Fortune tellers and hippies are dying in large numbers in
Oregon – only noticed by one man. A man sworn to protect the city, a hero in
his own mind, a man who knows the secrets of the supernatural
Hal, a Dogcatcher, And he wields a mean catchpole.
I just… can’t even begin to express my opinions about the
protagonist, Hal. On so many levels he’s a parody of awfulness. He’s clueless,
arrogant and ridiculously full of himself and his abilities and his roles. He
is also skilled, talented, brave and in some ways every bit the hero he thinks
he is. At the same time, while he’s an appalling joke, he’s constantly treated
as that – he’s often terrible and ridiculous but, at the same time, I think we’re
fully expected to see him as that. He’s awful, but I don’t think we’re meant to
ignore the fact – hence his constant abuse of poor cyclists for example. I don’t
think we’re expected to see his truly epic fighting skills and not think that
he’s also totally a cool person which he clearly isn’t.
And I can’t deny that he’s funny. His interactions with
the people around him, his ridiculous belief that he’s not just a superhero but
that everyone fully knows about it. His firm refusal to deal with reality, his
happy poking of corpses… it’s funny, it’s really really funny.
I just don’t know with this guy. I alternate being repelled and amused by him – and I think that’s intentional
It helps that some of the characters around him – especially
the two other main characters: Nicka and Galahad - is pretty amazing and
hilarious. They are both yokai, kind of reverse were-animals, animal that
become human during the day. So we have a cat, with all the immense sarcasm
that requires, and a wolf – who can easily be distracted by a well thrown squeaky
toy (of course, the cat can easily be fascinate by a bell as well).
The three of them make for a hilariously combination. And
I like the idea if were animals that aren’t you classic human-to-animal because
why not have both? I’m not so sure about calling them “yokai” though, especially
in a setting that has no Asian characters.
I also like what Hal is, an animal control officer. I like the idea of a world setting where the supernatural is hidden and the question has to be asked, who would know? Who would know the reality of the world and, yes, a dogcatcher is a good example of someone who would probably know.
I hate the relationship between Hal and Desdemona. In
some ways it starts well. Yes, is creepy and a stalker – and he is labelled as
that. I actually liked how we repeatedly see him be revolting and disgusting to
Desdemona and she keeps calling him. He’s ridiculous and awful and stalkery and
disgusting and she treats him appropriately for that – insulting him, rejecting
him, trying to drive him away. In a genre – and media in general – where this
kind of creepy, stalkery, disgustingly predatory behaviour is repeatedly held
up as romantic.
Except… they end up together. I’m not even going to
spoiler warn it because it needs a trigger warning not a spoiler! She calls him
a stalker, she calls him jerk and creep. She rejects him at every time and he
just pushes and pushes and pushes and pushes and suddenly he wins. It doesn’t matter
how awful you are or how much that awfulness is called out – if, in the end, it
works then it undermines every last attempt to call out the nonsense. People
can call something out as wrong – but the reality you’ve created is challenging
this
There are several minority characters playing somewhat secondary
roles (the three main characters: Hal, Galahad and Nick are straight, white,
able bodied men, the next most prominent is Desdemona, a straight, white able
bodied woman). Louis is a gay Black man, Lawrence is a gay man, Della is a Black
woman.
All of them are interesting, several of them are powerful
and skilled and even desired for their wisdom and power and guidance and help…
but there’s some unfortunate tropes as well.
Della makes a nice ongoing joke about how a Black wise
woman guiding a white protagonist dies in nearly every media depiction – nicely
poking the trope. And it would be a fun poking of the trope (along with a lot
of hilarious biplay between the characters about whether or not she’s guiding)
but it ends with a kind of embodiment of the trope.
Then there’s Louis who, as part of the ritual for no
reason at all, has to have sex with a woman – he is raped by a woman to make
the woo-woo work. There’s absolutely no reason for it, no story reasons why his
magical involvement in this plot requires him to be raped by a woman – it’s
just thrown in there. We don’t have enough about Lawrence to characterise him
beyond really being there.
I just… don’t even know where to go with this book. I
find myself in the odd position of actually really really enjoying this book –
this hilarious, silly, so very often wrong book. It was fun, it was ridiculous,
it funny, it was, at times, even epic in a glorious, over the top action movie
kind of way, it was cartoony and yes it was often puerile
And I enjoyed it. And I kind of feel embarrassed for
doing so
