Mocking the Mundane
Concordia Student Celebrates Literary Debut with Metatron
Fawn Parker’s stories are populated with quirky, slightly neurotic characters: people who are “going crazy and paying for it,” as she suggests.
She narrates their existence with affection and a heaping dose of wit. As I was reading Looking Good and Having A Good Time, a collection of Parker’s stories published by Metatron, a Montreal-based publishing house, I found myself giggling line after line.
Looking Good and Having A Good Time contains four stories, which share the Concordia student’s sense of humour, often focusing on small, mundane matters only to take off into hilariously surreal twists. The stories take place in different situations, but in each of them the indulgence of the characters transition into some bizarre feeling where occupation seems to be a recurring theme.
In “Vacation With My Mother,” the first story of the book, the protagonist’s daily life unfolds as she grows obsessed over someone she has fallen in love with at first sight. Her thoughts are only interrupted by the comical interactions she has with her mother, as they wallow through their vacation between a tour on a boat and a stroll by the beach. There is something very light-hearted and pleasant about the flowing rhythm of this story, which begins with a gentle mocking of the love-at-first-sight ideal and culminates with an irreverent, deadpan parody of internet porn.
“Vacation With My Mother” is followed by “Doreen, Doreen,” a story that starts off with a great premise: the protagonist is in a (complicated) relationship with John Travolta. While this becomes inevitably a comedic device—and the tone is, as with Parker’s other stories, always snappy and funny—the story does portray an unequal, harmful relationship, and it shows how it is possible to love somebody who brings one sorrow and does not show any respect. In a similar way, the story attempts to understand the victim, while also humanizing the abusive partner. It turns out that the choice of the name John Travolta is not merely an absurdist joke, but a method for offering a familiar face so we wouldn’t immediately label him as the bad guy, a judgement very common when it comes to such delicate subjects.
The third story of the collection is “Kombucha Mother,” and it’s the one in which Parker’s comical vein is unleashed, as she follows the interactions between the characters of Hank and the Tenant and their hilarious musical experiments, which involve smashing iPhones and audio recordings of Hank’s girlfriend, Marine, having sex. The story’s real delight is the collection of stoned conversations between Hank and the Tenant, who philosophize loosely about life with sentences stuffed with so many intonations of “like” and “you know what I mean.”
“Looking Good and Having a Good Time,” the last of the four stories, appropriately lends its title to the collection, which does indeed ooze a sense of careless freedom with its mocking of the mundane in our lives. Unlike the others, though, this story takes a creepy turn. After a girl finds a book that holds the secrets to being charismatic and charming, she indulges fully in her new persona, enjoying the appreciation and even the envy of the people around her, until the attentions of an older man become too pressing. When we talked,
Parker shunned the reading of this story as a critique of the very contemporary concern over physical appearance. Nonetheless, the story does hold a kind of wisdom. It deals with a mature subject in a mature writing style, but it is also the kind of story you would want your kids to read for the lesson they would take away with it.
The book’s official release will take place on Oct. 15 at 820 Plaza (6820 rue Marconi) as part of a triple release from Metatron, which includes, along with Parker’s work, Sofia Banzhaf’s Pony Castle and Oscar D’Artois’s Teen Surf Goth. The event will feature readings by the authors, as well as by other Montreal-based writers and poets, plus screenings and live music performances.
Looking Good and Having a Good Time is Parker’s first collection of writing. She has published poetry in The Quietus, Hobart and Concordia’s magazines The Void and Headlight Anthology. She is currently working on a novella: “Something More Serious,” she said. But for now, Looking Good and Having a Good Time is surely some serious fun.
Metatron 2K15 Fall Catalog Launch Party + Reading // Oct. 15 // 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. // 820 Plaza (6820 Marconi St.) // Free
