Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Double Dutch
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.lauratrunkey.com/
CITY: Victoria
STATE: BC
COUNTRY: Canada
NATIONALITY: Canadian
http://www.bookweb.org/news/indies-introduce-qa-laura-trunkey-36035
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no2009113439
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/no2009113439
HEADING: Trunkey, Laura
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010 __ |a no2009113439
035 __ |a (OCoLC)oca08181438
040 __ |a IOrQBI |b eng |e rda |c IOrQBI |d ViFGM
100 1_ |a Trunkey, Laura
370 __ |c Canada |e Victoria (B.C.) |2 naf
375 __ |a Females |2 lcdgt
670 __ |a The incredibly ordinary Danny Chandelier, c2008: |b t.p. (Laura Trunkey)
670 __ |a Double Dutch, 2016: |b title page (Laura Trunkey) page 266 (lives in Victoria, B.C.)
678 0_ |a Laura Trunkey; from Canada, resident of Victoria, B.C.
PERSONAL
Married; children: son.
EDUCATION:University of Victoria, B.Sw.; University of British Columbia, M.F.A
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Artistic Associate of the Victoria Festival of Authors.
WRITINGS
Contributor to the anthology, Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow, 2010.
SIDELIGHTS
Laura Trunkey’s short story collection Double Dutch features characters ranging from Thomas Edison to a goat and a gun. The tales veer from realism to magical realism, but all of them explore the tension between the spirit and the body. In “Winchester .30-.30,” Trunkey portrays the Canadian trial of Inuit men, as narrated by the alleged murder weapon. “Night Terror” follows a single mother who believes her toddler carries the reincarnated soul of a deceased terrorist. In “The Windspir Sisters’ Home for the Dying,” Trunkey follows sextuplets who run a hospice; four of the sisters take care of the patients’ bodily functions, while two serve as spiritual counselors. The more surreal “Ursus Arctos Horribilis,” features a woman who trades places with a grizzly bear, and the woman’s husband suddenly finds a wild animal in her human body.
As Globe and Mail Online correspondent Steven W. Beattie put it, “Trunkey has . . . produced a suite of unexpected stories . . . A strong metaphysical undercurrent runs through her debut collection. Beattie also remarked: “For the most part, Trunkey achieves a coherent marriage of elements in these tales: History, realism, and the mystical combine to strong and startling effect.” Brett Josef Grubisic, writing in the Vancouver Sun Online, was even more positive, asserting: “Elegant, deft, light of touch, and sometimes spicily comic, the stories are not just vehicles for the author’s flights of fancy. Trunkey’s not frivolous. Loss, uncertainty, folly, lament, and helplessness pervade the collection.” He added: “Sombreness and whimsicality aren’t the likeliest of pairs, but based on Double Dutch, Laura Trunkey has developed sure means to wed her writerly impulses. Her debut story collection is a marvel of style and substance.”
Lauding the collection in Quill & Quire Online, Alex Good found that “Double Dutch is a confident debut collection containing nine stories that mostly offer varying perspectives on a single theme. That theme–the body/soul duality–is an old one, though the way Trunkey employs it is unfamiliar, at least by the standards of contemporary fiction.” Furthermore, Winnipeg Review Online correspondent Lauren Siddall announced, the collection “borders on the fantastical, always combining reality with a degree of the imaginary. The liminal nature of Trunkey’s stories creates a space for her to play with complicated, pressing issues that are otherwise taboo.” Siddall then conclude that “Trunkey’s collection of stories is similar to Miranda Hill’s 2012 collection of short fiction, Sleeping Funny. Hill, too, roots her writing in the fantastic elements of reality to create a “funny” space to explore. Both Canadian authors offer a debut collection of stories with an extremely mature, refined voice, unifying their stories by weaving common themes throughout.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, Febraury 15, 2017, review of Double Dutch.
Publishers Weekly, January 2, 2017, review of Double Dutch.
This, March-April, 2016. Jessica Rose, review of Double Dutch.
ONLINE
Globe and Mail Online, https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/ (April 22, 2016), Steven W. Beattie, review of Double Dutch.
Laura Trunkey Website, http://www.lauratrunkey.com (October 23, 2017).
Quill and Quire Online, https://quillandquire.com/ (March 26, 2016), Alex Good, review of Double Dutch.
Vancouver Sun Online, http://vancouversun.com/ (March 22, 2017), Brett Josef Grubisic, review of Double Dutch.
Victoria Book Prizes Website, http://www.victoriabookprizes.ca/ (October 23, 2017), review of Double Dutch.
Winnipeg Review Online, http://winnipegreview.com/ (April 26, 2016), Lauren Siddall, review of Double Dutch.
Laura Trunkey
Home Contact Bio News and Reviews Events Editing Double Dutch Other Writing
Bio
Laura Trunkey’s short fiction collection Double Dutch was published by House of Anansi in 2016. Previous stories have appeared in journals and magazines across Canada and in the anthology Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow (D&M, 2010). She is also the author of the children’s novel, The Incredibly Ordinary Danny Chandelier (Annick Press, 2008). Laura received her MFA in Creative Writing through UBC’s Optional Residency program, and her Bachelor of Social Work degree another lifetime ago at UVic. She lives in Victoria with her husband and son, where she is the Artistic Associate of the Victoria Festival of Authors.
Visit Laura’s Goodreads profile.
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An Indies Introduce Q&A With Laura Trunkey
By Jessica Stauffer on Wednesday, Apr 26, 2017
Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly versionSend by emailSend by email
Laura Trunkey is the author of the short story collection Double Dutch (Astoria/House of Anansi Press), which was chosen by a panel of independent booksellers as a Winter/Spring 2017 Indies Introduce adult debut title.
Susan Hans O’Connor, the owner of Penguin Bookshop in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, and a panelist on the Indies Introduce committee that selected Trunkey’s debut, said, “Double Dutch is full of magical short stories that remind me of why I love this genre.”
Trunkey lives in Victoria, British Columbia, with her husband and son. Her fiction has been published in journals and magazines across Canada and was included in the 2010 anthology Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow (Douglas & McIntyre); her nonfiction has garnered two honorable mentions at the National Magazine Awards. She is also the author of the children’s novel The Incredibly Ordinary Danny Chandelier, which was published by Annick Press in Canada in 2008.
Here, O’Connor and Trunkey discuss the author’s work and the nature of the short story.
Susan Hans O’Connor: The Indies Introduce panel loved that your stories felt so different — that they were magical and also weird, in the best sense of the word. What was the inspiration behind these stories?
Laura Trunkey, author of Double Dutch
Photo by Mike Andrew McLean
Laura Trunkey: Most of the stories are a result of my obsessiveness. When I discover something I consider fascinating, I usually attempt to learn everything I can about the subject. Then I feel the compulsion to share. Some obsessions that have made their way into Double Dutch are political doubles, blastocysts, Edison’s animal experiments, xenoglossy, mountain goats, a trial held in Edmonton in 1917. My favorite short story collections are varied in both form and subject, and that was my intention for Double Dutch.
SHO: The stories in Double Dutch are also quite disparate, some involving shape-shifters, doppelgangers, and spirits, but others feel very grounded in reality. Is it more challenging to write about reality or fantasy?
LT: A friend of mine calls the type of writing I do “grounded fantastic,” meaning that though there are fantastical elements, the story as a whole rings true. I like this term more than “magical realism,” which is often applied to my work. That’s because for me, the grounding comes first. I can’t write about something unless I can convince myself that it could happen, or might have happened. This usually involves enough research to create a strong scaffolding of fact.
Luckily, I am an open-minded (or perhaps gullible) person. I can believe that Ronald Reagan might have had a political double; I believe that it might be possible for a person to speak another language in their sleep or to communicate with animals. The fantastical is compelling to me, which is why it makes its way into my stories.
