Lauren T. Davila\u2019s debut short story collection The Patron Saint of White Menageries<\/em> depict financial and social desperation, complex identities, and life-altering circumstances and decisions\u2014all set against Hollywood and Los Angeles\u2019s 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\u2019 characters, Davila always manages to strangely and carefully braid hope and determination into the stories\u2019 endings.<\/p>\n The sea and California\u2019s landscapes bear an important role in Davila\u2019s stories. The sea becomes a place where a confused, depressed, and misunderstood narrator reconciles with her father\u2019s decades-long silence about her mother\u2019s death. It becomes a place of refuge, where self-transformation is inevitable. California\u2019s roads and mountains and deserts bear witness to love\u2019s\u2014and the mind\u2019s\u2014shattering 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.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Davila\u2019s stories, too, test the boundaries of human relationships and compatibility. In one unforgettable story titled \u201cOf Blood and Lace,\u201d a young woman becomes the well-paid companion of an ancient woman, only to discover what sacrifices\u2014literal and figurative\u2014the woman expects in return. In another story, the romantic and heartfelt \u201cOf Satin and Daisies,\u201d 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, \u201cWhat forms a family?\u201d and \u201cWho is truly family?\u201d<\/p>\n The collection has few prosaic letdowns. Nonetheless, \u201cOf Keys and Colitas\u201d 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, \u201cOf Keys and Colitas,\u201d with its attempted plot-riff on The Eagles\u2019 hit \u201cHotel California,\u201d does not quite stand out as one of the collection\u2019s gems.\u00a0Still, it does not bring down the sheer quality of the collection as a whole.<\/p>\n The Patron Saint of White Menageries<\/em> 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n The post The Patron Saint of White Menageries by Lauren T. Davila<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lyrically stunning and psychologically thrilling stories that blur the lines between reality, the imagination, and all the realms in between Lauren T. Davila\u2019s debut short story collection The Patron Saint of White Menageries depict financial and social desperation, complex identities, and life-altering circumstances and decisions\u2014all set against Hollywood and Los Angeles\u2019s glitzy backdrop. Blending the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}