Review: Glorious Frazzled Beings by Angélique Lalonde

When reading this short story collection, it helped me to be aware of the author’s Indigenous background. (Her author bio page says that she lives in Gitxsan territory in British Columbia.) The stories themselves aren’t necessarily explicit that their characters and themes come from that culture, and if I didn’t know about the author’s background, it might be easy to categorize them as “magical realism,” because of the supernatural beings that inhabit them (e.g. ghosts, a boy with fox ears, a lady with a big head). But that genre classification seems a bit disrespectful to me, since it comes from literary academic theory. The book is more of an expression of the author’s culture.

I didn’t love every story in this collection, but the ones that I did, I loved a lot. I want to point out the two that I enjoyed most, both of which deal with anxieties around motherhood: the desire to become a mother, but on the flipside, an honest examination of the hardships of motherhood.

“Malarkey” is about a couple where the negligent male partner, Dev, is obsessed with a graphic novel that he’s writing. His story triggered my penchant for sci-fi, and is presented in a cool way by Lalonde: in dry, DFW-esque footnotes that mock him without being mean about it. The intergalactic content of his story reminds me of Saga, and the story-within-a-story idea reminds me of Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin.

On the other side of this relationship, the female partner Marianne holds a deep resentment that Dev doesn’t want to commit to parenthood with her, while at the same time accepting that she doesn’t have many other options if she wants to fulfill her goal at becoming a mother.

For weeks she fumed and sputtered, biting at her nails, going around things in her head convinced of what she’d suspected all along—that his uncertainties and self-interest would rob her of a motherhood she had once waffled about wanting, but that was now the thing she desired most to make real.

• Angélique Lalonde

The story asks the question, is parenthood still desirable, even if only one partner is willing to participate? In my idealistic mind, I believe the answer should be No, because it feels unfair, that one partner should bear all of the responsibility. But “Malarkey” made me reconsider, and I’m still wrestling with the question.

“The Pregnancy Test” explores similar ground, through the perspective of several women who stumble upon a discarded pregnancy test in a public washroom.

Pregnancy tests are often mined for drama in rom-coms or TV sitcoms, and I like that this story compresses the many possible reactions into a quick series of vignettes, while also adding complexity beyond the “This is the happiest day of my life!”/“My life is ruined!” dichotomy.

One of the women who sees the test hopes for it to be positive, because she herself hopes for a positive test. Another, a new mother, doesn’t even remember how she reacted to her own test, because she’s so burnt out by taking care of the baby. An older woman laughs to herself about how gross sex is, glad that she’s moved beyond that phase in her life, but maybe also a little wistful.

The story notably leaves out the result of the actual pregnancy test, and doesn’t give any information about the woman who took it, other than her name.

A real woman in the world walking around with relief or great happiness, perplexing ambiguity or abject terror, curiosity or bewilderment.

• Angélique Lalonde

In that way, it forces you as the reader to think about your own reaction. Do you want it to be positive or negative?