The Plot Thickens

A Canadian story writer I greatly admire once declared that “plot is plod.” This was back in the last century, around the time my first collection was published. He seemed to mean that the things that happen in fiction are secondary to the language they’re written in and that everyday life with its tiny psychological shifts is the real stuff of art. I took these words to heart.

Time passed, and I read and wrote a lot more stories. While I still believe in the supremacy of the word, I’ve long wondered: Can’t a short story have startling language, striking imagery, emotional insight, and an intriguing plot? Do the big things that happen in stories have to be so small? Jess Gibson doesn’t seem to think they do. Her debut, The Good Eye, is refreshingly packed with plot. The body count alone is impressive. Characters are murdered — or about to be — by shooting, by poisoning, by French cuisine. One is choked by an archeological artifact, then beaten up. A child falls from a footbridge and is crushed by a passing train. The stories may be short — twelve in this slim volume — but all of them read big.

A number also contain fantastical elements. In “Linear A,” that artifact — a pear-shaped stone — mysteriously finds its way into a pocket and from there into the mouth of a deeply annoying orthodontist as he sleeps. There’s Willow, the carnival worker in “Flip,” a statistical anomaly who never loses at cards or fails to guess the outcome of a coin toss. And sickly Helene in “Clairvoyance,” with her rumoured “uncanny abilities.”

In other words, prepare for a wild ride but also know that, extreme subject matter notwithstanding, Gibson’s touch is light, even downright funny, especially in her sex scenes. In “The Hunt,” a married couple “had quiet, urgent sex in their socks” while visiting in‑laws. Elsewhere, in “Blue Circle,” an odious critic enjoys the selfless favours of a female artist: “Brow furrowed, jaw set, pale wrinkled buttocks pumping away like he was trying to inflate a tire.”

Technically, Gibson is completely self-assured. Her switches in point of view, sometimes paired with surprising time jumps, bring to mind a magician moving cups. “Pest Control,” for example, concerns a mother, Luella, whose patio is invaded by rats. Worried for her toddler’s well-being, she takes matters into her own hands and hires Caroline, an animal psychic, whom she knew from her former life as a real estate agent. Back then, Luella had used a “spirit healer,” Shawn, to expel a ghost from a house she couldn’t sell. Caroline was his assistant and lover and still remembers Luella as the woman who stole Shawn away. Even so, Caroline is more than happy now to use her special powers to help Luella, and for a discount, to boot! The story jumps from the rodents’ perspective to Luella’s, then to Caroline’s, before returning to the rats, after which it might dawn on the reader that Caroline said she’d “come and take a look.” She never said she’d get rid of them.

It’s Gibson’s use of language that really delivered for me. She loves lists. Here’s what the care worker in “Intake” envisions cooking for her patient: “Sirloin of beef, squab and cress, wild boar ragù, asparagus vinaigrette, lamb tagine, tournedos Lili, potatoes Anna, eggplant Parmesan, Périgueux sauce, cheese soufflé, peaches in Chartreuse jelly, Waldorf pudding, baba au rhum, arròs negre.”

This is a writer seducing the reader with the sound of a word. Occasionally she deploys one that seems deliberately over-precise: “interdental picks,” “fistula,” “vellus hairs,” “nacreous sheen,” “gusseted crotch.” These left me giddy. She’s using words the way a child raids a candy bowl, grabbing a handful and sucking hard, enjoying the shapes in her mouth as much as their particular sweetness. Gibson’s imagery is as alluring. Frogs’ legs thaw on the counter “hip to hip like chorus girls.” The faces of greeted strangers “softened easily, like greased locks clicking open.” One character’s “arm had bubbled with yellow blisters like a campfire hot dog.” Two pages later, “her ears rang with listening.” And I swooned.

There’s only one thing I missed in these pages, which brings me back to “plot is plod.” In plotless fiction, the drama depends on language, imagery, and psychological nuance. But this doesn’t mean narratives with complex storylines can dispense with psychology. Some of Gibson’s characters, particularly the men, veer into caricature — the revolting art critic and the obnoxious orthodontist are two. (Why are dental health workers forever mocked in literature? Can someone please write about a sexy periodontist?) And some of the women can be ciphers. It’s not that they don’t have an inner life. They make surprising decisions all the time, but the reasons are often vague. In “Our Lady of the Moonlight,” what is behind the previously atheistic Miss Dillon’s sudden yearning for religious ecstasy? The BBC documentary about the Virgin Mary that she watched is not enough of an explanation, but it could be — if we were allowed inside her head. Instead, the elusive schoolteacher’s desire and, especially, her sadistic treatment of a pupil just baffle. In these cases, the author drops bread crumbs. The reader gathers and moistens them and tries her best to shape them into people. If all the characters had been fully fleshed out, this collection, which surprised and delighted me, would also have moved me.

Whatever you think of plot, there’s no plodding through Jess Gibson’s The Good Eye. I, for one, pirouetted.