Goth Girls of Banff

by John O'Neill

John O'Neill's gothic short stories, set in the Canadian Rockies, are haunted by the violence inherent in nature and humans. The mountains are majestic and impassive. The characters are surprising, bent, but also empathetic. Their survival is tenuous. A two-sister team of goth tour guides offers guided excursions up switchback mountain trails; a paroled convict thumbs his way into the life of a family driving west; and an animal pathologist, while performing a necropsy on a grizzly bear, has an unusual encounter with both technology and humanity.
Goth Girls of Banff is a superb collection, sharply written, with plot turns as consequence-laden as those on an iced-over mountain road.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Canada

202 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2020

About the author

John O'Neill is the Toronto author of four poetry collections and a novel, Fatal Light Awareness. Most recently, his short story collection Goth Girls of Banff was short-listed in the HarperCollins/UBC New Fiction contest, and his short story The Book About The Bear, won a Manitoba Magazine Award for Best Story; another of his stories, What Is Written, won second prize in the Sheldon Currie Fiction Contest and appeared in The Antigonish Review.

Reviews

[Briar's Reviews]

Goth Girls of Banff is an excellent collection of Canadian short stories.

This was a book I read over several days, and man was it worth every read! I kind of drew the read out because it was so good and I didn't want to rush it (although, if you want to - do it. The book is good). When you jump into this book, you're taken to a very Canadian landscape. This book does feel like it needs to be held in some Canadian book museum because it's just an all around super Canadian read. It feels like home.

John O'Neill has a way with words and paints very beautiful stories. Goth Girls of Banff is one of the stories inside this collection, which is where the title gets it name. Each story will resonate with you differently, I definitely preferred the first half of the book more than the last half. What is Written or Talking to Keep the Bears Away, Athabasca, Attacking the Bear and Three Places were my favourites out of this collection.

Whether you want to pick up all the stories and binge it, or tackle them one at a time, this book is a purely Canadian read that is on my 2021 must reads list! It's a great collection of stories for those seeking something with a little more 'umph'. This book will transport you to Canada.

Four out of five stars.

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

[Lena]

Like his books of poetry, the stories in Goth Girls of Banff are evocative and stirring. We meet characters who are broken, imperfect, in need of redemption and forgiveness. There is compassion for the many ways our lives unravel and disappoint. The word "mercy" comes to mind. O'Neill's stories remind me of Flannery O'Connor's story, " A Good Man is Hard to Find". I read it a long time ago, and it haunts me still. So, too, the stories of Goth Girls linger, disturb, suprise. Each story invites us into our flawed but ultimately graced humanity.
A wonderful read!

[Sharon Gallup]

This was a free giveaway book. and believe me it was totally different from what i usually read. This book has a different story for each chapter. so it is a great bed time read. The stories take place mainly at Banff in the Canadian Rockies. His writings of the mountains make you feel you are actually there and he adds a history along the way. It is about people who have problems in their lives and think going to the mountains will give them a new outlook on life. in each story you feel compassion, understanding and also wondering why there are such dumb people in this world. it is a good read.

[AK]

I liked the first two stories. However, the writing became weaker with each succession.

I was pretty disappointed by the depiction of goths in the short story by the same name as the book. As someone from Alberta, it was a disappointing read. I was mostly excited to read some gothic fiction set in my own part of the world.

[Julie P]

It's clear that the author is a poet by nature - pun intended! I'm not much of a short story reader but this book captivates from the very beginning.
The characters taking their cue from the looming Canadian Rockies, the rearing of fearsome yet hesitant bears and the celestial visions of the glacial paradise that surrounds them. We recognize in ourselves that we are also flawed and struggling yet weirdly hopeful.
Each story with an ending so satisfying yet happily unexpected. At times laugh out loud metaphorical gems that owe themselves to the skill of the author to glean such uniquely Canadian perceptions.
I'm recommending to my book club - and pretty much everyone I meet!

[Bermetta]

I do love a good short story and it took me a while to get through this book. I deliberately read slowly, wanting to savour the unique vision of the author and his command of language. As someone who has never seen the Rockies, the landscape may be unfamiliar, but the emotions and conflict visited upon the characters are all too relatable. Several times, I stopped to savour a turn of phrase much in the way I would imagine visitors admire the scenic views of Banff. “Rudy”, “From Castle Mountain” and “The Book About the Bear” were standout favourites that I will be sure to revisit. Highly recommended!