There is one story in my collection that is straight reality, “Hands Like Birds.” It didn’t start that way, but I rewrote it completely after I submitted my manuscript, keeping only the basic plot and the characters’ names. The magic didn’t fit my revision, and in its current version it won’t be apparent to the reader. But the end I envision for those characters, the way the story continues off the page, is magical. Which is a long way to say: both straight reality and straight fantasy would be difficult for me; it’s easiest and most gratifying to combine them.
SHO: As booksellers, we know that some readers are reluctant to pick up a short story collection over a novel. What would you say to those readers?
Double Dutch by Laura TrunkeyLT: The reason I’ve often heard for the preference of novels over stories is that readers can’t connect with characters in 20 pages in the same way as they can after 200. I don’t believe that to be true. Perhaps the most memorable character in literature for me is Otto, from Deborah Eisenberg’s “Some Other, Better Otto.”
But aside from that, short stories are practical! I have a five-year-old son with autism, and I read primarily when he’s in bed. With a good novel I can always convince myself to read “just one more chapter.” Whereas, at the end of a good short story, a pause feels required — some time to let it sink in (and to finally go to sleep).
SHO: Author Annie Proulx once said, “In a rough way the short story writer is to the novelist as a cabinet maker is to a house carpenter.” Do you see yourself as a cabinet maker? What has drawn you to the short story?
LT: A warp in a piece of wood used to build a cabinet would be much more noticeable than a warp on a single piece of timber used to build a house. And in short fiction, careless sentences call attention to themselves in the same way. As a reader, I expect more on the line level from short stories than I do from novels. Each word has to serve a purpose — and I appreciate the attention that the best short stories pay to language.
Aside from this, short fiction allows me to try out ideas that are intimidating or likely to be unsuccessful. I have a number of unfinished stories, and some that are complete but much too terrible to share. Simply because of the length of novels, and how slowly I write, I feel much more inclined to plan and plot out long-form works. Short fiction is liberating.
SHO: What are you working on next?
LT: I have a handful of new short stories, but I’m also juggling three longer projects: a half-written middle-grade novel, a young adult book I may never finish revising, and an adult novel that’s just taking shape. Lately most of my focus is on the latter, but I’m wary to provide details for superstitious reasons.
Double Dutch by Laura Trunkey (Astoria/House of Anansi Press, 9781770898776, trade paperback, $15.95) Publication Date: March 14, 2017.
Learn more about the author at lauratrunkey.com
ABA member stores are invited to use this interview or any others in our series of Q&As with Indies Introduce debut authors in newsletters and social media and in online and in-store promotions. Please let us know if you do.
Send by emailSend by email | Categories: IndieBoundIndies Introduce Interview
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An Indies Introduce Q&A...
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An Indies Introduce Q&A With Laura Trunkey
By Jessica Stauffer on Wednesday, Apr 26, 2017
Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly versionSend by emailSend by email
Laura Trunkey is the author of the short story collection Double Dutch (Astoria/House of Anansi Press), which was chosen by a panel of independent booksellers as a Winter/Spring 2017 Indies Introduce adult debut title.
Susan Hans O’Connor, the owner of Penguin Bookshop in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, and a panelist on the Indies Introduce committee that selected Trunkey’s debut, said, “Double Dutch is full of magical short stories that remind me of why I love this genre.”
Trunkey lives in Victoria, British Columbia, with her husband and son. Her fiction has been published in journals and magazines across Canada and was included in the 2010 anthology Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow (Douglas & McIntyre); her nonfiction has garnered two honorable mentions at the National Magazine Awards. She is also the author of the children’s novel The Incredibly Ordinary Danny Chandelier, which was published by Annick Press in Canada in 2008.
Here, O’Connor and Trunkey discuss the author’s work and the nature of the short story.
Susan Hans O’Connor: The Indies Introduce panel loved that your stories felt so different — that they were magical and also weird, in the best sense of the word. What was the inspiration behind these stories?
Laura Trunkey, author of Double Dutch
Photo by Mike Andrew McLean
Laura Trunkey: Most of the stories are a result of my obsessiveness. When I discover something I consider fascinating, I usually attempt to learn everything I can about the subject. Then I feel the compulsion to share. Some obsessions that have made their way into Double Dutch are political doubles, blastocysts, Edison’s animal experiments, xenoglossy, mountain goats, a trial held in Edmonton in 1917. My favorite short story collections are varied in both form and subject, and that was my intention for Double Dutch.
SHO: The stories in Double Dutch are also quite disparate, some involving shape-shifters, doppelgangers, and spirits, but others feel very grounded in reality. Is it more challenging to write about reality or fantasy?
LT: A friend of mine calls the type of writing I do “grounded fantastic,” meaning that though there are fantastical elements, the story as a whole rings true. I like this term more than “magical realism,” which is often applied to my work. That’s because for me, the grounding comes first. I can’t write about something unless I can convince myself that it could happen, or might have happened. This usually involves enough research to create a strong scaffolding of fact.
Luckily, I am an open-minded (or perhaps gullible) person. I can believe that Ronald Reagan might have had a political double; I believe that it might be possible for a person to speak another language in their sleep or to communicate with animals. The fantastical is compelling to me, which is why it makes its way into my stories.
There is one story in my collection that is straight reality, “Hands Like Birds.” It didn’t start that way, but I rewrote it completely after I submitted my manuscript, keeping only the basic plot and the characters’ names. The magic didn’t fit my revision, and in its current version it won’t be apparent to the reader. But the end I envision for those characters, the way the story continues off the page, is magical. Which is a long way to say: both straight reality and straight fantasy would be difficult for me; it’s easiest and most gratifying to combine them.
SHO: As booksellers, we know that some readers are reluctant to pick up a short story collection over a novel. What would you say to those readers?
Double Dutch by Laura TrunkeyLT: The reason I’ve often heard for the preference of novels over stories is that readers can’t connect with characters in 20 pages in the same way as they can after 200. I don’t believe that to be true. Perhaps the most memorable character in literature for me is Otto, from Deborah Eisenberg’s “Some Other, Better Otto.”
But aside from that, short stories are practical! I have a five-year-old son with autism, and I read primarily when he’s in bed. With a good novel I can always convince myself to read “just one more chapter.” Whereas, at the end of a good short story, a pause feels required — some time to let it sink in (and to finally go to sleep).
SHO: Author Annie Proulx once said, “In a rough way the short story writer is to the novelist as a cabinet maker is to a house carpenter.” Do you see yourself as a cabinet maker? What has drawn you to the short story?
LT: A warp in a piece of wood used to build a cabinet would be much more noticeable than a warp on a single piece of timber used to build a house. And in short fiction, careless sentences call attention to themselves in the same way. As a reader, I expect more on the line level from short stories than I do from novels. Each word has to serve a purpose — and I appreciate the attention that the best short stories pay to language.
Aside from this, short fiction allows me to try out ideas that are intimidating or likely to be unsuccessful. I have a number of unfinished stories, and some that are complete but much too terrible to share. Simply because of the length of novels, and how slowly I write, I feel much more inclined to plan and plot out long-form works. Short fiction is liberating.
SHO: What are you working on next?
LT: I have a handful of new short stories, but I’m also juggling three longer projects: a half-written middle-grade novel, a young adult book I may never finish revising, and an adult novel that’s just taking shape. Lately most of my focus is on the latter, but I’m wary to provide details for superstitious reasons.
Double Dutch by Laura Trunkey (Astoria/House of Anansi Press, 9781770898776, trade paperback, $15.95) Publication Date: March 14, 2017.
Learn more about the author at lauratrunkey.com
ABA member stores are invited to use this interview or any others in our series of Q&As with Indies Introduce debut authors in newsletters and social media and in online and in-store promotions. Please let us know if you do.
Send by emailSend by email | Categories: IndieBoundIndies Introduce Interview
Browse
BTW Author Interviews
Children's Bookselling
Classifieds
Free Expression
IndieBound
Main Street/Shop Local
Minimum Wage
Sales Tax Fairness
Winter Institute
Search
Search Bookselling This Week
Follow ABA
29850 - Booklog Campaign
Headlines for This Week
Winter/Spring 2018 Indies...
