The problem with mirrors is when you don't like what you see, you have to wonder if it's the mirror's fault or yours.
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| "Rust Maidens" cover 2018 |
Gwendolyne Kiste's debut novel "Rust Maidens" mentions mirrors directly only a handful of times, and yet I was struck by the idea of reflections as a motif in the novel. Whether opaque, chrome, or clear as day, the figures of this story lurch forward in a funhouse gauntlet of perception and twisted perspective.
Phoebe Shaw returns to her Ohio hometown to confront the regrets and horrors of her childhood. Nearly thirty years prior, the young women of her neighborhood exhibited a terrible affliction. The eponymous 'Rust Maidens' are a group of five women who during the course of the summer of 1980, transform into phantoms of urban decay. Their skin puckers and peels, rusted metal bits poke out from the corners of their bodies, and nails change to jagged shards of glass.
The cause for this transformation and its effects are described with a level of detachment. Is this a metaphor, magical realism, or body horror? Or perhaps all three? The young women swallowed whole by the same decay picking away at their neighborhood are not simply symbols of that decay nor victims in a horror pastiche. Something I appreciated about this novel was how the idea of this strange uncanny affliction never sunk into simple allegory. The descriptions are too eerie, too specific, and filled with too much raw pain. This affliction is an inexplicable problem, a terrible focus of the narrator's attention and horror, but also simply the reality for the characters it affects. Kiste's matter-of-factness about the affliction reminds me of Kat Kotja's classic "The Cypher;" a bit of weirdness introduced into the narrative that the characters cannot seem to stop themselves from exploring and becoming contaminated by. Also similar to The Cypher, this bit of invention, the rust transformation, seems to point to a variety of interpretations while deftly skipping away from each at the last moment.
The horror here is similar to the ones expressed in Kiste's excellent short stories, the dread that in losing others we are really losing pieces of ourselves. Gwendolyn Kiste has a talent for dream-like gothic horror and her favored style, a clear and concise prose foregrounding characters, leaves the paranormal curiously off-centered and fractured, as though seen through a broken mirror.
Which gets us back to mirrors. Mirrors or reflections appear a few times in the novel, once in an allusion to the hazards of the urban legend Bloody Mary (which I took as a nifty allusion to Kiste's own fantastic novella "Pretty Marys All in a Row") and again when Phoebe describes Denton Street as a hall of mirrors, its past and present reflecting an infinite cascade back to itself. Still later in the story, Phoebe finds her reflection in the chrome glint of a Rust Maiden's lips, an image of herself reflected back to her.
Various forces attempt an appropriation of the imagery of the girls and their uncanny affliction. The families of the girls, the religious figures in the community, and even the federal government all try to bend the affliction into a mirror reflecting their chosen prejudice. It's not enough that the girls suffer, their suffering must mean something. What Rust Maidens does quite powerfully is raise a potent symbol of this entropy while confronting the notion that this must be about politics or agendas. Phoebe exemplifies the intention, first and foremost, to interact with the Rust Maidens on a human level, through the relationships she has with them.
"Rust Maidens" is a startlingly original first novel from an author with a steady and powerful voice. The risks it takes in developing its themes are fresh and original and pay off handsomely. When I think about this novel there are sections that seem to linger outside of the bounds of a printed page, as a curiously intermingled impression of regret and visceral horror.
Phoebe Shaw returns to her Ohio hometown to confront the regrets and horrors of her childhood. Nearly thirty years prior, the young women of her neighborhood exhibited a terrible affliction. The eponymous 'Rust Maidens' are a group of five women who during the course of the summer of 1980, transform into phantoms of urban decay. Their skin puckers and peels, rusted metal bits poke out from the corners of their bodies, and nails change to jagged shards of glass.
The cause for this transformation and its effects are described with a level of detachment. Is this a metaphor, magical realism, or body horror? Or perhaps all three? The young women swallowed whole by the same decay picking away at their neighborhood are not simply symbols of that decay nor victims in a horror pastiche. Something I appreciated about this novel was how the idea of this strange uncanny affliction never sunk into simple allegory. The descriptions are too eerie, too specific, and filled with too much raw pain. This affliction is an inexplicable problem, a terrible focus of the narrator's attention and horror, but also simply the reality for the characters it affects. Kiste's matter-of-factness about the affliction reminds me of Kat Kotja's classic "The Cypher;" a bit of weirdness introduced into the narrative that the characters cannot seem to stop themselves from exploring and becoming contaminated by. Also similar to The Cypher, this bit of invention, the rust transformation, seems to point to a variety of interpretations while deftly skipping away from each at the last moment.
The horror here is similar to the ones expressed in Kiste's excellent short stories, the dread that in losing others we are really losing pieces of ourselves. Gwendolyn Kiste has a talent for dream-like gothic horror and her favored style, a clear and concise prose foregrounding characters, leaves the paranormal curiously off-centered and fractured, as though seen through a broken mirror.
Which gets us back to mirrors. Mirrors or reflections appear a few times in the novel, once in an allusion to the hazards of the urban legend Bloody Mary (which I took as a nifty allusion to Kiste's own fantastic novella "Pretty Marys All in a Row") and again when Phoebe describes Denton Street as a hall of mirrors, its past and present reflecting an infinite cascade back to itself. Still later in the story, Phoebe finds her reflection in the chrome glint of a Rust Maiden's lips, an image of herself reflected back to her.
Various forces attempt an appropriation of the imagery of the girls and their uncanny affliction. The families of the girls, the religious figures in the community, and even the federal government all try to bend the affliction into a mirror reflecting their chosen prejudice. It's not enough that the girls suffer, their suffering must mean something. What Rust Maidens does quite powerfully is raise a potent symbol of this entropy while confronting the notion that this must be about politics or agendas. Phoebe exemplifies the intention, first and foremost, to interact with the Rust Maidens on a human level, through the relationships she has with them.
"Rust Maidens" is a startlingly original first novel from an author with a steady and powerful voice. The risks it takes in developing its themes are fresh and original and pay off handsomely. When I think about this novel there are sections that seem to linger outside of the bounds of a printed page, as a curiously intermingled impression of regret and visceral horror.
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