Night Of The Living Rez by Morgan Talty, 2017
The magic trick:
Introducing a series of characters and ideas that belong as part of one setting but don’t necessarily all intersect into one plot resolution
The title track from Morgan Talty’s Night Of The Living Rez is one of the most troubling but beautiful stories you will read in this life.
I picture it like a small set of woods with a few very tall trees. Each tree is a different character, motif, or idea in the story. And there are several trees. There is a lot going on here – from the mysterious woman David rides home next to on the Greyhound bus after visiting his father in Boston to the Penobscot folklore at the heart of the story; from a film crew on the reservation making a documentary to the strange family dynamics David returns home to. But I see them as trees because while the branches might touch, these elements stand alone as their own ideas too. This isn’t a story that contrives to throw its various ideas together into one coherent resolution. It’s messier and more awful than that.
A truly beautiful story.
And that’s quite a trick on Talty’s part.
The selection:
“There’s something wrong with her.”
“There’s always something wrong with Paige.”
“No, I’m serious,” Mom said. “She’s gone wacko.” The car hit a pothole as we drove onto the bridge to the Island. “She believes in zombies, David.”
I wasn’t sure why, but I defended Paige. “Don’t you believe in stone people?”
“Those are different,” she said.
She wasn’t wrong; they were different. But I asked anyway “How so?”
“Stone people have hearts of ice, and they were chased off for trying to destroy the earth. Zombies don’t run off too easily, do they? They come for you all slow like.” She flicked her cigarette.
“Well,” I said, “they sound different, but have you ever seen a zombie’s heart? For all we know it could be made of ice.”
She laughed smoke. “You’re a little shit.”
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