Filomena Cozzolino

Robert McGill, SIMPLE CREATURES

Toronto: Coach House, 2024. $23.95

Each story in Robert McGill’s long-awaited first collection of short fiction follows characters who are desperate to unravel the crises swirling around them. The tales unpack human fragility; while characters attempt to relieve emotional distress, repair environmental damage, or rage against growing old, they often find themselves tangled in more trouble than when they began. McGill’s balance of eccentric wit and vivid imagery imbues his text with deliberation and urgency. While navigating these unique and well-crafted stories, readers may catch a glimpse of their own reflection in characters who naively chase what they believe will fix, complete, or perfect their lives, or in others who come to realize that the connections they crave have been within their reach the whole time.
The nuanced organization of the twelve pieces in Simple Creatures subverts the notion of a collective timeline that leaves readers hopeful for the lives of the characters beyond the pages and, perhaps, can instill readers’ hope for their own unwritten futures. The collection opens with an elderly couple grappling with their dissipating youth, crumbling marriage, and looming mortality; the last story follows a young couple who reconcile their marital issues and plant the seeds of their shared future. The published order of these two stories reverses beginnings and ends by introducing readers to characters nearing the end of their lives, then leaving readers with the final image of lives that are about to begin.
McGill weaves vibrant threads of absurdity through many of the stories to help alleviate the anxieties the characters cope with. A woman caring for a chimpanzee comes to recognize her late husband in the animal; a teenager concerned with his consumerism and overconsumption abandons his worldly possessions to live amongst the Bigfoot; a content creator whispers uplifting research notes into a microphone to quell his viewers’ climate-crisis fears. But McGill is able to shift tone from story to story. In “Confident Men,” fourteen-year-old Cam attempts to soothe the pain that school bullies have inflicted on her six-year-old cousins. When the twins need extra comfort, and their favourite book series won’t do, Cam “reads” from a blank sketchbook where the trio let their imaginations run rampant, creating advertisements for cereal boxes only containing fantastic prizes or roller skates that perform their own tricks. The replacement of comedy with wholesome and heartfelt scenes like this juxtaposes the harsh truths of the childhood trauma thrust upon the young characters. McGill’s amplification of these tender moments illuminates the glittering shards of humanity that begin to pierce the barriers that many of his protagonists have built around their hearts.
These formally innovative stories often move beyond traditional prose to take the shape of a high-schooler’s rambling research report, puppy care instructions, or YouTube monologues. McGill goes even further by blending second-person point of view with first- and third-person-narrated stories; readers are gently introduced to this POV blend in “Report on the Bigfoot Collective” where a student periodically pulls attention away from the report she’s writing to speak directly to her teacher, addressing her as “you” in what remains a one-sided conversation. By shifting to second person, the story tugs the reader’s attention, asking if we’ve been comprehending the underpinning themes. This tactic occurs again in “Your Puppy Meets the World,” “Something Something Aisling Moon,” “Your ASMR Boyfriend Addresses the Climate Crisis,” and briefly in “The Thunberg Pledge.” Playing with prose techniques, McGill creates new ways to shape distinct voices, characterization, and story arcs, while also interacting with readers in clever and unexpected ways.
With captivating language, McGill unravels the anguish within his characters. In “The Stress of Lives,” readers are left with a striking final image of a heartbroken character, reincarnated, circling above marshy grasslands “tracing helices as if shucking off some imperishable excess, searching for creatures in the long grass below, hunting for a satisfaction that promises to be hers if only she looks carefully enough.” With deceptively beautiful language the author is able to create budding moments where his characters might break free from their desolate lives. At its best, his writing uproots both character and reader to unearth raw human emotion with the gentle hands of a gardener.
Haunting imagery runs through Simple Creatures as well, often fuelling palpable anxieties which echo the fears that connect so much of humankind. In “Nobody Goes to Vancouver to Die,” thoughts of dinosaurs come to a character’s mind when she receives news about her friend’s death. She imagines a cataclysmic asteroid hitting the earth, picturing some of the dinosaurs “with rotting teeth and bloated hearts, heaving on the ground [...] She doubts that any of them comforted the sick. They were all dying.” Rather than reaching for a cheap punch-line about age, McGill tactfully describes the parallels of the physical and mental strains imposed on the elderly and the long-extinct. With a thoughtful approach, he untangles trepidations about mortality and paints his characters’ emotions viscerally and recognizably; in this way, he extends an empathetic invitation to his readers to share, commiserate, and find hope in the situations his characters find themselves navigating throughout these stories.
Loneliness is the catalyst for many of the protagonists taking on the task of changing their world in these stories. Many of these simple creatures are merely seeking tranquility and respite, though the search often leads to their lives becoming further convoluted. Others come to realize that connection, often already present in their lives, is the cure. In fact, most of these stories break down humanity’s deep hunger for connection (to another human, a pet, the planet) by exploring how we continue to ignore, deny, and resist this urge for togetherness; as a result, McGill’s characters, and his willing readers, move artfully, awkwardly, and often beautifully toward the bittersweet endings that await them. With his adept attention to detail and playful approach to short prose, McGill has crafted a collection that valiantly tries to tie the world together despite its deepening isolation and fracturing. The book is an invitation well worth taking up: Come, witness the exposed stitches holding the lives of these simple creatures in place at least for now, and connect.