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Black Juice Margo Lanagan Books

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Black Juice Margo Lanagan Books

This book was recommended to me by my short story writing teacher at TAFE because Margo Lanagan is such an expert in compressing a story in a way that is so very descriptive. Every line is newsy and colorful keeping the reader turning the pages.
I enjoyed all the stories of this book because every one took me to a place that I've never been or even heard of before. I was transported and found it easy to become one of the characters. The only criticism I have of Margo's writing is that she often left the reader questioning, "then what happened" at the end. Maybe that is a good idea and lets the reader work out their own ending. I prefer neat and tidy ending with all questions answered.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes short stories and appreciates great imagination.


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Black Juice Margo Lanagan Books Reviews

Having been given a number of "warnings" about the intensity of Lanagan's most recent book, Tender Morsels, I decided to get a better sense of her writing through one of her short story collections first.

I wish someone had warned me about this collection as well.

Lanagan is an intense writer of dark, emotional, human fantasy worlds. There are echoes of older cultures and languages buried deep in these worlds, a sense not so much as coming from another planet but as if reading reports from undiscovered country. It is the type of fiction that reads like literary reportage from a past frontier transported through time. Like something forbidden, these stories are a black juice indeed.

The collection opens with "Singing Down My Sister," a strange description of a ritual that involves sending a woman out into the center of a lake of tar. Knowing Lanagan hails from Australia, and having grown up with the tar pits of LA, it wasn't too illogical a step for me to imagine a sort of hybrid Aboriginal culture that appeared to be redressing some sort of wrong through an old, odd cleansing process involving tar. But no, this is clearly something else as the event at hand is actually an execution, a slow death in front of an audience with a wake built in. Equally fascinating and disconcerting, the effect is how I would imagine it to be watching surgery being performed on myself while fully conscious.

Short story collections by their nature must start off strong and bold. They must open with a story full of promise for the rest of the collection yet not be so strong as to let the reader down along the way. Reading "Singing Down My Sister" it almost feels intimidating to continue with the rest of the book. If the rest of the book is anywhere near this intense it might be impossible to finish.

Fortunately, the book wasn't impossible to finish. Unfortunately the rest of the book was equally intense.

Each of the stories contained so completely build their worlds - unique and richly textured worlds at that - this it is possible for each story to sustain its own book. "Red Nose Day" delves into a dark world full of professional clowns and the hitmen who kill them, with more than a hint of allegory aimed at the Catholic church. "The House of Many" posits a clash of parallel worlds that fluidly includes a Middle Ages cult surrounded by a more contemporary society rich with cars and candy. Demonic angels that help children break free of oppressive adults. Queens who prefer the company of dancing gypsies to their own kingdoms. Lanagan plucks the familiar image and icon and from our consciousness and folds them deftly into something new, a magical literary origami.

I think the warning I would have wanted was more in the form of advice. I think these stories should be savored slowly, with a lot of space between them. Perhaps as ways of cleansing the palate between other books. One after another, the power in these stories makes reentry into the world difficult. Better to dip into these waters with some reserve.

Whether this has helped me to better enter the world of Tender Morsels has yet to be determined. As it stands, I feel richer for the diversion.
I read Margo Lanagan’s novel ‘Tender Morsels’ about four years ago in a Youth Services class I took as an elective for my MLIS degree and had never read anything like it in my life. It was one of the most bizarre and original novels I’ve ever read. I don’t know why it took me so long to follow up on her other books but I have begun to remedy that with the reading of her pre-‘Morsels’ collection of stories, ‘Black Juice.’

While there is no story with the title “Black Juice” in this collection, that phrase is very appropriate for the flavor of these strange fantasies. I know that Lanagan is from Australia and, while some of the stories have obvious Australian settings, others could occur anywhere. I also know that she wrote children’s stories for a few years before moving up the age scale into the ‘Young Adult’ category. However, that label can be misleading here. She writes fantasies that are beautifully written, highly metaphorical meditations on surreal settings that would be utterly natural within the realm of a dream and yet strangely unsettling if one tried to place them in this world.

The opening story, “Singing My Sister Down,” sets the tone for the collection. Told from the point of view of a boy who, along with the rest of his shamed family, must participate in his sister’s public execution by forced sinking inside a tar pit. The very casual and natural tone of the narration is reminiscent of the horrific Shirley Jackson story, “The Lottery,” with a Down Under setting. The girl, her family and all the spectators accept the entire ceremony as a perfectly natural form of justice.

Another story, “Sweet Pippit,” is told by one of a herd of elephants searching for their human keeper, whom they perceive to be in some sort of danger. “My Lord’s Man” deals with a servant’s reassessment of his mistress’s urge to dance with the Gypsies. In “Earthly Uses,” a lad’s quest for the aid of angels leads to liberation from the tyrannical force of his grandfather. “Red Nose Day” deals with hit men knocking off clowns. The most ‘realistic’ story deals with a young woman’s journey to her grandmother’s funeral but takes place in a highly toxic, polluted world. The final story in the collection, “Rite of Spring,” is, like most fairy tales, highly mythic and metaphorical about the ushering in of the next season.

All of these stories defy straightforward summary. The common thread running through all of them is a tone of naturalism struck by the narrators (all but one of the stories are first person narratives) in strange, familiar settings with obvious qualities that lend to the alien and alienating qualities of their environments. Almost the only aspect that might qualify them as ‘young adult’ is the fact that all of the protagonists are either children, teens or young adults. Many of them deal with the cultural expectations of parents or grandparents.

The ‘young adult’ label should not be a deterrent to any readers who claim that they never read young adult fiction. I would recommend this collection to anyone who appreciates the fantasies of Ray Bradbury, the horrific tales of Edgar Allan Poe or Shirley Jackson or anyone who ever loved Rod Serling’s ‘Twilight Zone.’
The stories in this book are all beautiful and haunting. They are set in a variety of locations that may or may not be real, and they deftly combine everyday emotions with elements of the fantastic or surreal. These are the sort of stories you remember long after you have read them.
This book was recommended to me by my short story writing teacher at TAFE because Margo Lanagan is such an expert in compressing a story in a way that is so very descriptive. Every line is newsy and colorful keeping the reader turning the pages.
I enjoyed all the stories of this book because every one took me to a place that I've never been or even heard of before. I was transported and found it easy to become one of the characters. The only criticism I have of Margo's writing is that she often left the reader questioning, "then what happened" at the end. Maybe that is a good idea and lets the reader work out their own ending. I prefer neat and tidy ending with all questions answered.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes short stories and appreciates great imagination.