Jason Reynolds Urges Twitter...
ABC Best Books for Young...
Children’s Book Council Teams...
Shipping Carriers Report...
BTW News Briefs
September 30 Deadline to...
October 1 Deadline for James...
ABA to Offer “Diversity,...
ABA Board Nomination Deadline...
Publisher Partner Guidebook...
PartnerShip, FedEx Team Up to...
An Indies Introduce Q&A...
The October ’17 Now in...
Bookstore Trainers to Launch...
How We Sell Backlist:...
West Grove Collective to...
Riverstone Books to Open in...
Around Indies
Share This Article
About ABA
Who We Are
Governance & Finances
LIBRIS Business Insurance
Press Room
Contact Us
Book Industry Charitable Fdn. (Binc)
About You
Update Bookstore Profile
Update Email Recipient List
Buyers Email Form
Daily Tools
Book Buyer's Handbook
Bookseller Forums: Network With Your Peers
For Advertisers
Advertising Venues
Mailing List
For Publishers
Publisher Partner Program
Associate Membership
Regional Trade Associations
GLIBA (Great Lakes)
MIBA (Midwest)
MPIBA (Mountains and Plains)
NAIBA (New Atlantic)
NCIBA (Northern CA)
NEIBA (New England)
PNBA (Pacific Northwest)
SCIBA (Southern CA)
SIBA (South)
Copyright 2014 American Booksellers Association. BookWeb is a registered trademark of ABA.
Website Statement and Agreement
ShareThis Copy and Paste JoinRenewSearchCreate accountSign In Search for Bookstores by Name or Location Welcome Visitor MEMBERSHIP PROFESSIONAL BOOKSELLING EVENTS DESIGNS & DOWNLOADS INDIECOMMERCE ADVOCACY NEWS An Indies Introduce Q&A With Laura Trunkey By Jessica Stauffer on Wednesday, Apr 26, 2017 Printer-friendly versionSend by email Laura Trunkey is the author of the short story collection Double Dutch (Astoria/House of Anansi Press), which was chosen by a panel of independent booksellers as a Winter/Spring 2017 Indies Introduce adult debut title. Susan Hans O’Connor, the owner of Penguin Bookshop in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, and a panelist on the Indies Introduce committee that selected Trunkey’s debut, said, “Double Dutch is full of magical short stories that remind me of why I love this genre.” Trunkey lives in Victoria, British Columbia, with her husband and son. Her fiction has been published in journals and magazines across Canada and was included in the 2010 anthology Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow (Douglas & McIntyre); her nonfiction has garnered two honorable mentions at the National Magazine Awards. She is also the author of the children’s novel The Incredibly Ordinary Danny Chandelier, which was published by Annick Press in Canada in 2008. Here, O’Connor and Trunkey discuss the author’s work and the nature of the short story. Susan Hans O’Connor: The Indies Introduce panel loved that your stories felt so different — that they were magical and also weird, in the best sense of the word. What was the inspiration behind these stories? Photo by Mike Andrew McLean Laura Trunkey: Most of the stories are a result of my obsessiveness. When I discover something I consider fascinating, I usually attempt to learn everything I can about the subject. Then I feel the compulsion to share. Some obsessions that have made their way into Double Dutch are political doubles, blastocysts, Edison’s animal experiments, xenoglossy, mountain goats, a trial held in Edmonton in 1917. My favorite short story collections are varied in both form and subject, and that was my intention for Double Dutch. SHO: The stories in Double Dutch are also quite disparate, some involving shape-shifters, doppelgangers, and spirits, but others feel very grounded in reality. Is it more challenging to write about reality or fantasy? LT: A friend of mine calls the type of writing I do “grounded fantastic,” meaning that though there are fantastical elements, the story as a whole rings true. I like this term more than “magical realism,” which is often applied to my work. That’s because for me, the grounding comes first. I can’t write about something unless I can convince myself that it could happen, or might have happened. This usually involves enough research to create a strong scaffolding of fact. Luckily, I am an open-minded (or perhaps gullible) person. I can believe that Ronald Reagan might have had a political double; I believe that it might be possible for a person to speak another language in their sleep or to communicate with animals. The fantastical is compelling to me, which is why it makes its way into my stories. There is one story in my collection that is straight reality, “Hands Like Birds.” It didn’t start that way, but I rewrote it completely after I submitted my manuscript, keeping only the basic plot and the characters’ names. The magic didn’t fit my revision, and in its current version it won’t be apparent to the reader. But the end I envision for those characters, the way the story continues off the page, is magical. Which is a long way to say: both straight reality and straight fantasy would be difficult for me; it’s easiest and most gratifying to combine them. SHO: As booksellers, we know that some readers are reluctant to pick up a short story collection over a novel. What would you say to those readers? LT: The reason I’ve often heard for the preference of novels over stories is that readers can’t connect with characters in 20 pages in the same way as they can after 200. I don’t believe that to be true. Perhaps the most memorable character in literature for me is Otto, from Deborah Eisenberg’s “Some Other, Better Otto.” But aside from that, short stories are practical! I have a five-year-old son with autism, and I read primarily when he’s in bed. With a good novel I can always convince myself to read “just one more chapter.” Whereas, at the end of a good short story, a pause feels required — some time to let it sink in (and to finally go to sleep). SHO: Author Annie Proulx once said, “In a rough way the short story writer is to the novelist as a cabinet maker is to a house carpenter.” Do you see yourself as a cabinet maker? What has drawn you to the short story? LT: A warp in a piece of wood used to build a cabinet would be much more noticeable than a warp on a single piece of timber used to build a house. And in short fiction, careless sentences call attention to themselves in the same way. As a reader, I expect more on the line level from short stories than I do from novels. Each word has to serve a purpose — and I appreciate the attention that the best short stories pay to language. Aside from this, short fiction allows me to try out ideas that are intimidating or likely to be unsuccessful. I have a number of unfinished stories, and some that are complete but much too terrible to share. Simply because of the length of novels, and how slowly I write, I feel much more inclined to plan and plot out long-form works. Short fiction is liberating. SHO: What are you working on next? LT: I have a handful of new short stories, but I’m also juggling three longer projects: a half-written middle-grade novel, a young adult book I may never finish revising, and an adult novel that’s just taking shape. Lately most of my focus is on the latter, but I’m wary to provide details for superstitious reasons. Double Dutch by Laura Trunkey (Astoria/House of Anansi Press, 9781770898776, trade paperback, $15.95) Publication Date: March 14, 2017. Learn more about the author at lauratrunkey.com ABA member stores are invited to use this interview or any others in our series of Q&As with Indies Introduce debut authors in newsletters and social media and in online and in-store promotions. Please let us know if you do. Send by email | Categories: IndieBoundIndies Introduce Interview Browse BTW Author Interviews Children's Bookselling Classifieds Free Expression IndieBound Main Street/Shop Local Minimum Wage Sales Tax Fairness Winter Institute Search Search Bookselling This Week Follow ABA Headlines for This Week Winter/Spring 2018 Indies... Jason Reynolds Urges Twitter... ABC Best Books for Young... Children’s Book Council Teams... Shipping Carriers Report... BTW News Briefs September 30 Deadline to... October 1 Deadline for James... ABA to Offer “Diversity,... ABA Board Nomination Deadline... Publisher Partner Guidebook... PartnerShip, FedEx Team Up to... An Indies Introduce Q&A... The October ’17 Now in... Bookstore Trainers to Launch... How We Sell Backlist:... West Grove Collective to... Riverstone Books to Open in... Around Indies Share This Article About ABA Who We Are Governance & Finances LIBRIS Business Insurance Press Room Contact Us Book Industry Charitable Fdn. (Binc) About You Update Bookstore Profile Update Email Recipient List Buyers Email Form Daily Tools Book Buyer's Handbook Bookseller Forums: Network With Your Peers For Advertisers Advertising Venues Mailing List For Publishers Publisher Partner Program Associate Membership Regional Trade Associations GLIBA (Great Lakes) MIBA (Midwest) MPIBA (Mountains and Plains) NAIBA (New Atlantic) NCIBA (Northern CA) NEIBA (New England) PNBA (Pacific Northwest) SCIBA (Southern CA) SIBA (South) Copyright 2014 American Booksellers Association. BookWeb is a registered trademark of ABA. Website Statement and Agreement JoinRenewSearchCreate accountSign In Search for Bookstores by Name or Location Welcome Visitor MEMBERSHIP PROFESSIONAL BOOKSELLING EVENTS DESIGNS & DOWNLOADS INDIECOMMERCE ADVOCACY NEWS An Indies Introduce Q&A With Laura Trunkey By Jessica Stauffer on Wednesday, Apr 