The first sentence in Alex Leslie’s bio on her blog, Exile Garden, is “I’m from Vancouver.” This detail, followed in the next paragraphs by descriptions of her literary achievements, is aptly left to stand on its own, unaccompanied by any other biographical information. Leslie’s origins are clearly important in her work, People Who Disappear, a collection of stories published in April of this year. The stories, some of which could be read as lengthy prose poems, demonstrate her intricate ties with wet, salty British Columbia and its seas, ports, cities and forests. The stories’ characters, relationships, themes and language are all anchored in well-fleshed out settings inspired by Leslie’s life in Vancouver and BC. Her immersive sensory descriptions leave readers with the impression that sand is falling out from between the book’s pages as foghorns blow somewhere in a distant windy sky.
The collection’s stories are connected by the notion expressed in its title, People Who Disappear. All of the stories deal with different disappearances, whether the disappearance of a skull fragment and its memory into the depths of the ocean in “Face” or of an Internet sensation in “People Who Are Michael.” Sometimes, these disappearances occur as characters strive to let go of the past or move forward. Other times, the people who vanish do not seem to want to leave. In all of these cases, however, the people who disappear do so like maritime mists, slipping away, nonviolently into another world. Leslie seems to want to explore the origins of people leaving and changing, common, subtle disruptions that beset us so often in real life. One day, we wake up, and realize—like many of Leslie’s characters—someone is simply gone.
The relationships, ideas, and thoughts developed in People Who Disappear are communicated by Leslie through skilful poetic language, highlighting novel connections between disparate ideas. Characters from People Who Disappear understand their worlds through images, sensory experiences and metaphors.
The words Leslie chooses to express her characters’ perspectives seem to strike at the core of feelings in a deeper sense and demonstrate how various facets of life can be articulated in interesting ways by connecting contradictory or bizarre images and notions. Apt and quirky comparisons such as that between a sinking ferry and a “butcher knife stuck crooked into the sky” in “The Coast is a Road”—the story’s title is another good example of her fitting metaphors— allow Leslie to capture unique moments which express personal perspectives on the world, beautiful snapshots of events through her characters’ eyes. These metaphors repeatedly beg to be analyzed as they give the impression of more depth than is apparent.
Leslie’s powerful use of poetic techniques and language, however, sometimes also leads to confusion or an impeding of pace. Continual brief, fleeting images and metaphors can sometimes barely be grasped before they are replaced by more. For instance, many of the techniques used in “Swimmers” drown out the story’s plot and its themes are difficult to grasp. Phrases such as “moving rows of picture windows of faces soaked with the future months of water” and “Moods, cold water tickling long fingers down, looking for something in weather” follow each other throughout the story. While they are often beautiful expressions, their frequency bogs down the prose.
Similarly, the general notions being explored in the text are evident enough, but the potential depth of the ideas at hand are lost in the ambiguity that comes with the abundance of techniques. Portions of some stories like “Swimmers,” described above, and bits of “The Coast is a Road,” such as its early, sensuous description of electric wires on the road, seem to be inundated with so many images and ambiguous metaphors that they are lost, perhaps disappearing into the author’s style like the people vanishing throughout the collection.
Leslie’s mastery of imagery and comparisons is matched by her creation and development of characters and relationships. Her characters are complex, often dealing with contradictory impulses and desires, like the narrator in “Like Mind” who wishes to abandon her mentally unstable friend though her actions demonstrate her stubborn loyalty; she spends an entire day helping him gather unwanted furniture for his new home while continually telling herself that she should not have come and that she should leave. Nevertheless, she calls him to see how he is doing weeks later.
The people in the collectionare very real in that they can easily evoke empathy from readers. The equally powerful relationships are sometimes bizarre yet still familiar as characters describe their easily recognizable feelings vis-à-vis each other and their circumstances. For example, while the capturer-captive relationship between Banana and Derek in “Long Way From Nowhere” may not be something readers have experienced, the desire for escape Banana feels and conveys certainly is.
The depictions of odd characters, relationships and events in People Who Disappear are filtered through familiar emotions and framed by beautiful settings and language, a compelling combination of dissimilar aspects. This haunting book can remind us about life’s inconsistencies and the beauty in all its differences, as well as the links between ideas, the senses and human feelings.
