Big Weird Lonely Hearts by Allen C Jones
MidnightSun Publishing; RRP: $24.99AUD
I had the pleasure of meeting, and interviewing, Allen C Jones last year upon release of his debut novel Her Death Was Also Water. An otherworldly high-seas adventure with eco overtones, Her Death follows the last survivors of a global inundation. But if you come for the dystopian biblical allusions, you’ll stay for the deep dive on bravery and frailty, the selfless and the selfish, love and conflict. Observing the absurdities and incongruities of the human emotional experience is Jones’ sweet spot. With his newest release he’s not waiting for you to figure that out. Big Weird Lonely Hearts? The clue is in the name!
This short story collection is touted as a meeting of Nikolai Gogal and Lydia Millet; surrealist social commentary meets ‘the charismatic oddity of human behaviour’. Each carefully constructed tale in this series of witty observations has love at its heart, so to speak, but explores that most complex of subjects via heavily symbolic, experimental narratives, in equal parts hard-hitting and hilarious.
As the back cover blurb reads, stories cover such territory as a man mistaken for a bush, a mermaid refugee, a bird who dreams of weaponizing cats, a boy with a computer for a face, and a woman in love with a severed arm. Quirky and darkly comic, for sure, but also insightful examinations of perceived and constructed identities, shameful fantasies, disconnection, and yearning. This type of tight, experimental narrative produces work that’s ripe for deconstruction; a glorious site for author and reader to collide and create new meanings on every visit. You will find things that resonate and things that baffle.
Read this collection for enjoyment, absolutely, but I’d also recommend it to emerging writers, or teachers of writing. Jones excels at ambiguous, yet satisfying, conclusions, for example, and nails the first line hook:
It’s easier than you think to have a computer for a face.
One morning, Mr Bird woke up with the voice of a cat.
She knew the stories were coming true the day she found the clitoris on the back of her knee.
This last offers a hint at the playful but jarring nature of Jones’ inventive storytelling. It begins one of my favourites in the collection – titled 62.85° N, 9.080 E – in which a woman endures a relationship with a writer whose stories appear to influence real world events. It grows increasingly meta until we’re unsure who is writing whose future in this partnership. It celebrates ‘the wonderous power of writing’ whilst considering questions about control and coercion. It left me reflecting on my own relationships with people, and with writing!
Jones is an academic currently based at the University of Stavanger, Norway. His scholarly work investigates experimental writing and literary game pedagogy. This is his first collection of short stories, following a poetry collection and a novel. His writing appears widely in print and online.
Big Weird Lonely Hearts is currently available for pre-order before its November release.
Visit MidnightSun Publishing to purchase.
