Lyrically stunning and psychologically thrilling stories that blur the lines between reality, the imagination, and all the realms in between
Lauren T. Davila’s debut short story collection The Patron Saint of White Menageries depict financial and social desperation, complex identities, and life-altering circumstances and decisions—all set against Hollywood and Los Angeles’s glitzy backdrop. Blending the best elements of riveting gothic horror with luminary magical realism, each story in the collection acts like a door to a portal into another psychological realm that individuals might fear entering. However, despite the darkness and fear that permeates many of the existences of many of the stories’ characters, Davila always manages to strangely and carefully braid hope and determination into the stories’ endings.
The sea and California’s landscapes bear an important role in Davila’s stories. The sea becomes a place where a confused, depressed, and misunderstood narrator reconciles with her father’s decades-long silence about her mother’s death. It becomes a place of refuge, where self-transformation is inevitable. California’s roads and mountains and deserts bear witness to love’s—and the mind’s—shattering as the lines between life, death, as well as the mysterious afterlives obscure. Thus, the stories are almost Transcendentalist and spiritualist in their reverence for nature.
Davila’s stories, too, test the boundaries of human relationships and compatibility. In one unforgettable story titled “Of Blood and Lace,” a young woman becomes the well-paid companion of an ancient woman, only to discover what sacrifices—literal and figurative—the woman expects in return. In another story, the romantic and heartfelt “Of Satin and Daisies,” a young ballet star stands on the verge of losing her dance career to a mysterious illness; instead, she finds hope, love, and a potentially rewarding future with the best friend she has secretly adored for years. Other stories challenge traditional familial concepts and constructs by asking, “What forms a family?” and “Who is truly family?”
The collection has few prosaic letdowns. Nonetheless, “Of Keys and Colitas” is one of the few short stories that seems drawn out and overly long. While many of the short stories rely on linguistic and structural compression to create emotional power and psychological tension, “Of Keys and Colitas,” with its attempted plot-riff on The Eagles’ hit “Hotel California,” does not quite stand out as one of the collection’s gems. Still, it does not bring down the sheer quality of the collection as a whole.
The Patron Saint of White Menageries establishes Davila as a powerful, even unforgettable, voice in contemporary short fiction. Spellbinding and gripping, this book is like a cabinet of magical realist curiosities.
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