporary world and addressed problems, issues, and life circumstances of interest to young readers aged approximately 12–18…” I appreciate they acknowledge that this genre can change as culture and society and the interest of young adults change. But considering that YA lit refers to a realistic, contemporary world that addresses problems and life circumstances… doesn’t this sound like transgressive fiction? Or at least Mild Transgressive Fiction? I guess it might depend on the concern we’re addressing, but please, we all have to know that kids deal with taboo things too. Which leads me to what this blog post is about: Transgressive fiction doesn’t talk about YA transgressive fiction enough — I mean, ever. When Googling “Young Adult Transgressive Fiction”, the same pages come up that appear when searching for “Transgressive Fiction”. This includes listings of the same novels and authors that adults who are interested in the genre are reading. The stories that are listed aren’t about teenagers (but is that a characteristic of YA lit? If YA lit just has to address problems that interest young readers, can they be about adult characters?). The ones popping up on Google would never be on the YA Lit shelves. But there are stories that are written about teenagers dealing with transgressive topics, transgressive topics ESPECIALLY for teenagers. Many adults like to pretend teens are too young to be involved in violence and sex, but by trying to keep them away from those plots, these topics become even more “transgressive” for this age group. Right? Here I list some contemporary novels, probably identified as YA novels, that are either outright transgressive or mildly transgressive. Push by Saphire Losing It by Keith Gray Ask the Passengers by AS King One Death, Nine Stories by Marc Aronson (Editor), Charles R. Smith Jr. Go Ask Alice ???? Monster by Walter Dean Myers Cut by Patricia McCormick Books by Ellen Hopkins (like Crank, Burned, Glass, etc.) So it appears that YA transgressive fiction, while not really identified as a genre, does exist. Are there any other books you would identify as Young Adult Transgressive Fiction? (Which I guess, at this point, I’m just defining as books focused on transgressive plots with teenager main characters.) PREFACE: If this is your first trip to my blog, I write a lot of transgressive fiction and my blog posts are resources for other transgressive writers. I offer book reviews, transgressive topics for inspiration, research on social change, and creative writing techniques. The review below is meant to explore this novel as a transgressive fiction text. Welcome! While writing stories that are a little gritty, or unhappy, or not considered ‘normal’ about society (broken families, disabilities, sexual experiences, among others), Victoria Lancelotta uses such beautiful language and striking images in her collection of short stories Here in the World that I fell in love immediately.
Here in the World by Victoria Lancelotta is a collection of thirteen stories. Each story is written from the first person narration of a woman (each story being a different woman) and her experience in the world, typically through the lens of relationships, more specifically her relationship to men/a man. My favorite story was the first story, “The Guide”, starting off with “Listen. Here is a love story.” And then “We filed to the alter in doll-sized veils and patent leather shoes, heads bowed, our trembling hands folded and held chest-high, and before kneeling to receive the wafer from the priest…” The story then weaves the imagery of church and religion through a woman’s relationship to a blind man who is rough during sex, to which the narrator muses over the pain and guilt she feels in this complicated relationship. The story ends on “What could a blind man pray for, what thing that he would get?” I think this was my favorite story of the bunch (Lancelotta started off strong!) for the powerful imagery and lingering questions it left. Her stories are not primarily focused on plot. Rather, I’d say they use the plot as a tool and opportunity to paint beautiful images with language and to present the reader with philosophical reflections in the questions and comments the narrators make. For example, in her final story, “Here in the World,” the narrator opens the story remembering what it’s like to be a young girl and get all the attention from boys who drive by as often happens when girls walk down the street. This experience of attention will thread through the main plot of the story which is that she is separated from her husband, soon-to-be ex, with whom her son still lives. She’s waiting for the son’s arrival to visit her new home, and she says, “I walk through all this carrying an invisible girl, buried under the flesh of a wife, a mother, an ex-wife by September, my hand out as I cross streets with an invisible boy, little outline just so-high when I saw him last, solid body, feet right on the ground outside that big other house with his father next to him.” What poignant language to reflect on these kinds of emotions and experiences so many women have either had, or can still relate to. Lancelotta is a thoughtful poet and each of her stories uses this skill to create a universal longing, even among different stories. She threads main plots alongside thematic events that work together to create a bigger message in such a short space. The stories were beautiful. I was drawn to some more than others (I particularly was less interested in her stories near the end which involved a few of the narrators living on the beach). I’m not sure why those types of stories appeal to me less — I can’t say it’s because that life is less familiar to me (because the dark urban settings that I love reading about aren’t exactly my life either), but maybe it’s because the connotation of such a life feels less taboo, despite