26, 2017 Printer-friendly versionSend by email Laura Trunkey is the author of the short story collection Double Dutch (Astoria/House of Anansi Press), which was chosen by a panel of independent booksellers as a Winter/Spring 2017 Indies Introduce adult debut title. Susan Hans O’Connor, the owner of Penguin Bookshop in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, and a panelist on the Indies Introduce committee that selected Trunkey’s debut, said, “Double Dutch is full of magical short stories that remind me of why I love this genre.” Trunkey lives in Victoria, British Columbia, with her husband and son. Her fiction has been published in journals and magazines across Canada and was included in the 2010 anthology Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow (Douglas & McIntyre); her nonfiction has garnered two honorable mentions at the National Magazine Awards. She is also the author of the children’s novel The Incredibly Ordinary Danny Chandelier, which was published by Annick Press in Canada in 2008. Here, O’Connor and Trunkey discuss the author’s work and the nature of the short story. Susan Hans O’Connor: The Indies Introduce panel loved that your stories felt so different — that they were magical and also weird, in the best sense of the word. What was the inspiration behind these stories? Photo by Mike Andrew McLean Laura Trunkey: Most of the stories are a result of my obsessiveness. When I discover something I consider fascinating, I usually attempt to learn everything I can about the subject. Then I feel the compulsion to share. Some obsessions that have made their way into Double Dutch are political doubles, blastocysts, Edison’s animal experiments, xenoglossy, mountain goats, a trial held in Edmonton in 1917. My favorite short story collections are varied in both form and subject, and that was my intention for Double Dutch. SHO: The stories in Double Dutch are also quite disparate, some involving shape-shifters, doppelgangers, and spirits, but others feel very grounded in reality. Is it more challenging to write about reality or fantasy? LT: A friend of mine calls the type of writing I do “grounded fantastic,” meaning that though there are fantastical elements, the story as a whole rings true. I like this term more than “magical realism,” which is often applied to my work. That’s because for me, the grounding comes first. I can’t write about something unless I can convince myself that it could happen, or might have happened. This usually involves enough research to create a strong scaffolding of fact. Luckily, I am an open-minded (or perhaps gullible) person. I can believe that Ronald Reagan might have had a political double; I believe that it might be possible for a person to speak another language in their sleep or to communicate with animals. The fantastical is compelling to me, which is why it makes its way into my stories. There is one story in my collection that is straight reality, “Hands Like Birds.” It didn’t start that way, but I rewrote it completely after I submitted my manuscript, keeping only the basic plot and the characters’ names. The magic didn’t fit my revision, and in its current version it won’t be apparent to the reader. But the end I envision for those characters, the way the story continues off the page, is magical. Which is a long way to say: both straight reality and straight fantasy would be difficult for me; it’s easiest and most gratifying to combine them. SHO: As booksellers, we know that some readers are reluctant to pick up a short story collection over a novel. What would you say to those readers? LT: The reason I’ve often heard for the preference of novels over stories is that readers can’t connect with characters in 20 pages in the same way as they can after 200. I don’t believe that to be true. Perhaps the most memorable character in literature for me is Otto, from Deborah Eisenberg’s “Some Other, Better Otto.” But aside from that, short stories are practical! I have a five-year-old son with autism, and I read primarily when he’s in bed. With a good novel I can always convince myself to read “just one more chapter.” Whereas, at the end of a good short story, a pause feels required — some time to let it sink in (and to finally go to sleep). SHO: Author Annie Proulx once said, “In a rough way the short story writer is to the novelist as a cabinet maker is to a house carpenter.” Do you see yourself as a cabinet maker? What has drawn you to the short story? LT: A warp in a piece of wood used to build a cabinet would be much more noticeable than a warp on a single piece of timber used to build a house. And in short fiction, careless sentences call attention to themselves in the same way. As a reader, I expect more on the line level from short stories than I do from novels. Each word has to serve a purpose — and I appreciate the attention that the best short stories pay to language. Aside from this, short fiction allows me to try out ideas that are intimidating or likely to be unsuccessful. I have a number of unfinished stories, and some that are complete but much too terrible to share. Simply because of the length of novels, and how slowly I write, I feel much more inclined to plan and plot out long-form works. Short fiction is liberating. SHO: What are you working on next? LT: I have a handful of new short stories, but I’m also juggling three longer projects: a half-written middle-grade novel, a young adult book I may never finish revising, and an adult novel that’s just taking shape. Lately most of my focus is on the latter, but I’m wary to provide details for superstitious reasons. Double Dutch by Laura Trunkey (Astoria/House of Anansi Press, 9781770898776, trade paperback, $15.95) Publication Date: March 14, 2017. Learn more about the author at lauratrunkey.com ABA member stores are invited to use this interview or any others in our series of Q&As with Indies Introduce debut authors in newsletters and social media and in online and in-store promotions. Please let us know if you do. 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Featured Interview: Laura Trunkey
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Laura Trunkey’s writing has been published in journals and magazines across Canada. Her short fiction has been anthologized in the bestselling collection, Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow and her non-fiction has been anthologized in Hidden Lives. The Incredibly Ordinary Danny Chandelier, Laura’s children’s novel, was a starred selection in the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s Best Books for Kids & Teens. Her short fiction collection, Double Dutch, was released in March 2016 by Anansi. Laura graduated from the UBC CRWR MFA program in 2009.
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(Listen to Laura read from Double Dutch)
Hi, I’m Laura Trunkey. I’m originally from Victoria, BC and have called Vancouver Island home for most of my life. I entered UBC’s OptRes program in 2006 – quite a departure from my Social Work degree, but a great decision. My first book, the children’s novel, The Incredibly Ordinary Danny Chandelier, was published in 2008. I began the book in 2005 with the intention to write a couple chapters for my UBC portfolio. I workshopped the entire book in my writing for children class my first year of the program, back when there were classes of only four students and lots of submission dates. My short story collection, Double Dutch took considerably longer to make its way into the world. The oldest story in the collection was written a decade ago.
Could you tell us a little about your short story collection?
Double Dutch is a collection of nine stylistically varied short stories. In the title story, Ronald Reagan’s body double falls in love with the first lady. Topsy, the elephant on the book cover, relives her past during her Coney Island execution. In other stories biblical miracles are performed, animals communicate or share bodies with humans, and spirits tend to the souls of the dying. It was published by House of Anansi’s short story imprint, Astoria, in March, 2016.
What was the process of writing your collection?
About half of the stories were written during my time in the Optional Residency program and became part of my MFA thesis in 2009. In fact, the manuscript I submitted to Anansi didn’t look much different from my thesis collection. The book was accepted in December, 2013, but because it wasn’t slated for publication until 2016 I had over a year before starting work with my editor, Janice Zawerbny. I used that time to write new stories to replace ones I was no longer happy with.
Why did you choose to write about what you did?
Most of the stories are a result of my obsessiveness. When I discover something I consider fascinating, I usually attempt to learn everything I can about the subject. Then I feel the compulsion to share. Some obsessions that have made their way into Double Dutch are political doubles, blastocysts, Edison’s animal experiments, xenoglossy, mountain goats, a trial held in Edmonton in 1917. A reviewer recently wrote about a thematic link between most of the stories in my collection, but I have to admit I didn’t plan for that, nor am I convinced it actually exists. My favourite short story collections are varied in both form and subject, and I consider Double Dutch to fit that description.
