A twisted surprise

juliet

ā€˜Juliet Was a Surpriseā€™ book review

By Joshua Grant, Senior Columnist

4/5

Itā€™s hard to know what to make of the oddball protagonists in Bill Gastonā€™s latest collection of short stories compiled under the title Juliet Was a Surprise. Theyā€™re undeniably compelling, but simultaneously disturbing, pathetic, or at least slightly deranged. This isnā€™t so bad. I wouldnā€™t have it any other way.

In ā€œAt Work in the Fields of the Bulwer-Lytton,ā€ an ice-rink manager labours over entries to the Bulwer-Lytton worst sentence contest while his sister threatens suicide; in ā€œHouse Clowns,ā€ a middle-aged loner overreacts (severely, violently) to the double-booking of his holiday cabin; and in ā€œAny Forest Seen From Orbit,ā€ a virginal arborist is seduced by desperate housewife Juliet, with maiming results.

This is all rendered in dense and twisted prose, demonstrating Gastonā€™s ear for sound and image. As the lonely arborist considers Julietā€™s attitude towards a ruptured pipe, he thinks: ā€œI find not unsexy those women who own up to their own dirt, as it were. Not throw it crassly in your face, but smile in admitting they do indeed poop.ā€

The collection is also a (rare) good piece of Canadiana. Characters appear in Canadian locales, with Canadian props and attitudes. One story, ā€œGeriatric Arena Grope,ā€ hinges on national hero Leonard Cohenā€™s sexual reputation. Itā€™s not easy to write about Canada and remain interesting, but Gaston does a stellar job.

Juliet Was a Surprise, stuffed to bursting with dark laughter, is certainly worth a read for anyone interested in short fiction, Canadiana, or the imaginative use of language.