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Sightings
102 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2016
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September 10, 2016Sightings, Amelia White's premier fiction collection, is a burst of quiet greatness. Featuring eight stories of people fumbling through the dark unknown of human contact, only occasionally finding fleeting sparks of truth in another person, this book is a well-curated tour of White's authorial chops that also serves a fair amount of fun and surprise throughout. In short, it's an excellent read.
All of the conflict in the collection stems from a character not being understood. I don't mean this in a melodramatic after-school special kind of way--it's a more subtle kind of thing, where characters aren't really trying to piece together why someone is acting in a particular fashion so much as they just urge to know another person. As characters draw toward new understandings, you can almost see the author piecing it together along with them. This effect is compounded by the collection's tendency toward a close first-person perspective, isolating the reader and inviting them into the character's journey. All of this rests on White's excellent craftsmanship. Her hooks are particularly effective; if you finish one story and peek at the first lines of the next, you won't be able to stop. How can you not want to read a story about a mother and daughter watching their home swallowed in the tide of an incoming storm, a woman who left her dead cat in her ex-boyfriend's freezer for the chance to see him again, or a boy that likes to dig. This strangeness makes a collection that can be heavy into a very enjoyable and readable book.
If there's one criticism I have of the collection, and it's not really a 100% criticism because I feel like it does work well about as often as it doesn't, it's the stories' tendency to linger. Because the book is so closely first-person and because the main characters tend to be so internally driven (you might say introverted?), a fair amount of time is spent on internal thoughts and taking in details in the setting. In general, and particularly in the longer stories, the characters do a lot of waiting. White often takes advantage of this time to develop their personality and history and do some world-building, but, again, particularly in the longer pieces, the pacing and the forward progression of the narrative can start to drag. However, I was never so fed up with this pacing that I stopped reading and these moments of quiet do contribute quite a bit to the narrative and thematic elements of the collection.
But really, Sightings is just a really good book--a joy to read. You'll come for the crazy stories about frozen cats and then stay for the silence between people. It's a quiet, powerful first outing for White and I can't wait to see what she writes next.
All of the conflict in the collection stems from a character not being understood. I don't mean this in a melodramatic after-school special kind of way--it's a more subtle kind of thing, where characters aren't really trying to piece together why someone is acting in a particular fashion so much as they just urge to know another person. As characters draw toward new understandings, you can almost see the author piecing it together along with them. This effect is compounded by the collection's tendency toward a close first-person perspective, isolating the reader and inviting them into the character's journey. All of this rests on White's excellent craftsmanship. Her hooks are particularly effective; if you finish one story and peek at the first lines of the next, you won't be able to stop. How can you not want to read a story about a mother and daughter watching their home swallowed in the tide of an incoming storm, a woman who left her dead cat in her ex-boyfriend's freezer for the chance to see him again, or a boy that likes to dig. This strangeness makes a collection that can be heavy into a very enjoyable and readable book.
If there's one criticism I have of the collection, and it's not really a 100% criticism because I feel like it does work well about as often as it doesn't, it's the stories' tendency to linger. Because the book is so closely first-person and because the main characters tend to be so internally driven (you might say introverted?), a fair amount of time is spent on internal thoughts and taking in details in the setting. In general, and particularly in the longer stories, the characters do a lot of waiting. White often takes advantage of this time to develop their personality and history and do some world-building, but, again, particularly in the longer pieces, the pacing and the forward progression of the narrative can start to drag. However, I was never so fed up with this pacing that I stopped reading and these moments of quiet do contribute quite a bit to the narrative and thematic elements of the collection.
But really, Sightings is just a really good book--a joy to read. You'll come for the crazy stories about frozen cats and then stay for the silence between people. It's a quiet, powerful first outing for White and I can't wait to see what she writes next.
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