What is one of the most important lessons you’ve learned about writing?
The willingness to revise and revise and revise again is so much more important than the quality of a first draft. And while the act of writing is solitary, when it comes to revisions, help – at least for me – is so valuable. (One lesson I’m trying to learn is that eventually I have to stop revising. Every time I read through a draft I’ll find more things I want to change. It’s hard for me to just say: enough!)
How did the Creative Writing program help your writing practice?
The greatest gift the program gave me were the friends I made. I have a wonderful online writing group right now. Five of us were classmates our first summer at UBC in 2006, the sixth member – Matthew J Trafford – is a phenomenal writer I was put in contact with before I entered the program, when I was trying to decide whether to study on campus or go the optres route. He convinced me to choose the latter mostly by describing how the summer residencies are like adult summer camp, except with laptops rather than canoes. He’s now the first reader of all my fiction (and his book “The Divinity Gene” is a must-read). Zsuzsi Gartner, my thesis advisor, is an incredible mentor and champion of short fiction. I was so privileged to learn from her, and to be pushed far out of my comfort zone. I didn’t have any writer friends before UBC. Writing was a lonely thing I dreamed about doing. At UBC, I found my tribe.
Is there something people may not know about you?
There’s a lot people don’t know about me. I’m not on Facebook or Twitter, and isn’t that how people get information these days? I played the cello from when I was three until when I was 19. I often considered building a life that revolved around that instrument, but I wasn’t obsessed enough. And though I love music, I’ve always loved books a little bit more.
What are you working on now?
New short stories, a half-written mid-grade novel, a YA novel in the final stages of revision, an adult novel that’s just taking shape in my brain. My problem isn’t coming up with ideas, it’s choosing one to focus on and seeing it through to the end.
Are you doing any upcoming readings you would like to promo?
I’m doing a little Vancouver/ Victoria/ Nanaimo tour in July, and I’ll be reading at a short fiction event in Toronto in October but none of the details are firmed up yet. When they are, they’ll be up on my website. www.lauratrunkey.com
Find Laura online on Goodreads
You can purchase Double Dutch from Anansi, Indigo, Amazon and your local bookstore.
Francine Cunningham is the social media executive for the UBC Creative Writing Alumni Association. What does that mean exactly? She is on the Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads accounts and our blog, posting information about our alumni, events and news. She also runs this interview series Featured Alumni and loves being able to get to know the people who make this association what it is. For more information about Francine and her writing find her at www.francinecunningham.ca.
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THE LUCKY SEVEN INTERVIEW, WITH LAURA TRUNKEY
Submitted by Grace on March 10, 2016 - 1:39pm Share|
Laura Trunkey
Laura Trunkey's debut short fiction collection, Double Dutch (House of Anansi Press), is the kind of career-launching book that heralds an important new voice in CanLit. Magically creative, these stories are slightly bizarre and entirely human, from the man who has to figure out how to go on when his wife's body is taken over by a bear to the titular character, a body double for Ronald Reagan, who falls in love with the most unattainable of women.
Today we're speaking with Laura as part of our Lucky Seven series, where we talk to authors about their new books, their writing process and more.
Laura tells us why obsessiveness works for her as a writer, the timeline of how the book came together (and the stories it shed along the way) and "productive" procrastination.
Open Book:
Tell us about your new book Double Dutch.
Laura Trunkey:
Double Dutch is a collection of nine stylistically varied short stories. In the title story, Ronald Reagan’s body double falls in love with the first lady. Topsy, the elephant on the book cover, relives her past during her Coney Island execution. In other stories biblical miracles are performed, animals communicate or share bodies with humans, and spirits tend to the souls of the dying. About half of the stories were written during my time in UBC’s optional residency MFA program from 2006-2009. Most of the stories are a result of my obsessiveness. When I discover something I consider fascinating, I usually attempt to learn everything I can about the subject. Then I feel the compulsion to share. Some obsessions that have made their way into Double Dutch are political doubles, blastocysts, Edison’s animal experiments, xenoglossy, mountain goats, a trial held in Edmonton in 1917. This is why short stories are a good fit for me. I can’t imagine a novel that could contain all these threads. Though if there were one, I’d definitely read it!
OB:
Is there a question that is central to your book, thematically? And if so, did you know the question when you started writing or did it emerge from the writing process?
LT:
A reviewer recently wrote about a thematic link between most of the stories in my collection, but I have to admit I didn’t plan for that, nor am I convinced it actually exists. My favourite short story collections are varied in both form and subject, and I consider Double Dutch to fit that description. Neil Smith blurbed the book and said the stories are: “rooted in reality but tinged with the fantastic.” If there is a common element, that would be it.
OB:
Did the book change significantly from when you first starting working on it to the final version? How long did the project take from start to finish?
LT:
The manuscript I submitted had eight stories and a novella. It was accepted December of 2013, long before the slated publication date. I used 2014 and the first months of 2015 to write three new stories and another novella. Neither novella made the final book, but the new stories displaced older ones that I was ready to part with. The oldest story in this book, “Second Comings and Goings,” was written in 2007, and the most recent, “Electrocuting the Elephant,” was written just last year.
OB:
What do you need in order to write — in terms of space, food, rituals, writing instruments?
LT:
I used to have writing rituals: I wrote early in the morning and I needed silence and a particular blanket over my legs. When my son was born in 2011 my rituals disappeared. It felt wrong to wake up early when sleep was at a premium, so I scheduled my writing hours with his naps — a couple short stints a day. When my mum came to look after him, I’d head to the coffee shop around the corner and work there — a far cry from silence. It was difficult at first, but it was useful to shake off my routine. Now I don’t really have one. I write daily, but at no particular time. Noise is no longer an issue. Last year, every Tuesday morning I wrote in the rec. center coffee shop outside my son’s preschool while the stamp collector’s club held their meetings. I have never encountered a rowdier group of senior citizens, but I always got a lot done in their company. I don’t carry the blanket around with me, but maybe I should. I’m always cold when I write.
OB:
What do you do if you're feeling discouraged during the writing process? Do you have a method of coping with the difficult points in your projects?
LT:
When I’m discouraged I often have a crisis of confidence. I stare at the screen, decide I will probably never write anything decent again, wonder if I even wrote anything decent before, then do “productive” things, like clean cupboards in the kitchen. After this, I get mad at myself for wasting time and usually shift to writing something else. This means I have a number of false starts cluttering my hard drive, but they’ve proven useful. “Night Terror,” and “The Windspir Sisters’ Home for the Dying” were written from story scraps I had cast aside for years. I consider them a collaborative effort between two different writers, and they’re stronger as a result.
OB:
What defines a great book, in your opinion? Tell us about one or two books you consider to be truly great books.
LT:
This is such a difficult question. There are so many great books, and books can be great for different reasons. There are books like Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, which are great because of the attention to language. Any book I need to read slowly so I can enjoy the sentences is a great book, in my opinion. And then there are great books I can’t help racing through, paying no attention to the writing — wooly books packed with plot like Zadie Smith’s early novels. And then there is Catcher in the Rye, a book I read whenever I need cheering up — sometimes the whole novel and sometimes just a few pages at random. For me to consider a short story great, I want it all — a thick, unexpected plot and beautiful language. Jim Shepard, Deborah Eisenberg and Zsuzsi Gartner are short story masters. Eliza Robertson’s Wallflowers is a great book. Lauren Groff’s 2009 collection Delicate Edible Birds is a recent discovery, and blew the top of my head off.
OB:
What are you working on now?
LT:
I have a small handful of new short stories, but I’m also juggling three longer projects: a half-written midgrade novel, a YA book I may never finish revising, and an adult novel that’s just taking shape. Lately most of my focus is on the latter, but I’m wary to provide details for superstitious reasons. I don’t want to jinx anything!
