Exit Zero by Marie-Helene Bertino, 2015
The magic trick:
Using what would seem to be an object of magical realism in a different kind of way than was expected
Yesterday we looked at John Updike’s “A Sandstone Farmhouse.” Today, we have another protagonist cleaning out a recently deceased parent’s house. The key difference here is that the protagonist is a woman, and she is cleaning out her dad’s home. Oh, and the unicorn.
The unicorn is another difference to note.
To be honest, I was a little put off by the unicorn. It didn’t strike me as a fun, mind-warping, inventive bit of magic realism. It seemed maybe more of a showy crutch. But those negative feelings soon changed.
The thing is the unicorn doesn’t wind up being used to warp your mind. Not really at all. That never was the goal. I just assumed it would be. The story instead introduces this oddity and then immediately proceeds to treat it very seriously and realistically the rest of the way. As a result, the reader further connects to this story world and the protagonist as we watch the protagonist further connect to the unicorn.
In fact, you could argue the protagonist has the same initial reaction to the unicorn as I did. Are you serious? A unicorn? But it quickly becomes an embedded, accepted part of this world, a necessary bridge for our protagonist to better understand her father and process his death. It’s a lovely story.
And that’s quite a trick on Bertino’s part.
The selection:
At the motel, the unicorn is restless. She balks and pivots, drags her neck along the floor. Something red winks near her hindquarters. When Jo tries to investigate, Jasmine figure-eights out of her grasp. Jo traps her in the bathroom between the sink and shower and looks closer. A few inches of ribbon hang from the unicorn’s sphincter. Wrapping ribbon from her father’s house. That he used to wrap presents. For whom? She closes the door, trapping the whining unicorn in the bathroom. The unicorn has ingested an unknown length of ribbon that now wants out. Jo could cut it but has no idea how much is left inside the creature. She pours whiskey into a glass and takes a long drink.
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