First, Abigail Nussbaum has a very thorough review up of The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy which I highly recommend reading. As she makes clear, one of the things about anthologies is that readers will often enjoy vastly different stories, which is the case for me and "North American Lake Monsters". Abigail didn't like this one for the same reason a few others have pointed out that, as she writes, it "...is all too obvious in hammering in the point that its protagonist, recently paroled and working hard to alienate and make miserable his entire family while deciding what to do with the creature that's washed up near his house, is the real monster." I certainly saw that Nathan Ballingrud was making a point about monsters not being who we suspect (as in the unidentifiable dead thing that washed up on the shore and is discovered by his protagonist's teenage daughter) but I liked this story because it was about more than one monster - the protagonist and his wife, and even, to a lesser extent, the teen daughter. The message that all of us can be monsters in any family at any given time was why "North American Lake Monsters" worked for me and honestly - with Thanksgiving right around the corner with its inherent family trauma - I think it could work for a lot of other readers as well.
The protagonist, Grady, is introduced early on as an ex con home only three days after six years in prison. He barely recognizes his daughter who is now thirteen. "She'd undergone some bizarre transformation since he'd last seen her. She'd dyed her hair black; strange silver adornments pocked her face; she had a ring in her left eyebrow and a series of rings along the curve of one bejeweled conch of an ear. Worst of all, she'd put a stud through her tongue."
Not Daddy's version of a little girl anymore, that's for sure.
It is Sarah who finds the monster washed up on the shore and takes her father out to see it. The whole visit to the lake is clearly some attempt for the small family (along with Tina, the wife and mother) to come together after Grady's long absence. The reader is surprised by the monster and the relatively calm way that father and daughter observe it. They are disturbed but not horrified; the monster is a gross oddity but not something to panic over. I thought this was very interesting because it removes the obvious monster from the story. There's no Godzilla here (dead or alive) (actually I kind of thought the monster sounded like Champ) and so you have to wonder just what Ballingrud is pointing towards. Then Grady and Sarah go back to the cabin and it all becomes quite clear.
The husband and wife are trying to get back together mostly it seems because they think they are supposed to. Tina however cheated on Grady while he was inside and all of them know it (and Grady is very much not over it). He wants to be a decent father but doesn't seem to know how ("Why do I always fuck it up?") and Sarah can't seem to figure out how she got stuck with such loser parents, although she is doing a fair job of following in their footsteps. Tina is a depressed drinker, Sarah has naked pictures of her boyfriend in her drawing pad and a trash can full of cigarette butts and Grady drinks to prevent himself from exploding into violence. Is he the obvious monster? Yes - but his wife and daughter are no picnic either. Sarah, the child, is the most interesting because it is clear that she wants something more, something different. In a way, she wants to save her father and make him beautiful just as she wants to make the dead beast beautiful as well. Grady sees himself as a lost cause though - almost. If he sees beauty in the monster, then he could maybe see something redeeming in himself (and Tina and Sarah) as well.
I might have responded more positively to this story because I read so much YA fiction for my column. In spite of its adult protagonist it struck me very much as a YA story. It's written in a way for a teen to see the difficult parent through his eyes; see the disappointments in himself that he carries and how those are projected onto the daugher and lead to fights and recriminations. In a lot of ways Grady is a sympathetic character although he is also a hard character to like. He is a monster but he is one seeking redemption and the women that love him, they are seeking redemption as well.
I wouldn't generally recommend this anthology for teens but this story (as harsh as it is) I think works well for that audience. They will see the other side for once, and maybe gain some insight into their own lives.
[Post pic of "Champ", the Lake Champlain monster.] [Think Loch Ness only in America.]
[See also "Sonny Liston Takes the Fall" by Elizabeth Bear, reviewed last week.]
