RED SPIKES
By MARGO LANAGAN

Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2007
ISBN: 9780375843204
167 pages; Hardcover
GENRE(S): Fiction, Short Stories, Young Adult, Fantasy, Horror

Reviewed by Yennie Cheung

Red Spikes is not an easy read. This is not to say that it is difficult to read or that Margo Lanagan is a poor writer. Rather, it is quite the opposite: this slender volume of short stories is so thick with detail that one cannot idly consume it over the course of an afternoon and expect to feel it properly. Those who do attempt to feel it properly can expect to feel amused, uneasy, and most certainly weirded out.

There is a distinctly youthful sensibility to these stories, as most of them deal with children and teenagers in fantastical situations. But the fairy tale aspects of Red Spikes are not mere child's play; Lanagan is grimmer than the Brothers Grimm and capable of being exceptionally creepy. "Winkie," for example, is the tale of a girl caught by a bogeyman who makes eyelids out of children's skin. And readers will be disturbed by "Monkey's Paternoster," a story about a group of female primates in captivity who fear the imminent death of their alpha male. Suffice it to say that monkey rape (yes, monkey rape) is a gruesome subject to read.

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Even the deceptively simple unrequited love story in "A Good Heart" turns sinister in Lanagan's skilled hands, but here, the dark plot twist serves to highlight the titular goodness of the protagonist, Arlen. Like Lanagan's Hugo Award-nominated story "Singing My Sister Down," "A Good Heart" uses a strange and saddening situation to reveal the many layers of the human heart and the different sides of every story. Though Arlen may be heartbroken and jaded, there is a sense of hope for him—hope that through this experience, he will persevere.

Death and spirituality are important topics for Lanagan, but there is no underlying Bible thumping here. Instead, she muses on the idea of guardian angels or how to connect to one's god. Her Catholic upbringing creates the basis for "Under Hell, Over Heaven," perhaps the most intriguing story of the ten. Here, a group of dead souls in Limbo escort a man from Heaven to the gates of Hell so that they may receive "brownie points" with the powers that be and eventually be allowed into Heaven. Her descriptions of the three afterworlds are alternately thoughtful and frightening. Limbo is as bleak as a walk through Mordor, while the depiction of Hell's gates—including the screaming souls of the damned trying to claw their way to freedom—is as vivid as a childhood nightmare.

Whether describing different lands or real world situations, Lanagan always creates an otherworldly tone that makes each story stand out and the book flow as a whole. Sometimes, this sense of place is apparent in the actions of her characters and the customs of her fictitious lands, but other times, Lanagan is able to convey fantasy with something as subtle as an unusual character name or a striking word choice. She immerses readers into each world so suddenly and fully that jumping directly into the next story may be disorienting.

If there is one thing Lanagan's stories seem to lack, though, it is a sense of completion. Several of the stories feel more like vignettes with important chunks of information left out than like finished works. Many end rather abruptly (like "Winkie") or read like the beginning of a much longer work ("Baby Jane"). "Daughter of the Clay," for example, is a dramatic tale of twins, each born in the wrong dimension, and one twin's quest to fix the mistake. The story moves quickly and is engaging, but it forces readers simply to accept the situation without explanation. It seems to lack a clear purpose that a young reader can grasp easily.

Still, Lanagan is so skilled in her ability to create these dark and sometimes disturbing stories that these blind spots are moderately forgivable. Rather than lamenting the omitted, readers will find themselves lingering on the strange but wonderful worlds she has created, and that is an essential quality in great speculative fiction.

(November, 2007)