Freehand | 256 pages | $21.95 | paper | ISBN #978-1554810598
‘People Who Disappear’ by Alex Leslie
Book Reviews
The first sentence in Alex Leslie’s bio on her blog, Exile Garden, is “I’m from Vancouver.” This detail, followed in the next paragraphs by descriptions of her literary achievements, is aptly left to stand on its own, unaccompanied by any other biographical information. Leslie’s origins are clearly important in her work, People Who Disappear, a collection of stories published in April of this year. The stories, some of which could be read as lengthy prose poems, demonstrate her intricate ties with wet, salty British Columbia and its seas, ports, cities and forests. The stories’ characters, relationships, themes and language are all anchored in well-fleshed out settings inspired by Leslie’s life in Vancouver and BC. Her immersive sensory descriptions leave readers with the impression that sand is falling out from between the book’s pages as foghorns blow somewhere in a distant windy sky.
The collection’s stories are connected by the notion expressed in its title, People Who Disappear. All of the stories deal with different disappearances, whether the disappearance of a skull fragment and its memory into the depths of the ocean in “Face” or of an Internet sensation in “People Who Are Michael.” Sometimes, these disappearances occur as characters strive to let go of the past or move forward. Other times, the people who vanish do not seem to want to leave. In all of these cases, however, the people who disappear do so like maritime mists, slipping away, nonviolently into another world. Leslie seems to want to explore the origins of people leaving and changing, common, subtle disruptions that beset us so often in real life. One day, we wake up, and realize—like many of Leslie’s characters—someone is simply gone.
The relationships, ideas, and thoughts developed in People Who Disappear are communicated by Leslie through skilful poetic language, highlighting novel connections between disparate ideas. Characters from People Who Disappear understand their worlds through images, sensory experiences and metaphors.
The words Leslie chooses to express her characters’ perspectives seem to strike at the core of feelings in a deeper sense and demonstrate how various facets of life can be articulated in interesting ways by connecting contradictory or bizarre images and notions. Apt and quirky comparisons such as that between a sinking ferry and a “butcher knife stuck crooked into the sky” in “The Coast is a Road”—the story’s title is another good example of her fitting metaphors— allow Leslie to capture unique moments which express personal perspectives on the world, beautiful snapshots of events through her characters’ eyes. These metaphors repeatedly beg to be analyzed as they give the impression of more depth than is apparent.
Leslie’s powerful use of poetic techniques and language, however, sometimes also leads to confusion or an impeding of pace. Continual brief, fleeting images and metaphors can sometimes barely be grasped before they are replaced by more. For instance, many of the techniques used in “Swimmers” drown out the story’s plot and its themes are difficult to grasp. Phrases such as “moving rows of picture windows of faces soaked with the future months of water” and “Moods, cold water tickling long fingers down, looking for something in weather” follow each other throughout the story. While they are often beautiful expressions, their frequency bogs down the prose.
Similarly, the general notions being explored in the text are evident enough, but the potential depth of the ideas at hand are lost in the ambiguity that comes with the abundance of techniques. Portions of some stories like “Swimmers,” described above, and bits of “The Coast is a Road,” such as its early, sensuous description of electric wires on the road, seem to be inundated with so many images and ambiguous metaphors that they are lost, perhaps disappearing into the author’s style like the people vanishing throughout the collection.
Leslie’s mastery of imagery and comparisons is matched by her creation and development of characters and relationships. Her characters are complex, often dealing with contradictory impulses and desires, like the narrator in “Like Mind” who wishes to abandon her mentally unstable friend though her actions demonstrate her stubborn loyalty; she spends an entire day helping him gather unwanted furniture for his new home while continually telling herself that she should not have come and that she should leave. Nevertheless, she calls him to see how he is doing weeks later.
The people in the collectionare very real in that they can easily evoke empathy from readers. The equally powerful relationships are sometimes bizarre yet still familiar as characters describe their easily recognizable feelings vis-à-vis each other and their circumstances. For example, while the capturer-captive relationship between Banana and Derek in “Long Way From Nowhere” may not be something readers have experienced, the desire for escape Banana feels and conveys certainly is.
The depictions of odd characters, relationships and events in People Who Disappear are filtered through familiar emotions and framed by beautiful settings and language, a compelling combination of dissimilar aspects. This haunting book can remind us about life’s inconsistencies and the beauty in all its differences, as well as the links between ideas, the senses and human feelings.
Freehand | 256 pages | $21.95 | paper | ISBN #978-1554810598