Review: 'First, Body: Stories' by Melanie Rae Thon
Pub. Date: 12/30/2014
Publisher: Open Road Media Integrated
Winner of the 1997 Whiting Writers' Award:Taut, persistent, and brilliantly cadenced, First, Body is a testament to the breathtaking virtuosity of Granta-acclaimed author Melanie Rae Thon
Through nine searing works of fiction, Melanie Rae Thon looks to the people who live in the borderlands, turning a keen and compassionate eye to those marginalized by circumstance and transgression. Taking us from the cobblestone streets of Boston to a deserted Montana road, from dance halls to hospital morgues, these urgent tales careen between the faults of the body and those of the mind, exploring the irruption of the past through the present, the sudden accidents and misguided passions that make it impossible to return to the safe territory of a former life.
The stories in First, Body are technically all pretty sad, and, dare I say, depressing. And yet there is also a melancholy beauty to all of them. The titular 'First, Body' is a deeply tragic investigation of love, trying to accept one's self, and not knowing your own place in the world. Yet is it really about these things? It's hard to say. 'Little White Sister' considers race and drug (ab)use, two topics that are very easily exploited and which Melanie Rae Thon carefully weaves into a story of loneliness and identity. 'Nobody's Daughter' sees a woman reconsider her life and how the seeming past happiness of her childhood has twisted into a present misery. Another story that engages with childhood is 'Snow Thief', which questions how much we know our parents and ourselves and what the difference is between the childhood we experience and the one we remember. Each of the stories in this collection engages with some intense topics such as, for example, abortion in 'Necessary Angels' or death and self-punishment in 'Father, Lover, Deadman, Dreamer', and it can make the whole collection feel very heavy. These definitely aren't stories I read through quickly, jumping to the next immediately after having finished the first. They need their time to sink in and so it took me quite a while to get through the collection and to figure out my own thoughts on it. While I struggled with the stories at times, didn't entirely follow them, or didn't quite know where Thon was leading me, I did remain fascinated throughout.
I was intrigued into this collection in part by the description in the blurb, of Melanie Rae Thon's "taut, persistent, and brilliantly cadenced" writing. And it definitely is all of these things. There is an utter starkness to these tales, to the persistence with which Rae Thon brings home her point, and to the cadence of it. There is an inflection to her writing that feels very real, that hits the ear as true, and there is something musical to how her writing seems to capture the thoughts of her characters. It is not that all of these characters are in their final moments, but it does feel like many of these characters are having the kind of realisations or thoughts which lead to a shift, to the ending of a song and, hopefully, the starting of a new, different one. That hope is perhaps more a desire for hope on my part, but it was nonetheless one which her writing inspired in me, alongside a deeper and perhaps gentler understanding of my fellow human beings. We are all torn in our own ways, used and discarded, tied down in our own bodies and unable to escape from them. That's a rough realisation, but once you can include that misery in your point of view, there is also still beauty there.
I give this collection...
3 Universes!
First, Body is a fascinating collection of rough but insightful stories. Melanie Rae Thon's characters go through it and she never shies away from making their hardships explicit. While this sometimes makes for a painful reading experience, it is nonetheless an experience that widens your perspective. And her writing is indeed, top notch.
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