Singing Innocence and Experience

Sonya Taaffe

I feel like something of a sycophant writing this review so soon after writing my review for Ms. Taaffe's other extant book, Postcards from the Province of Hyphens. I don't mean to be. I mean, it's not like I'm going to get scads of free dinners out of it or anything, since she lives hundreds of miles away. Postcards got, and Singing gets, rave reviews for one simple reason: they're brilliant.

Whereas Postcards was mainly poetry interspersed with a little prose, Singing goes the other way. Some pieces are repeated in the two books, but each of them is worth reading twice, even in relatively quick succession. But I've already sung the praises of Taaffe's short work in other places. What matters in the review are the longer stories. I mentioned in a recent review (of Charles Simic's memoirs) the truism that poets and short story writers are, with very rare exceptions, a different breed of animal altogether; those who can write excellent poetry are more often than not simply above-average storytellers. Good, but not as brilliant as they are poets. And the same usually holds true going the other way. Taaffe is one of those rare creatures who, it seems, is capable of doing both at the highest level of ability. Actually, if anything, she's slightly better at short stories. I rush to add, however, I had a lot more pages of short stories with which to judge.

Each of the stories here is a winner. The reader will no doubt find his own favorite (I honestly can't imagine anyone coming into this collection and not liking a single offering), but mine is the relatively early "Constellations, Conjunctions," whose simple beauty is so well offset by Taaffe's Corinthian prose (which, in the story, is still a relatively nascent being; you can tell she was younger when she wrote it than, say, "Clay Lies Still" or "Storm Gods of the Connecticut River Valley").

The stories here are perhaps best categorized as fantasy, though I think they're really unclassifiable; they deal in the unexplained, alternate worlds, all the sort of thing that fantasy stories deal in, but like the work of Lucius Shepard or Wendy Walker, Taaffe's fantasies feel far more like period pieces, though her chosen period, in most cases, is the present day; there's still that slight breath of mustiness between the words, the same one has when one opens a long-undisturbed book and holds it to one's nose, inhaling deeply.

The book gets four and a half rather than five stars for something completely not Taaffe's fault. There's an odd typo on the last two stories; it's so odd, in fact, it looks deliberate. If it is a coincidence, it's a right weird one. I won't spoil it for you; you'll ave to look for yourself.

I cannot sing Sonya Taaffe's praises loud (or, rest assured, tunelessly) enough. I can't wait for book number 3, whatever form it may take.