Laura Trunkey’s fiction has been published in journals and magazines across Canada, and was included in the anthology Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow. Her non-fiction has garnered two honorable mentions at the National Magazine Awards. She is the author of the children’s novel, The Incredibly Ordinary Danny Chandelier (2008). She lives in Victoria, BC, with her husband and son.
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Trunkey, Laura: DOUBLE DUTCH
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 15, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Trunkey, Laura DOUBLE DUTCH House of Anansi Press (Adult Fiction) $15.95 3, 14 ISBN: 978-1-77089-877-6
In a debut collection of short stories, Trunkey (The Incredibly Ordinary Danny Chandelier, 2008) offers a broad
assortment of surreal conceits ranging from animal transformation to a series of events narrated in the voice of a
gun.The nine stories in Trunkey's collection seem determined to investigate the literary possibilities of the odd and
grotesque. A single story, "Hands Like Birds," constrains itself to the relatively mundane idea of a deaf 12-year-old
girl struggling with the gradual loss of her sight to Usher Syndrome. The other eight tales tackle a variety of fantastical
elements while clinging to reality to varying degrees. "Double Dutch" recounts the life of a veteran devastated by war
who becomes Ronald Reagan's body double and falls in love with the president's wife. "Second Comings and Goings"
dips into the thoughts of members of a Lutheran congregation that gives refuge to a Slovakian child refugee who may
or may not be the Second Coming. "Winchester .30-.30" describes the events that eventually led to the first Canadian
trial of Inuit men in dreamy, disconnected scenes recalled by a murder weapon. Although the diversity and ambition of
Trunkey's ideas make for an entertaining sequence of stories, they frequently fall prey to a knowing and maudlin
despair. Characters are unhappy, selfish, or insensitive but in ways that feel like overt devices meant to engineer a
sentimental haze. Stories that attempt to confront a fear of otherness, like "Night Terror," in which a mother becomes
convinced that her child is the reincarnation of a terrorist speaking Arabic, seem to stumble over a lack of conviction.
The most pleasurable moments in this collection are the ones animated less by mannered gloom and more by a
delighted curiosity. An assortment of well-written but often dreary stories of the imagination.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Trunkey, Laura: DOUBLE DUTCH." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA480921956&it=r&asid=ea8a11b17a171c52cefa85d9cbb27306.
Accessed 3 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A480921956
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Double Dutch
Publishers Weekly.
264.1 (Jan. 2, 2017): p33.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Double Dutch
Laura Trunkey. House of Anansi (PGW, U.S. dist.; UTR Canadian dist.), $15.95 trade paper (265p) ISBN 978-1-
77089-877-6
Trunkey's debut short story collection shows flashes of real creative and literary talent. Unfortunately, that talent often
gets mired in sentimentality. Many of the stories are in the urban magic realism tradition, including "Night Terror,"
about a single mother who worries that her toddler may be the reincarnation of a terrorist; "Ursus Arctos Horribilis," in
which a man's wife switches bodies with a grizzly bear; and "The Windspir Sisters' Home for the Dying," about
sextuplets who open a hospice and divide the workload so that the four living sisters administer to patients' physical
needs and the two deceased sisters administer to patients' spiritual needs. Others, such as the title story, remain firmly
grounded in realism. Like the stories, the characters vary greatly--including Inuit men, Thomas Edison, and a young
kid goat and his ancestors--and while Trunkey is courageous in her attempts to portray such a wide spectrum of
characters, the results sometimes lack authenticity. Ultimately, Trunkey's imagination provides the seeds necessary for
fabulous stories, but some of those seeds require a stronger voice and less mawkishness in order to thrive. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Double Dutch." Publishers Weekly, 2 Jan. 2017, p. 33. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA478696464&it=r&asid=056d1ef0bd466e2bab73f139f2b502f3.
Accessed 3 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A478696464
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Double Dutch
Jessica Rose
This Magazine.
49.5 (March-April 2016): p40.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Red Maple Foundation
http://www.thismagazine.ca/
Full Text:
DOUBLE DUTCH
by Laura Trunkey
House of Anansi, $19.95
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Double Dutch, a debut collection of short stories by Laura Trunkey, is an unlikely gem, despite making readers
uncomfortable from its very first page.
Moving between the possible and impossible, Double Dutch is highly entertaining, yet unpalatable at times. In the
collection's first tale titled "Night Terror," a single mother named Nicole suspects her toddler is a reincarnated terrorist.
In another imaginative story, readers meet Ursulabear, a woman-bear hybrid creature.
The scenarios that dominate Double Dutch are implausible and, at times, disturbing. However, Trunkey possesses a
rare ability to make readers care deeply about the flawed and floundering characters before them. Memorable from
beginning to end, Double Dutch is an unexpected journey of emotional highs and lows. It's both moving and
maddening at the same time--but in the best kind of way.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Rose, Jessica. "Double Dutch." This Magazine, Mar.-Apr. 2016, p. 40. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA448900882&it=r&asid=f05a64d7adfc148f5f5c2838ec8d38c6.
Accessed 3 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A448900882
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REVIEW
Review: Kerry Lee Powell’s Willem de Kooning’s Paintbrush and Laura Trunkey’s Double Dutch deliver the unexpected
Open this photo in gallery:
New collections by Kerry Lee Powell, shown, and Laura Trunkey show that short fiction is still alive and strong in the land of Alice Munro.
STEVEN W. BEATTIE
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
APRIL 10, 2017
APRIL 22, 2016
Willem de Kooning's Paintbrush
By Kerry Lee Powell
HarperAvenue, 272 pages, $26.99
Double Dutch
By Laura Trunkey
Astoria/House of Anansi, 264 pages, $19.95
"Royal Beating. That was Flo's promise. You are going to get one Royal Beating." Those are the opening lines of Alice Munro's 1978 Governor-General's Literary Award winner Who Do You Think You Are?, lines that are coarsened in the opening of Kerry Lee Powell's debut short-fiction collection, Willem de Kooning's Paintbrush: "Today's the day Mitchell Burnhope gets the royal shit kicked out of him." The echo is most likely unintentional: Powell's story, Palace of the Brine, which takes place in a strip club and focuses largely on one patron who operates under the misguided notion that he can "save" his favourite dancer, doesn't appear to share much in common with Munro or with her central character, Rose. But Munro's influence on the Canadian short story is inescapable, and is often honoured most in the breach.
Then again, Powell's characters – vulnerable figures frequently forced to don a veneer of toughness, who yearn for an escape from their straitened circumstances – do bear a certain resemblance to Rose, the young girl from the wrong side of the tracks who dreams of breaking away from the shackles of her small-town existence, eventually becoming an actress. In Powell's story Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, Dawn, a disaffected teenager – "a large, solitary girl who seldom brought friends home" – longs to be cast in her school's play, in part as a flight from her unhappy suburban existence. "It's not about the play," she tells her mother, Maureen, recapitulating Rose's attitude toward her hometown of Hanratty, Ont. "Although the play did make me realize a lot of things. Like just how terrible this place is."
As a young mother of a newborn, Maureen maintained aspirations of ascending to a more materially comfortable lifestyle: "Maureen and her husband had dreamed of one day belonging to the fancy clubhouse, a white-pillared mansion mirrored by an artificial pond, its paired swans circulating among the reeds." A successful interior designer, Maureen has managed to ascend the social ladder, though she remains at a remove from her daughter, whose increasingly delinquent behaviour – faking illnesses, cutting class, sneaking out at night – raises alarm bells with her mother and the school's officious guidance counsellor.
When Dawn begins hanging around with a "tough-looking" Vietnamese boy, Maureen suspects the young man of gang affiliation, an accusation that is somewhat understandably characterized as racist by her recalcitrant daughter. The layered misunderstandings that persist between Maureen and Dawn – and the true reason for the adolescent's erratic conduct – dramatize the ways in which good intentions go awry and presumptions about those closest to us lead to a kind of willful blindness regarding the truth. If these aren't Munrovian subjects, it's hard to imagine what might be.
