‘Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits and Other Curious Things’ by Cate Gardner

'Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits and Other Curious Things' by Cate Gardner, 188pp, Strange Publications, $11.99 US, ISBN: 978-0-98202-664-1

[Reviewed by Simon Marshall-Jones]

There’s an absolutely wonderful line in one of the stories included in this collection (Trench Foot) which sums everything up about Cate Gardner’s stories, and which goes thusly: “Sometimes Amelia forgot she was living with people who existed on the wrong side of reality.”

All the characters peopling the 24 delightfully surreal and beautifully warped tales contained in this book do indeed exist on the wrong side of reality. However, it would be fair to say that the worlds in which these characters have their being are on the wrong side of reality, too. More to the point, these figures simply couldn’t exist anywhere else. From the shunned giant in Through the Warped Eye of Death, hating the brightness, colours and people surrounding him whilst in the midst of mourning his mother’s death, to the strange blue alien in The Man Who Climbed Out of a Suitcase, and from the cast-aside lover in The Forest of Discarded Hearts to the bearded lady haunted by a self-created curse in Reflective Curve of a Potion Bottle, these lost, lonely and displaced figures stand on the outside, looking in, trying to fit themselves into a world that for the most part doesn’t want them.

The tales span the surreal, the tragic, the pointed, the horrific, the magical and the comedic, all of them possessing a poetic, fairytale-like simplicity that emphasises rather than obscures their dreamlike qualities. Indeed, when one reads any one of Cate’s off-kilter tales, it’s easy to imagine being caught up in either a dream or a nightmare: their twisted and brazen illogicality is unsettling, yet everything is internally consistent and makes perfect sense, no matter how disturbing the scenario is. The imagery she employs is always startling, phantasmagorical, bright, and honed with a keen, steel sharp-edge. They are simultaneously hellish yet heavenly, fluffy yet prickly, bright yet malignly sinister, and full of corruption and cancerous danger; we must watch our step here.

The characters, both the good and the villainous, are technicolour archetypes who are themselves made of dream-stuff: feisty little girls like Molly in The Sulphurous Clouds of Lucifer Matches (complete with three classic Brothers Grimm-style wicked witches and an uncaring guardian) or the sinister twin ghouls of Black Heart Balloon, attempting to reach the moon. There are the lonely, too: the top-hatted and pinstripe-suited man of Opheliac, luring young girls down to his watery world in an effort to cure his loneliness; or the wished-away Ruby Ash looking for her heart in The Forest of Discarded Hearts. The wonder about Cate’s writing is that, no matter how unworldly these characters are or how far removed from real-life they may be, we care about them; she brings us effortlessly into their lives and dexterously stirs long-forgotten hopes in us.

Terror abides here, too, as instanced in the chillingly horrific Burying Sam, Cate’s take on the zombie trope. There’s also something eldritch and unwholesome about Manipulating Paper Birds, but then circuses and sideshows freak me out anyway. Cate’s range goes further, as she can also bring us the blackly humorous, as in Bob’s Spares and Repairs, a story about a robot seeking his fortune in the Big City but nearly ending up the victim of a serial-killing ’droid instead.

But let me tell you something else about Cate’s writing: it’s one of the most deeply affecting I’ve come across in a while. I’ve saved the best two stories for last. In a spell-binding tale of deeply true love, Other Side of Nowhere, a young girl decides to follow her dead husband to the ‘below-world’, against the wishes of both the law and her in-laws. The strength of the unbroken bond between the living and the deceased is more than apparent, as is the utter willingness of the young girl to follow her and her husband’s dream and the chilling calmness (and determination) with which she carries out her last wish.

However, for sheer, unadulterated spine-shivering beauty and sadness, then Empty Box Motel is the one. A dying girl’s father is distraught when she tells him that she’ll be allowed home: he knows his brittle daughter’s time is near.  However, both she and the fragile butterflies, pinned to displays in the cabinets in her doctor’s office, long for the place where they’ll be free from the cares of the world and the grip of death: the wind and cloud-laden sky. Ultimately, it is a bittersweet story, but beautifully told, and a tale both heart-wrenching and heartwarming.

This was my first encounter with Cate Gardner’s writing: let me assure you that she is in great company, for its invention and otherworldly qualities very much reminded me of some of Gene Wolfe’s short stories and Shane Jones’ Light Boxes. There’s that same sparkling level of dazzling imagination and originality, that same feeling that the universe running parallel to this one is ever so slightly weirder and considerably more unsettling, a place where all our dreams and nightmares not only have a physical reality but also where the fairies and monsters become our neighbours. It’s a place that we would all like to visit, or at the very least, in the darkest corners of our mind wish that this world was like.

Be warned, however: dreams these may only be, but they possess teeth, and sharp ones at that.

(Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits is available for pre-order. Secure your copy now!)

‘Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits’ – competition

Cate Gardner, author of Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits, is currently running a competition, with some rather interesting prizes. Find out more and enter:

Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits competition

SoSF #22: Cate Gardner

Big welcome here to Cate Gardner, ubiquitous author of short stories/novellas/novels…if there’s an independent publishing house about, you can pretty much bank on the fact that Cate has something with them…

(in her dreams).

