From Signs & Wonders by Alix Ohlin
Knopf 2012
Tom and Stephanie come across Alan who is lying on the sidewalk, passed out, his war-torn leg at an odd angle. Alan is Stephanie’s brother. There is a strange displacement at work here, and Ohlin makes me read this again and again. It is a great hook, lead with confusion, and then I’m under your spell. (I’m starting to sound like a member of a Ohlin cult).
Tom’s girlfriend left him for greener pastures, and I love how he describes Stephanie’s neighborhood:
“Her condo was in a subdivision that had sprung up too fast, and half the houses were empty. With all those carless driveways and skinny, seedling trees, the neighborhood had a creepy feel“.
Stephanie and Tom work at a clinic outside Philadelphia, and the easy-going nature of Tom, even though his longtime girlfriend has left him, is magnetic at best, and unputdownable at worst.
They have taken Alan to Stephanie’s place, as Tom describes how he got to this part of the world. We switch back and forth momentarily between what Tom understands and what he is a witness to. Alan is killing himself one bender at a time. But neither drugs or booze will do the job right.
There is a seamless quicksilver speed to this story, it actually outpaces Signs and Wonders, (and moves in a speed kills fashion), and you’ll almost miss a major plot point if you don’t slow down. Stephanie and Tom are lovers and caretakers, not only of Alan, but of the patients at their clinic. After Ohlin shakes this tiny snow globe and the flakes settle, you have no choice but to read this story again. There are no reasons I can think of to take your eyes off these stories, not even for a second.