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Powell, whose 2014 poetry collection, Inheritance, was nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, is less subtle than Munro and her stories traffic in a rougher, grittier milieu. None of which is meant as a slight to Powell's ability as a stylist – which is considerable – or her capacity to elicit genuine emotion from her characters and their situations. The writing in Willem de Kooning's Paintbrush is admirably direct and pared-down, a welcome change from the tendency of poets to overcompensate when shifting to the putatively airier prose form. Of course, poetry and short fiction share a common bond in their reliance on rigorous concentration of language; Powell is adept at employing this to good effect in stories that never end up in quite the places you expect them to.
Laura Trunkey has also produced a suite of unexpected stories that move even further afield from the Munro template. A strong metaphysical undercurrent runs through her debut collection Double Dutch, which includes stories involving a woman whose spirit trades places with a grizzly bear, and a mother who becomes distraught when her two-year-old son begins speaking Arabic in his sleep.
That story, which opens the collection, neatly sets the tone for what is to come. Trunkey retains the outward trappings of realism, painting a picture of a mother, Nicole, struggling to comprehend her offspring, who is politely referred to as a "problem child." The daycare workers who oversee the boy use words such as "energetic" and "expressive" to describe his behaviour, "but Nicole knew what they were implying."
It is axiomatic to refer to such children as "terrors," or even, in some locutions, "holy terrors." The adjective becomes loaded after Nicole comes to recognize the language her son is speaking in his sleep; the increasingly distressed mother winds up convinced that her young son is somehow the reincarnation of a dead terrorist. The truth, when it is revealed, is equally mysterious, but much more hopeful and poignant, and highlights Trunkey's facility at manipulating her materials in a way that feels completely organic, notwithstanding the uncanniness of much of her subject matter.
The collection's title story owes more to Poe than Munro – specifically, the American author's fascination with the doppelganger motif. But the context is unanticipated: The narrator, Noah, a dead ringer for Ronald Reagan, becomes a stand-in at public events after the erstwhile actor is elected president. (The title Double Dutch, one of the few times Trunkey allows herself a linguistic indulgence that feels twee and heavy-handed, refers to Reagan's nickname.) As Noah becomes more deeply ensconced in his role – attending summits with Mikhail Gorbachev in the place of the actual U.S. leader – he also finds himself becoming infatuated with Reagan's wife, Nancy. Trunkey's adept handling of Noah's erotically charged encounters with the first lady nicely counterpoint the story's more outrageous aspects and the tale builds to an ending that is surprisingly human and recognizable.
Other stories feature elements that are less effective – Winchester .30-.30, about the killing of two white clerics by a pair of Inuit men at the start of the 20th century, contains an awkward anthropomorphization of the murder weapon, and the sections of Electrocuting the Elephant written from the perspective of the eponymous pachyderm are unconvincing. But for the most part, Trunkey achieves a coherent marriage of elements in these tales: History, realism, and the mystical combine to strong and startling effect. It's not Munro, but it's testament to the versatility and variability of the form in which the Nobel winner toils.
Steven W. Beattie's column on short fiction appears monthly.
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Book review: Outlandish notions in the everyday world
Review of the new book Double Dutch by Victoria-based author Laura Trunkey.
Brett Josef Grubisic BRETT JOSEF GRUBISIC
Published on: March 22, 2016 | Last Updated: March 25, 2016 12:27 PM PDT
Double Dutch by Laura Trunkey. HANDOUT / VANCOUVER SUN
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In the nine stories of Double Dutch, Victoria-based Laura Trunkey often (and winningly) disregards conventional points of view. And while she’s evidently drawn to outlandish conceits, she situates them in a recognizable everyday world, whether Niagara Falls or Washington, D.C.
Rather than the settings, though, it’s the unexpected twists that initially grab attention. For example, unaware of her imminent execution, Topsy, a sideshow elephant during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, ponders the mysterious “small two-feet” tribe that surrounds her at Coney Island and determines her fate. Or, leading up to an appearance at a 1917 murder trial in Edmonton, a lonely Winchester rifle senses the “red shame of her desire.” In another, two sisters, translucent residents of the spirit world, help out with the family business, a DIY palliative care facility in a rural town. Two stories earlier, air molecules whisper “He’s joined our chorus of the infinity.” They’re offering solace to a couple mourning their son’s probable death while mountain climbing.
Elegant, deft, light of touch, and sometimes spicily comic, the stories are not just vehicles for the author’s flights of fancy. Trunkey’s not frivolous. Loss, uncertainty, folly, lament, and helplessness pervade the collection. The title story, an intriguing bit of counter-history, has octogenarian Noah Driscoll recalling his busy years in service as Ronald Reagan’s double, during which he attended conferences and fundraisers in the former American president’s place. In looking back, however, he’s also revealing deep regret about both what never was and choices he made decades earlier. “Night Terror” focuses on a single mom whose infant unaccountably speaks Arabic in his sleep. From there (this being Trunkey’s world) it’s a small step for her to suspect that the child is a reincarnated Arab and former terrorist. Readers discern what she cannot: in feeling “the precise opposite of the mothers in diaper ads” and rueing “one drunken, fumbling mistake,” the woman is struggling over a perilous bonding failure and the guilt that blossoms because of it.
Trunkey’s stories engage with death and grief from a series of absorbing and inventive angles. In “Ursus Arctos Horribilis” a sorrow-wracked Vancouver man visits an ICU ward and stares at the comatose body of his wife, who was mauled in a grizzly attack near Banff. He calls her “the beast,” sure in his fractured mental state that the spirits of bear (Ursus) and wife (Ursula) have swapped places. With a cast that includes an embittered Thomas Edison and a thoughtful if unsuspecting circus animal, “Electrocuting the Elephant” offers an impressionistic account of the events and thinking that result in an public execution. Communication attempts from air itself to a pair of squabbling and bereft parents is featured in “On Crowsnest Pass,” while a cliffside death might be portended in the ambiguous conclusion of “Hands Like Birds.” A possible nod to Barbara Gowdy’s Falling Angels, Trunkey’s take — about a dismal trip a deaf 12-year old (who’s already traumatized by sexual bullying at her Alberta school) takes with her desperately upbeat father to Niagara Falls before her rapidly diminishing sight disappears altogether — thematizes communication failure and its perils.
Death and related topics are featured as well in Trunkey’s moments of inspired mordancy.
A 17-part gothic piece with bright Beetlejuice inflections, “The Windspir Sisters’ Home for the Dying” momentarily envisions the historical Windspir Sextuplets. Mrs. Windspir dies during childbirth and two of her daughters succumb before they’re baptized. The four remaining girls eventually open a hospice inside their house and rely on their dead sisters to introduce the newly deceased to the afterlife. Their business model isn’t without gaping flaws. A satiric account (complete with witness testimonials) of mob mentality set in Victoria, “Second Comings and Goings” traces the downward path of a young man, a poor Slovakian violin prodigy, whose alleged miracles cause even non-believers to clamour for his attention.
Sombreness and whimsicality aren’t the likeliest of pairs, but based on Double Dutch, Laura Trunkey has developed sure means to wed her writerly impulses. Her debut story collection is a marvel of style and substance.
Brett Josef Grubisic teaches English literature at UBC. From Up River and For One Night Only, his third novel, comes out in April.
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Review of Double Dutch by Laura Trunkey
When I was a kids, the circus came to town. I went, loved the Fun House Mirrors , where I appeared upside down or oddly twised in ways that made me seem like someone else. I never knew what was coming next.
When I began to read Double Dutch, I had the same Fun House Mirror feeling. In Night Terror, Nichole’s son Jasper speaks Arabic in his sleep. She thinks he’s been invaded by a terrorist. Wait a minute and Nichole is revealed. And her son’s nightime terror is a poem.
Turn the page. In Ursus Arctos Horribilis, a woman, attacked by a bear becomes a bear.
In the title story, Double Dutch, Noah, Ronald Regan’s stand-in, falls in love with Nancy. The mirrors shift again. What is it we are seeing?
Then, in Second Comings and Goings, a gypsy boy is deemed miraculous and walks over water and drowns. Or does he?
