The Little Statue by Maeve Murphy, 2020
The magic trick:
Giving our beleaguered narrator a series of positive interactions with seemingly kind people that only seem to leave a feeling of confusion, fear, and threat
Merry Christmas!
Last Christmas season we looked at Maeve Murphy’s excellent dark holiday gem “Christmas At The Cross.” And you know when you read a great short story and it’s so good but ends so abruptly that you wish there was a Part 2?
Well, hey, turns out in this case we are in luck!
Murphy published a sequel to “Christmas At The Cross” a year later: “The Little Statue.” We’re back to early 90s (I think?) London at Christmastime for more life on the fringes with Blathnaid, a young Irish woman housesitting for a friend and dealing with a violent breakup with her boyfriend.
This story literally picks up where “Cross” left off. It’s very cool to have the chance for our time in an appealing (if troubling) story world to get extended.
So what’s happening here? I’m sorry to report that things for our narrator are not improving. In fact, they’re getting much worse. So bad that reality seems to increasingly slipping her grasp.
There is an interesting literary technique at work here. Is it a technique? I’m not sure what you’d call it. But “The Little Statue,” as it spins into darker and darker depths, actually gives Blathnaid a series of warm, kind scenes. She has conversations with four different people – local residents of this drugged-out, poverty-stricken, arts community – that point toward love, friendship, and a potential for spiritual awakenings. They really are very hopeful and capture the beauty of humanity.
But it’s weird, because the story does not glimmer with such hope as you might expect.
Blathnaid is in such a dark place, emotionally and in a very real physical sense (her ex-boyfriend is violent), that even these beautiful people and their kind conversations bring a quiet feeling of threat. What are they after here anyway? The reader feels the same confusion and emotional unavailability that Blathnaid harbors.
As the reader, we aren’t sure what to believe here either. Is this world a hellscape full of people looking to use and hurt you? Or is this world mostly generous, enlightened, and inviting?
All of it here points to the disastrous effects of an abusive relationship. It really it a lot.
Heavy questions to consider at Christmas. But, hey, what better time, really?
And that’s quite a trick on Murphy’s part.
The selection:
I got back to the flat, changed into my nightie, wrapped myself in rugs and blankets and sat beside the gas heater that was wafting heady gassy homicidal heat, but heat nonetheless. I sat there, staring into space. My eye fell on the wee statue Aunty Pat had given me. A tiny lead serene cross-legged Buddha.
READ PART 1 “CHRISTMAS AT THE CROSS” ONLINE
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