25 May 2005

Trash Sex Magic by Jennifer Stevenson
Small Beer Press, 2004
Reviewed by Anne Harris

Anne Harris' latest novel, Inventing Memory, is a Booksense 76 pick. You can learn more about it at www.inventingmemory.com. Harris is also the author of The Nature of Smoke and Accidental Creatures, which won the first-ever Spectrum Award for GLBT science fiction.

Just like the setting that is its principal character, Trash Sex Magic by Jennifer Stevenson is steeped in magic. As power flows up from the ley lines along the Fox River in Illinois, transforming everyone it touches, so Stevenson's words wrap themselves around you until you are rooted in place, ensnared by a beauty both kindly and ruthless.

Like the contemporary fantasy of Sean Stewart, the magic in Trash Sex Magic emerges from and is specific to a particular place, in this case, the Fox River in Illinois. As a commentary on urban sprawl, the novel is wise and realistic, pointing out both the inevitability of development and the power of the natural world -- a power all the more formidable for its adaptability.

Raedawn Somershoe lives in a trailer on the banks of the Fox River. She is a sacred tramp, sleeping with men and healing the wounds inside them according to the unspoken lore taught to her and her mother Gelia by the tree across the road. Rae and Gelia may swap and squabble over their numerous male lovers, but no man causes more friction between them than does that tree. It is the anchor and conduit for the wild energies which command the lives of all those who live by the river.

Next door to Raedawn and Gelia live Cracker, the twins, and the Gowdy boys. Cracker is an unreformed drunk, a scoundrel, and a tramp in his own right. Some long-gone paramour of his left behind the twins, Ink and Mink. Feral, the twins run about like wild animals. If there is a weakness to Trash Sex Magic, it is in Stevenson's handling of these children, whose fate, though touched upon, remains too murky to provide real satisfaction.

The Gowdy boys are each in their own way searching for their parents, who went down to the river one night and never came back. Davey, a developmentally disabled youth, communicates with the twins and the river and the trees through offerings of found-object art. Willy, a popular kid who's good at sports, tries to take care of his odd, unmanageable family while carefully guarding his own secret. The third Gowdy boy, King, has returned after an absence of five years. He is the one who got away, and now he is back to save his family and Raedawn from themselves.

The story begins when the construction company that is building a condo development across the road from the Somershoe and Gowdy trailers cuts down Raedawn and Gelia's beloved tree. John Fowier, the developer, wants the trailer trash out to make room for more housing, but despite the threat of floods, the lack of electricity and the general squalor, the trailer trash are determined to stay. Into all this comes Alexander Caebeau, a put-upon Bahamian construction worker who has been exiled to the states by his powerful, witchy grandmother. Alexander deplores the ugliness of new construction and longs for his native isle and the magical connection he once had with the land and the ocean.

Alexander falls for Raedawn, the developers pull out their bag of dirty tricks, Cracker tricks the tricksters and people fall into holes and are transformed, for better and for worse. Meanwhile, beneath and above and around it all, the Fox River furthers its own inexorable agenda.

In concise, intimate prose, Stevenson translates the secret language of spring growth, of bodies in sexual heat, of grief, of rising rivers and pouring rain. Frequently switching from one viewpoint to another and back again in a single scene, she gives us a vivid understanding of each character's inner life:

Her kiss was huge. It sank into his body through his mouth and shone like moonlight on the shapes inside him, showing him just how they fit together, he and she. Here, a tree, found with his eyes shut. He leaned against it where it tilted toward the water and she leaned against him and he felt sex run off his body like sweat and drip into the water.

In Trash Sex Magic, Stevenson does a remarkable job conveying the power of a place and the strength of intangible things. The novel is worth reading for its strong characterizations but even more importantly for the feeling of mystery imbued in nearly every page. This is not a book for control freaks. As we follow the inner lives of the characters, we are constantly surrounded by the unknowable, often dipping beneath the surface of every-day reality to catch glimpses of it; cross-sections of a thing too big to see all at once, but manifest in miracles and devastations. If the conclusion comes as no surprise, it really doesn't matter, because while we are getting there we know we are in the grip of something bigger than we are, and like Raedawn and Alexander, we find ourselves grateful for its gifts.