In Double Dutch, the house of mirrors is opening its doors to us. Come in, says the sign over the door, come in. Read this book. You never know what will happen here. Magic.
Wendy Morton is a poet, has 7 books in the world, has gotten a wall full of awards: the very best being the Meritorious Service Metal from the Governor General for her projects which have brought honour to Canada: Random Acts of Poetry and The Elder Project. She believes that a poem is the shortest distance between two hearts.
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Double Dutch
by Laura Trunkey
Double Dutch is a confident debut collection containing nine stories that mostly offer varying perspectives on a single theme. That theme – the body/soul duality – is an old one, though the way Trunkey
employs it is unfamiliar, at least by the standards of contemporary fiction.
9781770898776In the first story, a young single mother thinks her two-year-old son has been inhabited by the reincarnated soul of a terrorist. The reader may think her simply mad, but the toddler does recite Arabic poetry in his sleep. Next up is another case study in possession, in which a man’s wife swaps souls with a bear. This is followed by the title story, about a body-double for former U.S. president Ronald Reagan. Once again, the conflict between physical appearance and inner identity is brought to the fore; the material or physical, we are led to understand, is not necessarily the same as what’s real.
The later stories offer more elegiac turns on the same theme. A gypsy boy adopted by a Lutheran church is promoted as the second coming, a role that involves its own mix of human and divine identities. As with certain other stories, this one ends with an evocation of death not as something final, but as a transfiguration, a shuffling off of the mortal coil and withdrawal to an ethereal spirit world. “On Crowsnest Mountain” takes us on a search for a missing boy, in the process dissolving the “molecular chorus” of the boy’s body (a mere empty vessel) into a “chorus of the infinite.” The last story is about a hospice run by a bunch of sisters who can navigate the borderland between life and death. As their physical husks lie in the family home their ethereal selves get drawn to a vague land known as “the White,” which lies beyond a fence at the edge of their property.
One of the more effective and interesting ways Trunkey develops her central theme is by firmly embedding the spiritual within a tangible reality. It’s no coincidence, for example, that border states are so often associated with natural settings like parks. It’s also significant that several of the stories deal with mothers and their children, as motherhood entails both a physical and a spiritual bond. The mother in “On Crowsnest Mountain” feels connected to her lost son in a way that her realistic (arch emphasis in the original) husband can’t because he “does not feel the heart of his child beating in his gut.”
That so many of the stories address the same subject is by no means a criticism: it’s a large theme, and Trunkey is inventive in breathing new life into it. Indeed, it’s the two outliers – about Thomas Edison’s electrocution of an elephant and the killing of a pair of priests in the far North – that are less successful, perhaps for seeming out of place. Despite this, the overall effect of the collection is to make us feel that reality contains within it a spiritual dimension – a message near to the heart of every storyteller as well as a good part of their art.
Reviewer: Alex Good
Publisher: House of Anansi Press
DETAILS
Price: $19.95
Page Count: 280 pp
Format: Paper
ISBN: 978-1-77089-877-6
Released: March
Issue Date: March 2016
Categories: Fiction: Short
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ARTICLES . BOOK REVIEWS . COLUMNS . NEW WORK . INTERVIEWS . EXCERPTS
‘Double Dutch’ by Laura Trunkey
Posted: APRIL 16, 2016
Book Reviews
Double DutchReviewed by Lauren Siddall
Double Dutch marks Victoria writer Laura Trunkey’s debut collection of short stories. Her fiction and non-fiction pieces have been published by journals across Canada, as well as having collected two honourable mentions at the National Magazine Awards. Trunkey also authored the children’s novel The Incredibly Ordinary Danny Chandelier, making her transition into literary fiction all the more impressive.
The nine stories in Double Dutch depict nine very diverse scenarios, all marked by an extremely rich cast of characters with unique voices. Trunkey easily switches between voices, sometimes invoking more than one speaker per story, and ranging from an omniscient narrator, to an elephant, to air particles. Though the task seems daunting, Trunkey is more than up to the challenge and makes it feel nearly effortless.
Her collection of stories borders on the fantastical, always combining reality with a degree of the imaginary. The liminal nature of Trunkey’s stories creates a space for her to play with complicated, pressing issues that are otherwise taboo.
In “Night Terror,” the first story in the collection, a single mother is convinced her toddler is the reincarnation of a terrorist, because the child mumbles Arabic in his sleep. Here, Trunkey is exploring and deconstructing a harmful Orientalist dialogue that has become inherent in Western discussions of the Middle East – particularly in the wake of 9/11. The child, upon whom the mother projects her feelings of hostility toward Islamic culture, represents the way in which those practising Islam are marginalized and even demonized by those who know nothing about the religion apart from the radical versions depicted on the nightly news. The two-year-old child, of course, ends up being harmless, forcing the reader to re-examine the treatment of ostracized Islamic and Arabic individuals.
In “Ursus Arctos Horribilis,” “Electrocuting the Elephant,” “On Crowsnest Mountain” and “The Windspir Sisters’ Home for the Dying,” Trunkey explores in different ways the idea of death and mortality, while touching on what it means to mourn. In “Ursus Arctos Horribilis” and “On Crowsnest Mountain,” she deconstructs the psyches of mourning individuals. The speaker in “Ursus Arctos Horribilis” believes his wife, who is in intensive care after being attacked by a bear, is actually inhabited by the spirit of the very bear that attacked her. His narrative is a story of mourning someone he believes has passed but is not truly gone. This is also the case with “On Crownest Mountain,” which follows a mother and father climbing up the mountain where their son went missing. The father, clearly the more pragmatic of the two, believes their son is dead and thinks their mission is useless. The mother, on the other hand, believes she will find her son, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The story moves away from the heartbreaking narrative when Trunkey takes a fantastical turn and gives a voice to nature – the force that has apparently taken the life of their son. Readers are given an opportunity, after an extended look into the inner workings of mourning, to see the external characteristics of the act.
“Electrocuting the Elephant” and “The Windspir Sisters’ Home for the Dying” are both centred on the act of dying, the former told from the perspective of an elephant named Topsy, who is being electrocuted on Coney Island by Thomas Edison, while the latter follows four sisters who can see and communicate with their two sisters who have died. Both stories attempt a depiction of life’s final moments, which, although difficult to imagine, Trunkey brilliantly describes.
The most compelling story of the collection is “Hands Like Birds,” which chronicles a deaf twelve-year-old girl’s transition into blindness. Along with her father and a caretaker, she travels to Niagara Falls, which, they believe will be the last thing, aside from their hometown, that the girl will ever see. Here, Trunkey masterfully describes the falls and fireworks in splinters, creating a kaleidoscope-like image of the landmark to maintain the fantastical theme permeating all her stories. The tale, while heartbreaking, brings to question what perception is and highlights the subjective way each person perceives the world.
The title story is about Ronald Reagan’s body double, who falls in love with Nancy Reagan, Ronald’s wife. The body double, known as Double Dutch, looks so similar to Reagan that sometimes even Reagan’s wife mistakes the two. The story is told retrospectively by the body double visiting Reagan in his old, ailing age, knowing this will be the last time they see each other. Interestingly, “Double Dutch” does not appear first in the collection, despite being the title story. Once the story is read, however, it becomes clear why Trunkey has chosen to use this title for the collection. The story is about two men who are virtually identical, except one is real and the other is not. Trunkey plays with this sort of duality throughout each story in the text: reality is always paired with an anti-reality of sorts.
Trunkey’s collection of stories is similar to Miranda Hill’s 2012 collection of short fiction, Sleeping Funny. Hill, too, roots her writing in the fantastic elements of reality to create a “funny” space to explore. Both Canadian authors offer a debut collection of stories with an extremely mature, refined voice, unifying their stories by weaving common themes throughout.
Anansi/Astoria | 280 pages | $19.95 | paper | ISBN# 9781770898776
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Lauren SiddallLauren Siddall is a Winnipeg writer and managing editor at The Manitoban.
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