the plot. Either way, I’d say the collection definitely includes some stories that are stronger and more vivid than others (as with most anthologies). I would consider this mild transgressive fiction, which I discuss in my previous blog post, because it definitely incorporates transgression (like I said, politically and socially taboo relationships, actions, etc.) and at some points the abuse of the body (which I discuss here as a great technique for transgressive fiction) but because Lancelotta’s stories seemingly focus more on the beautiful language than the shock of the plot, it’s hard for me to define this as complete transgressive fiction. It’s mild. It definitely includes elements, and anyone who enjoys pretty language, deep reflections, and subtly taboo relationships, will love this book. I bought this book by accident — I was at 2nd and Charles, a used bookstore, just browsing books. Couldn’t find anything by authors I knew who I hadn’t read yet, and they had a sale going on for buy 2 get 2 free, so there’s no way I couldn’t find more books when they were free books anyway. So I’m just pulling out book after book across a ton of different shelves and this cover image (along with the title) caught my eye. They say “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” but there was no way this was your average fiction book. I skimmed a story and was sold. I’m grateful I stumbled upon this and was inspired by Lancellot’s craft! PREFACE: If this is your first trip to my blog, I write a lot of transgressive fiction and my blog posts are resources for other transgressive writers. I offer book reviews, transgressive topics for inspiration, research on social change, and creative writing techniques. The article below is meant to support writers looking for information and/or ideas. Welcome! Mild transgressive fiction — I mention in my blog post “What Is Transgressive Fiction” that I considered a lot of writing to be transgressive fiction after first learning the genre some 15+ years ago. My introduction was through Chuck Palahniuk’s Invisible Monsters and I’d never read anything like it. I assumed things even in that contemporary/conversational form, or remotely risque, must be transgressive fiction. Since reading and researching more, I now understand/define transgressive fiction as a text whose purpose is to explore/critique social norms through excessive or exaggerated transgression. This focus makes it difficult for a text to really fall under a different genre, as I talk about in “What Is Transgressive Fiction.”
But where does that leave the other writing that I read that feels similar to the transgressive fiction style, but doesn’t quite cut that definition? This is where I’ve decided to coin the term “mild transgressive fiction”. It’s when a text breaks some norms, but is not focused on making a political statement through norm breaking. Or when a text is not intentional about having characters break (exaggerated) norms but instead acknowledges the broken norms that people don’t want to talk about or feel embarrassed by if they do. For example, I will discuss a short story from Miranda July’s anthology No One Belongs Here More Than You. In her story “The Shared Patio”, July has the narrator describe a living situation in which a couple rents the first floor and she rents the upstairs floor. The narrator is concerned about the use of the patio and if the couple understands it is to be both of theirs. She marks the days they use it down on a calendar and matches her time on the patio to theirs. She eventually talks to the husband and enjoys the patio with him while his wife is at work. During a conversation, he has a medical emergency and the narrator, unsure of how to respond, instead dreams that they have a very intimate conversation, acknowledging some kind of romance, despite recognizing that he is still married. In reality, the wife comes home and manages to save her husband and the narrator sort of slips away, unnoticed again. This story does not describe some blatantly shocking scene, right? There’s no rape, drugs, body destruction, nothing gory or disgusting. There’s no big critique on society. But there is transgression — it’s just subtle. The story is about a woman who watched her neighbors a little too close for comfort — stalkerish? Then she doesn’t try to help her neighbor when he’s dying (although he does survive by his wife). Then she continues to imagine him intimately, even though he’s married. All of these things go against accepted norms. And I think this is where defining transgressive fiction can become difficult for people, because like I previously mentioned, a lot of stories involve transgression — but it’s hard to define those texts (like “The Shared Patio”) as transgressive fiction, and it’s because of this. Because they are what I’m calling mild transgressive fiction —stories that include transgressions, they acknowledge them, point out the ways in which they are wrong or uncomfortable, but are not necessarily a story about them, or not critiquing society through them, or not trying to create change through them. These actions are instead just a part of the story, or maybe about a theme unrelated to social norms. The thing is, this kind of transgression is sneaky, but is more relatable. Way more people are going to have experienced paying too close attention to ‘a neighbor’, or dreaming of someone in a taboo way, than say murder. My review for Here in the World by Victoria Lancelotta (coming this Wednesday!) addresses her stories as such texts, discussing ‘politically’ and ‘socially’ incorrect things, but in a more subtle way than other transgressive fiction. |
I'm Shannon Waite and I write stories about norms, characters who break norms, and society's wounds. They're always contemporary, often transgressive.
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