Dinosaurs on Other Planets: ‘intelligent, multi-layered stories which demand a lot’

There is a startling moment in The Smell of Dead Flowers, one of many accomplished stories in Danielle McLaughlin’s debut collection Dinosaurs on Other Planets, in which the reader feels unexpectedly omniscient.

As she heads to a lake for an early autumn picnic, Louise, the story’s narrator, becomes acutely aware of the moment, lulled into this state by the “lavish, ambiguous” music of Debussy which her landlady Lou Anne has chosen from a messy pile of cassette tapes which litter the car:

“…the strangeness of the harmonies unsettled me, brought a feeling I was unable to identify as one thing or another … Lou Anne’s driving was erratic: she took corners too wide and too fast, went through a red light at a junction. The city was quiet that morning, mellow … and as we passed the cemetery an elderly man raised a hand in greeting, perhaps mistaking us for someone else.”

The scene is startling because while Louise cannot pinpoint what it is exactly that disquiets her, for the attentive reader, there is no such hesitation.

The waving elderly man is not mistaken.

At first it is a shock to realise that we, the readers, understand something the central protagonists have missed.

Earlier in the story we have been introduced to Cassie, Lou Anne’s disabled daughter. Her interests and peculiarities have until then seemed little more than notable characteristics, interesting in passing, disturbing even, but signifying little more. We assume her fascination with dead insects can be attributed to her disability.

But when that elderly man waves at the car as it speeds by he seems familiar, and the significance of an earlier incident suddenly becomes clear.

Louise had been looking at a photograph of a younger Cassie in which she holds out an “enormous jewel” of a butterfly to the camera, its vibrancy a sharp contrast to the dusty, disintegrating creatures Cassie collects – a contrast which seems to suggest to the reader: pay attention to this moment.

The butterfly had been given to Cassie by her grandfather, Daddy, an important figure in Cassie’s life, as her mother Lou Anne explains:

“Cassie was very fond of Daddy … She misses him terribly.”

It’s such a matter of fact statement, uttered with such casualness that it’s easy to miss. But there is a subliminal power to Danielle McLaughlin’s writing which ensures we register it even if we can’t decipher its meaning immediately.

But when that elderly man waves it’s almost as if he is trying to draw our attention to all the little hints and portents which have been scattered throughout the story. It is Daddy who is standing in the cemetery warning us, letting us know that Lou Anne’s erratic driving is a sign of the fate which is about to befall her daughter.

It’s a technique which permeates the whole collection – this quiet, subliminal drip feeding of information to the reader.

The dying bluebottles in All About Alice, for example, have an unmistakable beauty to them all “velvety”, “gauzy” and “languid”, but there is also a hint of melancholy. We watch them as they beat their wings against the window and understand that their “last frantic salute to life and summer” is a measure of Alice’s own sad realisation that she is trapped at home with her elderly father.

The husband in Along The Heron Studded River drives to work on a winter morning “shattering membranes of ice stretched across puddles”, the membranes echoing the “restraint” with which he once made love to his then pregnant wife and suggesting this restraint may be something he now subconsciously regrets.

These are intelligent, multi-layered stories which demand a lot of the reader, the detail and the symbolism only become apparent after a second or third reading.

On first reading the imagery is so arresting, it is better simply to allow yourself to be carried along with the narrative.

Take this very visceral passage from Silhouette in which Aileen, the story’s protagonist, struggles to contain the fear which fills her when she thinks about her pregnancy:

“If she could lift the baby out now, she would. She would pass it, red and dripping across the bed to Dorene. Dorene would know what to do with it.”

The idea of an expectant mother feeling frightened of her unborn child, horrified of it even, is very difficult to get across without making your character appear unsympathetic.

And Aileen does come across as unlikeable when she talks of her unborn child in such a supremely detached manner. Referring to it is an “it”.

Yet, the graphic bloodiness of the image allows us to understand Aileen’s fear even if we can’t quite accept it.

After all who would not be afraid of that red, dripping blood?

But McLaughlin is a nuanced writer with a firm grasp of character and she clearly wants us to understand who these people are.

So when Aileen’s dying mother admits that she is “worried about what will happen at the end”, we are suddenly provided with a counterpoint to Aileen’s own, secret fears. It is possible to have sympathy for both women, McLaughlin seems to suggest.

What is interesting about these descriptive passages, and many others within the collection, is that they show the very accomplished level of craft in McLaughlin’s writing. No sentence is without purpose, each word is carefully considered to ensure the description goes beyond mere scene setting; this is imagery and description functioning at a deep psychological level, the characters revealed to us as much through the things they say and do as the things they subconsciously observe.

It’s as if the images distort time and space and allow us to cross some threshold and step inside the worlds these characters inhabit.

It can be a disconcerting experience to find yourself in such a world, but it is a measure of McLaughlin’s talent and craft that her stories filter through so deeply you can be forgiven for thinking they are your own, half-remembered dreams.

[ www.jenharvey.net ]