Madeline Sonik

The world of Madeline Sonik’s unsettling volume of short fiction, the town of Fontainebleau, is menacing, tragic, violent and surreal. These seventeen linked stories chronicle the traumas, tormented longings and reckless escapades of the anguished adults, freaks of nature, psychos, juvenile delinquents, lost and frightened children, and at least one haunted police officer, who live there. Fontainebleau is a dead-end place, blighted, ill-starred, ramshackle and dangerous: a place that breeds desperation and engenders boredom, despair, sometimes wild and irrational hope, among its unlucky inhabitants—a place that people escape from rather than to—a place where a dead body, sawn in half, turns up in the river. In Fontainebleau people prey on one another, or try to. “Air Time,” which tells a lurid tale of a pair of sleazy hustlers plying two teenage girls with drinks at a neighbourhood bar with the intention of drugging them and using them to make a porn film, ends with an ironic twist. In “King Rat,” naïve, deluded Lynette either can’t or won’t accept that her boyfriend, Steve, has abandoned her and baby Jess; though, despite her state of denial, she is not shy about giving relationship advice to her gay friend Brian. Many characters appear in multiple stories. Brothers Kevin and Jimmy Robinson both end up dead, Kevin in a freakish accident (“Slick”), Jimmy under very suspicious circumstances (“Murder”). Perhaps the book’s most vividly imagined and volatile household is the one that sisters Lizzie, Audrey, Suzy and Celeste share with their reclusive, alcoholic mother. The house is at the end of Monica Street, next to a field, where the youngest sister, Celeste, who is afflicted with mermaid syndrome (or Sirenomelia: a congenital defect in which the legs are fused together), communes with the crows. The field is a magical, terrible, beautiful place. After Celeste disappears, Lizzie becomes obsessed with finding her and focuses her search there, losing herself in the process. Later, after their mother’s death, in the story “Misdirection,” Suzy has the property excavated, illegally digging up native artefacts that she plans to sell. Roger Foley, the policeman, who appears in several stories, suffers from visions and strange out-of-body experiences and obsesses about the dead. He is also fixated on Lizzie, who can’t stand him. Sonik has written a story sequence that creates its own distinctive and disturbing mythology. Reading the book is somewhat like taking a ride through a nightmarish urban landscape littered with corpses and festering with secrets. Undeniably, the book leaves an indelible impression on the reader. In Fontainebleau, Madeline Sonik displays absolute control over some very slippery material, writing eloquently and sensitively of the darkness at the heart of human experience and showing us how our actions can be driven by forces and impulses beyond our control and beyond our understanding.… (meer)

When we look back on our lives, or that of others, it is always in the context of other things, both personal ("I remember such and such happened just after graduation night") and societal ("We didn't have to do any school lessons on the day that Canada won that hockey game against Russia in 1972; for the first time we got to watch tv in school, and celebrate that goal together"). We share those communal events; they are markers in our lives. Our own unique life events are juxtaposed with those common markers. It's not just events we mark either. It is also a gradual tide of change that we often don't see clearly at the time, but can easily recognise it in our hindsight. And then when we look back, we can't help but notice for instance, how much a father smoked, completely oblivious to the future consequences. Back then, parents usually hit their kids, often beat their kids even, but that was the norm and it was acceptable (so long as no marks were left), but 40 years later this is no longer tolerated by society. Kids still get beaten of course, but the general pervasive attitude of 'spare the rod, spoil the child' fortunately finally seems to be dissipating.

This is not really the same kind of book as those in the recent flood of 'misery memoirs'. It is really a memoir of so many of us growing up in the 60s and 70s, almost an 'Everyman's Memoir'. Those of us of that certain age will find much to identify with. It is a collection of discrete essays on episodes or experiences of her childhood, but it is in the context of other larger events and how they meshed with the lives of her family. I am about the same age, and her childhood was split between Illinois and Ontario, so her communal touchstones were mine too, and for that reason it felt we were sharing some common stories.

It is well-written, insightful, and mature, as would be expected since Sonik is an award-winning writer, who now teaches at University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.… (meer)

When we look back on our lives, or that of others, it is always in the context of other things, both personal ("I remember such and such happened just after graduation night") and societal ("We didn't have to do any school lessons on the day that Canada won that hockey game against Russia in 1972; for the first time we got to watch tv in school, and celebrate that goal together"). We share those communal events; they are markers in our lives. Our own unique life events are juxtaposed with those common markers. It's not just events we mark either. It is also a gradual tide of change that we often don't see clearly at the time, but can easily recognise it in our hindsight. And then when we look back, we can't help but notice for instance, how much a father smoked, completely oblivious to the future consequences. Back then, parents usually hit their kids, often beat their kids even, but that was the norm and it was acceptable (so long as no marks were left), but 40 years later this is no longer tolerated by society. Kids still get beaten of course, but the general pervasive attitude of 'spare the rod, spoil the child' fortunately finally seems to be dissipating.

This is not really the same kind of book as those in the recent flood of 'misery memoirs'. It is really a memoir of so many of us growing up in the 60s and 70s, almost an 'Everyman's Memoir'. Those of us of that certain age will find much to identify with. It is a collection of discrete essays on episodes or experiences of her childhood, but it is in the context of other larger events and how they meshed with the lives of her family. I am about the same age, and her childhood was split between Illinois and Ontario, so her communal touchstones were mine too, and for that reason it felt we were sharing some common stories.

It is well-written, insightful, and mature, as would be expected since Sonik is an award-winning writer, who now teaches at University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.… (meer)