Review: The other side of better
Reviewed by: Erica Stretton
Author:
Michelle Elvy
Publisher:
Ad Hoc Fiction
ISBN:
9781912095025
Date Published:
21 June 2021
Pages:
172
Format:
Paperback
RRP:
$30.00
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Michelle Elvy’s second collection of short fictions, the other side of better, explores human encounters and wider world concerns, using sharply illustrated settings and deft poetic language to leave the reader thinking beyond the moment you read the last line of a piece.
The poetry of sight, smell and sound brings forth the pivotal moments in life where energy turns, leaving space for wonder and the universal human experiences we all recognise.
Elvy is the founder of Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction and of National Flash Fiction Day New Zealand. She has a wealth of experience writing and editing flash fiction, the form that drifts between poetry and story, and that experience is tangible in this book. The work is masterful, guiding the reader through each story and leaving them satisfied and contemplative when it’s over.
The other side of better comprises three sections: the first, lost and found, delves into beginnings and occasionally endings. People rub up against each other in encounters both literal and figurative, through childhood and romance, taking leaps of faith or holding back from them, thrust into disquiet.
In In the museum: triptych, John’s discomfort with a whale hunting scene in three parts is mirrored in a uniquely human squirm as he is pressed between two girls in his class: “His arm brushes against Marianne’s. Beth takes Marianne’s hand: a barricade of laced fingers.” And as the whale hunt reaches its conclusion: “John is sweating profusely now, squished between Marianne’s prickly sweater and Beth’s cruel gaze. The curator’s voice stabs into his head. He closes his eyes and rides the waves.”
An intruder in the first section, the Fuddy-Duddy Editor, makes pithy and wise comments on writing and the pitfalls of bringing together fact and fiction (“be sure to eliminate the parts that ought to be labelled ‘No One Cares’. First kiss? Ew. Throw it out.”) then takes solid charge in the second part of the book. For writers, gems abound here, wry and cutting: The Fuddy-Duddy Writer looks for her story: “Sometimes you hide
In the spaces between.
Sometimes you are the nothing of every day.”
As an example of metafiction, the Fuddy-Duddy Editor is outward and unapologetic. There are several stories here that illustrate life with a more everyday outlook, building the Fuddy-Duddy Editor’s world. This section sometimes drags a little but the writerly pearls of wisdom make it worth it—a flash fiction novella surrounded by a wider frame.
The final third is entitled in a dream in a dream in a dream and returns to more traditional flash fiction. The focus widens, encompassing climate concerns with a certain fantastical dreaminess, and the narrators vary from human, to collective, to animal. Imagery of the ocean and the natural world abound. Snapper is a diamond, exploring two characters’ desire and anger through an afternoon’s surfing at Muriwai. Emotion and environment collide and entwine.
There’s a huge sense of possibility within the vastness of the ocean, Elvy’s creatures and the dreamworld. The final story of the collection, entitled Whale Shark, ends in hope: “blueblack of ocean to blueblack of sky. Down and back up. Swimming laddering lunging climbing
She can be anything in her dreams.
She opens her mouth and swallows the stars.”
We’re left touching the ocean and sky, contemplating the huge dimensions of the world.
Elvy blends the boundaries between poetry and prose, moving effortlessly back and forth but maintaining the overarching threads with ease. Childhood, connection and desire, uncertainty and partings. The format of the book allows for re-examination of certain pieces from alternative perspectives, a second look at some characters, while maintaining the freshness and impact as we circle to view from ‘the other side of better.’
Reviewed by Erica Stretton
