tl;dr

An accomplished debut collection.

opening remarks

I’ve picked up Mothers by Chris Power because (a) he sounded like an intriguing fellow while discussing Denis Johnson on the Backlisted podcast and (b) David Hebblethwaite – a critic whose tastes nearly always align with mine – had lovely things to say about the book for Splice.

knee-jerk observations

The collection has three stories with the title ‘Mother’.  The first of these is ‘Mother 1: Summer 1976’.  It takes place on a new estate just outside of Stockholm.  Eva, her Marie and Anders (her mother’s partner) have moved into a second-floor apartment.  On the same floor lives Nisse Hofmann with his mother who, according to Eva, ‘was so pretty that she looked cruel’.  Eva and Nisse become friends (sort of).  A kiss is shared, fruit is thrown against doors, and wrongful accusations are made about vandalism to the other apartments.  As these are Eva’s recollections, the story is tinged with sadness, a sense of foreboding and a desperate need for Eva to make better sense of her mother.  If this opening piece is reflective of the rest of the collection, it’s going to be something special:

Liam loves Miguel, but Miguel is marrying Nuria.  It reads like the tag-line line to an edgy romantic comedy.

There is an overly familiar gloss to ‘Above The Wedding’; a story of sexual awakening – Miguel is Liam’s first male partner – and unrequited love – Miguel has no intention of ditching Nuria at the altar.  It’s not an overly melodramatic piece, even if Liam does get drunk and, ultimately, has a tussle with the groom (Miguel) at the reception.  The prose is gorgeous, especially the last line – “Dawn destroyed the stars”.  There’s also a neat line about what mothers do and don’t know about their children:

There are some stories where you have to hold back judgement until the very last line.  ‘In The Crossing’ is one such example. I’m not going to say too much though I will note that it’s about a woman – Ann – who realises that the bloke she’s spent the past few weeks with – Jim – is a disappointment.  Ann comes to this epiphany while hiking with Jim in Somerset.  The ending – don’t worry, no spoilers here – is shocking and unexpected and, I’ve got to be honest, a little bit funny

A man reflects on a holiday with his family thirty years ago in Rhodes (Greece) where he was sexually abused.  ‘In the Colossus of Rhodes’ is a timely piece about memory and the long-term effects of sexual assault.  It’s not until the end of the story where the author questions his recollection of the holiday, admitting he edited and changed parts while maintaining that the abuse did happen.  It’s a very sophisticated and powerful piece of writing, but I have to admit that the scene which resonated the most was the reference to a series of books that I, like many of my vintage, was a huge fan of:

‘Innsbruck’ is the middle story in the Mother trilogy.  Eva, now much older, travels to Spain, alone, to check out the sights with a guidebook that’s twenty years out date – “a tattered brick that covers all of Europe”.  There’s an aimlessness to Eva and her frequent wanderings across Europe.  I never got a sense that she enjoyed the holidays, but that they fulfilled a need to be always on the move, to put distance between herself and her small, depressing flat in Ireland.  The prose again is lovely, in particular Power does a terrific job capturing a sense of place, the sights and sounds.

‘The Havang Dolmen’ is an unexpected delight.  Where the previous stories have been of the ‘realist’ variety, this piece has all the hallmarks of a ghost story.  An archaeologist, in Sweden for a conference, decides to check out the Havang Dolmen before returning home.  He gets more than he bargained for.

The atmosphere of the piece is steeped in menace and foreboding.    Nothing that happens to the academic, at least initially, is overtly supernatural – he glimpses someone from his past, a young man starts screaming for no good reason – but it drip-feeds to a climax that is genuinely chilling.  In amongst all this, I did have a chuckle at the different fates of prehistoric man:

‘Run’ is a mirror image of ‘The Crossing’ in as much as we’re made witness to a relationship that’s not firing on all cylinders. The perspective, this time, is that of the man, David, who is only now sensing that Gunila and he are drifting apart.  The ending isn’t nearly as shocking as ‘The Crossing’, but it’s anything but cheery.

And I thought this story was going to have a happy ending.

‘Portals’ is about arrogance, hormones, drugs and sheer stupidity.  It’s hard to feel any sympathy for the main character as he repeatedly shoots himself in the foot.  What I appreciate though is that this love story gone awry is the perfect length.  Far too many writers would have dragged this narrative out to novel length.

I think I’ve found my favourite story.

‘Johnny Kingdom’ is about a comedian, Andy, who makes barely a living by performing Johnny Kingdom’s act, mostly for retirees who remember JK (long deceased) but also the odd bux party.  Of course, Andy would love to do original material, but creatively he has hit a dry spell.  Power brilliantly marries together Andy’s genuine skill at mimicking Kingdom’s routine with his feelings of failure, unable to write anything remotely original or, more importantly, funny.  Like the ghost story, ‘The Havang Dolmen’, this piece is tonally different to the others in the collection.  I appreciate that.

The final story in the Mother trilogy is the longest of the three.

Whereas the first two pieces were from Eva’s perspective (first and third person) the concluding story is, again, a third person account, but this time from the viewpoint of Eva’s ex-husband Joe.  The story is titled ‘Eva’ because while she isn’t present for great chunks of the narrative – the central focus is on Joe and Eva’s daughter Marie – her presence is very much felt.  This is a poignant piece about mental health and absent mothers.  Like the other tales, it eschews overheated drama for something richer and more complex.  A powerful end to a fine collection.

The Gist Of It

Although the book is titled Mothers what unifies Chris Power’s debut collection is movement and travel.

All the characters featured in these eight stories (one of which is in three parts) are on the move – hiking through forests, visiting local tourist attractions or emigrating to foreign lands.  A chunk of the stories are set in Sweden, but we also visit other parts of Europe, the States and Mexico.  Anywhere but home.

This cosmopolitan vibe does play to Power’s strengths.  He’s fantastic at describing the sights and sounds; in particular, he has an eye for the natural world.  Setting these stories elsewhere adds a level of vulnerability, our protagonists are often facing a difficult decision – should I tell him how much I love him, should I break up with him, is she going to leave me? – without the support and familiarity of home.  Doubt and insecurity and, in some cases outright fear, bedevil these characters, pushing them into situations that are at best uncomfortable and at worst gut-wrenching.

It does make the collection sound like hard work, and, yes, there are times when you need to take a breather, need to collect yourself, even seek a hug from your mother.  But the prose, often understated and subtle, is a joy to read and the stories, by never offering up easy solutions linger in your mind.  It’s a little bit astonishing that this is a first collection because there’s a maturity and awareness to Power’s work, the structure, the rhythm and pace that suggests he’s been at this writer’s lark for decades.  Highly recommended.