1. So Cate, nice to see you here at Beyond Fiction, and I wonder if you’d take a moment to tell us what’s going on with you and your publications at present (hopefully not overloading the bandwith in the telling)?

I have a short fiction collection, Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits, forthcoming this October from Strange Publications. A fabulous little company run by Aaron Polson. I believe pre-orders for that should be available soon (gnaws fingernails). I’m also looking forward to the publication of my first novella, Theatre of Curious Acts, which is due next year from Hadley Rille. Other than that, my stories have most recently appeared in Shock Totem and Triangulation: End of the Rainbow.

Lovely stuff, and means I can now ask you the question I’ve been wanting to for a little while now…

2. Where do you get all those wonderful story titles from?

My head…Oops, that sounds too facetious. Sometimes I find them in the text of the story I’m working on. Other times, I pluck them from my little notebook. Whenever I hear or read interesting words strung together, I jot them down for future use. My little book has proved invaluable when I’m stuck. I seem to be awfully fond of the word ‘things’. I’m trying to limit my use of it in titles (and failing). Case in point, I’m currently working on ‘Sour Monstrous Things’…Major fail.

I’d have to agree that the ‘Sour Monstrous Things’ is not the best…

It really isn’t. 😀 That’s why I’m non-officially referring to it as Fred on my blog.

And your little notebook follows you everywhere? *makes note to get hold of that one day*

3. It comes to us all at some point (well at least to those being interviewed here) but just what, Cate Gardner, is speculative fiction?

I think we all know it’s the ‘what if’ of a story in relation to something fantastical, horrific or futuristic etc. For me, its also about injecting a little bit of the weird. I like odd, whimsical stories.

‘We all know’ eh? I’ll have you know I’ve done a fair few of these interviews and almost everyone says something different 😉

4. I know it’s highly likely that the answer to this is “nothing but collapse” but I feel I should ask anyway: what is it that you do when not writing your bizarre fiction?

I write bizarre tweets… Actually, I do that mid writing bizarre fiction. And I work… Actually I do that and continue writing bizarre fiction (hopes the boss isn’t reading). I love spending time with my niece and nephews. We’re a Blue Peter family…That is, we like to make things. Their things are usually better than my things but they humour me. Argh, and there’s that word ‘things’ again.

Ah, you see, I’ve been proud of my achievements in getting my non-English wife to use the word ‘things’ far more than she used to…

5. Why on earth do you write?

Because I love notebooks and if I didn’t write I’d have no excuse to buy them.

6. I remember a discussion once about music that resulted in our agreement that you have no taste. Do you listen whilst writing/reading/editing or is it merely a distraction?

I don’t recall agreeing at all. I have fabulous taste for someone who’s been locked in a cupboard since 1984. I find music far too distracting when writing. I have an urge to sing along and then I’m out of my chair looking for a hairbrush to sing into. I don’t actually do that last part. Anymore.

Not sure I believe that the hairbrush phase is no more but…

7. How do you think the current speculative fiction scene is doing at the moment, especially in terms of indie press, you think it’s healthy?

I think it’s incredilby healthy. In YA speculative fiction has exploded and I hope its popularity never wanes. As for the indie press, there are so many outstanding SF writers (tomorrows and todays stars). A relatively new company that has caught my eye is Grindhouse Press. Their books are pretty and odd and I definitely think they’re someone to watch. Angry Robot (though they’re more a major publisher) has an intriguing book list and is picking up alot of top indie writers. Then of course, we have your own Morrigan Books, Hadley Rille, Permuted Press and Prime Books etc etc. So yeah, very, very healthy.

I’d have to agree, I think there have been developments made in both quality of material and production too.

8. Now it’s time for the beloved tips question. What tips do you have for any aspiring writers who many be reading this?

Don’t sign up for twitter. Seriously. I love it, I’m addicted to it, and I want to follow you, but boy it sucks at your writing time. Put your head down, get lost in your fictional world and enjoy.

*nods* Maybe as much as the net in general – limit yourself to an hour or two a day?

9. What are your future writing plans then, apart from ‘Fred’, what else are you doing/pitching/researching?

I have a dark fantasy YA in desperate need of an edit. I’m also researching/plotting two new books – a dystopian YA and a book that may be YA or MG depending on how Fred gets on when he goes out into the big bad world. I’m also working on short stories. I have a Fantastical Fifty thing going on at the moment. Basically, I have a file with fifty first sentences (some not too bad, some hideous, some a little blah) and I’m trying to turn them all into workable stories. So far I have two and a bit–we have some way to go.

I love the Fantastical Fifty thing, hope you get a cracker out of all fifty!

10. Last but not least, who are your favourite authors, who inspires you to write?

First off the reason I started writing books for children – Lemony Snicket. I’m inspired whenever I read Neil Gaiman or Joe Hill (way to go obvious choices), and I love Harlan Coben’s thrillers. Slightly lesser known writers I admire are Aaron Polson, Camille Alexa, Mercedes M Yardley and KV Taylor, definitely rising stars. And of course, my original love of books originated from the pen of Enid Blyton.

Thank you for the interview, Mark. Some cracking questions.

Thank you, Cate!