The Clingerman Files by Mildred Clingerman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


As suggested by the title, this collection of Clingerman's short stories has a certain 'X-Files' vibe about it - or maybe it's the Twilight Zone. Many of her stories seem to inhabit that liminal threshold world between the real and the unreal. Yet her characters are almost always seemingly ordinary people - most often middle aged women. A theme that often springs up with these women is that of self realisation. They are often trying to overcome some perceived short coming, whether it's the 'chicken-hearted' Mavis of the Day of the Green Cloak, or the fearful narrator of First Lesson. One of the stories, Gay Deceiver (a sort of update on the old Pied Piper story), had me wondering if Robert Heinlein was once a fan. In one of his later stories he called a time and space travelling craft Gay Deceiver. They're not all strictly science fiction (or fantasy); a number of them, like On the Nicer Side, and The Birthday Party, could only be called mainstream fiction. Yet even there the stories often hinge on the sudden revelation or transitional thought. In Clingerman's world there is magic even in the mundane. Her prose is playful and precise and quite exquisite. It's time for Mildred Clingerman to be rediscovered - if she were ever discovered in the first place!



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