[Ian]

John O'Neill’s stories aren’t really all that gothic but they can be grisly as they turn a sardonic, clear-eyed focus on hazardous and occasionally fatal human encounters with the natural world. The stories are set in the Canadian Rockies and depict characters grappling with an array of problems, from thwarted desires to chronic pain to tricky family relationships to feelings of being at odds with where their lives are taking them. The collection opens with a story of taut suspense in which a hitchhiker on the run is picked up by a family in a VW van—mother, father, two daughters. The narrator, beginning to feel a connection with the family, is wondering how much he can safely reveal about himself when tragedy strikes. In “Athabasca,” Karen, who suffers from migraines, has ventured west, leaving Toronto to visit her sister Sylvie on a trip that’s supposed to be therapeutic. Disappointed though to find that their relationship is just as combative and complicated as it’s always been, she begins to suspect that the difficulties are mostly her fault. “Rudy” is the story of a socially awkward, grossly overweight man with impulse control issues who is shocked and confused when people show him kindness. And in “The Book About the Bear” a veterinary surgeon whose days are spent performing necropsies is in for a surprise when he cuts open a bear that killed a man. O’Neill, primarily known as a poet, is also an artful writer of fiction whose stories gradually build tension and achieve sharp and startling focus as the action reaches its denouement. The western setting is lovingly evoked. These stories are thoroughly engaging, inventive and often wryly humorous. But there is violence in these pages too. In Goth Girls of Banff nature is freely available for anyone to enjoy, but only the naïve and reckless turn their back on it.

[Mark]

Wow, what a great read! Set against the stark and spectacular backdrop of Canada’s Rocky Mountains, John O’Neill’s deftly conjured stories speak to the desire, dread, wonder, and loneliness of being alive in the 21st century. Though nature and the animal world are never far away, it is human nature which O’Neill embraces in these stories as being infinitely strange, sad, funny and luminous. From a paroled inmate hitchhiking out west, to a woman suffering from chronic pain visiting her less than sympathetic sister and the eponymous Goth Girls who offer ‘a mountain experience …like beautiful sleep but with your eyes open”, O’Neill ventures into the complex inner landscapes of his ‘ordinary’ characters with insight, empathy, humour and imagination. Highly recommended!

[Enid Wray]

Not for me. Yes, there is no doubt as to where you are… clearly the author knows the area/landscape/terrain. But the stories just fall flat. The characters from one to the other are interchangeable, the narration - whether first or third person - is the same from one story to the next, and the voice is so distant - remote - and disinvested that I never feel drawn into either the action or caring about the characters.

Ironically I thoroughly enjoyed - and far preferred - the author’s discussion about the book in an interview I found at All Lit Up.

In referring to a trip he and his wife made to the Grand Canyon, he mentions about finding himself ‘sweating and filled with anxiety.’ This is what I should have felt reading these stories, but never did.

It was also ironic that he listed Alice Munro - my absolute favourite - first in a ‘list’ of short story writers who have influenced him. The secret to Alice Munro stories are the beautifully crafted sentences that you want to linger over, where every word is essential. I found that the short, clipped sentence structure in these stories also served to keep me at a distance from the text.

Find the interview here: https://alllitup.ca/Blog/2020/Off-Kil...

[Adele]

As soon as I saw the title when I visited The Glass Bookshop, an indie bookstore in Edmonton, I knew I had to choose Goth Girls of Banff.

It's a fairly short read, told in a series of different stories, each focusing on different characters while in the Banff area. As someone who has frequented Banff quite often (as an Albertan it's a must!) I was drawn to the details that probably wouldn't mean anything to anyone that hasn't been there or doesn't know the area.

The characters left a bit to be desired. But their experience in the Rockies kept me going, despite maybe not being Canada's finest citizens. It still felt like home and the titles of the short stories kept it interesting. The first one being, What is Written or Talking to Keep the Bears Away, a couple of others are called Attacking the Bear, From Castle Mountain and the namesake, Goth Girls of Banff.

The first story was probably the most interesting and also the most devastating. A former prisoner leaves Ontario to go to Vancouver by way of hitchhiking. He gets as far as just west of Calgary when a family of four picks him up as they are travelling. They end up in a head-on collision on the mountainous highway, the family dying but the prisoner living. "Family stopped to pick me up: family stopped to let her talk. Which is it? I'm not talking. No seatbelt to confine me, no walls or men's eyes, but strapped forever into recall. I'll talk about it or not talking about it. Write about it or won't write about it. I'll go down believing or not believing, it is written."

⭐⭐⭐💫 for the little details that it brings out about the Canadian rocky mountain experience.

[Cathleen]

I grabbed this book at the library on a whim - the title is too great to pass up. Banff is a beautiful place I hope to return to someday besides. This is a collection of short stories united mostly by their settings in the Canadian Rockies. I loved each one- great characters, not at all predictable, and each unique in its voice - O’Neill shows his mastery of the short story in every one.

[John]

This is a dark and compelling story collection - of course, I'm biased, but do know how hard I worked to render the characters and the Canadian Rockies landscape with some precision. Mostly, I believe I succeeded!

[Kaitlin Serai]

Very interesting! I absolutely loved the setting, made me want to travel to Alberta. I loved how the author subtly weaved some of the stories together which reminds the reader how subtly intertwined we can all be.

[Heatherlw]

Didn't finish it. Did not like it.

[Alison Jacques]

3.5*. I thought a couple of the stories were particularly strong: "What Is Written"; "Athabasca"; "Rudy."

[Sarah]

Couldn't get into this one. The storylines and characters fell flat for me.