Reviewed by Rod McLary
Firmly anchored in the Aboriginal landscape – stolen from the First Nations people with much bloodshed – this collection of short stories by John Kinsella speaks of people living on the edges of the community. Primarily known as a poet, John Kinsella brings to his short stories that sense of landscape which imbues his poetry for which he has deservedly won many awards.
His most recent critical work Legibility: an anti-fascist poetics traverses his thinking about the intersections of pacifism, protest, human rights, animal rights, environmentalism, anarchism, veganism and the role of poetry in resisting fascism. And some of these themes find a place in these short stories – but without polemics simply juxtaposing one or more of the themes against its opposite.
The following stories – a brief selection of the range on offer in this collection – provide some insight into the poetic mind of the author.
The eponymous story – Beam of Light – tells of a young couple with a new-born baby starting over leaving behind his addictions and her inability to cope with school. Together they are struggling to create a new life for themselves and their child but are finding it hard going. The ‘beam of light’ refers to a torch beam wielded by a gang of youths who are ‘casing us’ [7]. The intrusion makes them both realise that they ‘can’t stand it here’ [8] and they tacitly agree to leave.
Playing Chicken traverses the age-old story of an outsider desperate to be included but needing to prove himself first. In this story, proving yourself means playing chicken by running onto a busy road to see how closes to a moving car you can run without being hit. The story captures the ambivalence of the outsider who recognises the stupidity of the game but is urgently wanting to join them to be ‘part of the crew’ [9]. It takes his friend Monik to see through the game and tell him that he is being an idiot.
In Pantheism two old school friends reconnect by chance many years later and through their conversation realise how far their lives have diverged. Not only has Milt married the girl everyone loved but also inherited property whereas Nate is pressing on with his life much as he has always. But their values have also solidified – Nate would shoot anything and doesn’t ‘give a fuck about all this ethics bullshit’ [85] whereas Milt believes ‘there are gods everywhere around us’ [93]. While there is no resolution, the story is a vignette of diverging life views and the perhaps impossible task of compromise.
The stories are different in tone and subject and this makes them all the more interesting – and to some extent more challenging to read. The characters all exist on the edges of their communities and sometimes on the edges of their lives. The stories collectively and individually are rather haunting and the reader feels for each of the characters as they negotiate their place in the world.
A fine collection of short stories.
Beam of Light
[2024]
by John Kinsella
Transit Lounge Publishing
ISBN 978 1 92302 316 1
$32.99; 261pp