Book Review: Welcome to the Neighbourhood by Clea Young
It’s been a few years since I read Clea Young’s first short story collection, Teardown, which I don’t recall much of, but luckily I can read my full review of it here when I forget again. Without needing to refer to my archives, I’m happy to say I really enjoyed her next collection, titled Welcome to the Neighbourhood, published just a few weeks ago. It’s a subtle book that needles at the social and societal expectations we find ourselves working within, in white, middle class Canada. There is nothing horrendously wrong or inappropriate about these characters, yet their actions instill outrage, and it’s a fun experiment to see where your opinions of each of them fall as the stories develop.
Book Summary
With 13 stories in total, this collection is told mainly from female first person perspectives, although we get a few male viewpoints here and there, most of them are mothers. “Weekend Guest” is about a blossoming adult friendship that hits a sour note when different parenting styles take a front seat. “In Loco Parentis” is about a school support worker caught on video when making a challenging decision for a child with special needs. “Shred” details the bitterness and its accompanying scheming when an older woman decides to teach the mountain bikers in her backyard a difficult lesson. “Fungi” also follows a care worker but for seniors; she falls in love with a patient’s son, but it turns into an unhealthy obsession. “The Day the Children Left” is one of the odd-one-out stories that reads quite differently as it gives a brief but bleak look into a group of children abandoning their parents and homes when the affects of climate change become too dangerous for them to stay. The title story features two couples getting together for a short drink, with simmering tensions exploding into a surprisingly physical and awkward encounter with one of the homeless population in the area, extending a ‘what if’ scenario into reality. Very few of the pieces are set in a specific area, but they all take place within Canada’s western-most province British Columbia, in and around Vancouver, so the sea itself is a recurring character as well.
My Thoughts
There’s a thoughtful mix of introspective ideas, and external observations throughout this book. Although one would believe Young sympathizes the most with parents, “The Day the Children Left” is a very astute look at the urgency in which children in particular feel the coming panic of the climate crisis, and these feelings play out in a very drastic way. At one point in the story the children spot a boat full of adults:
“‘Mom!’ the children called in crow-like chorus. It was all of their mothers. It was none of them. The warring adults were too preoccupied to look up. Or they didn’t hear over the rushing water. The adults had forgotten who would inherit the earth. Or they no longer cared.” (p. 131 of Welcome to the Neighborhood by Clea Young).
But as I mentioned before the above story is an exception, as motherhood itself remains under the microscope for many of these stories. And it’s not motherhood in one dimension either. So much fiction these days simply centers on how hard motherhood is, which I’m definitely not contradicting (it is VERY HARD!) but it was refreshing to read about the various perspectives on different kinds of mothers in this collection. Some Moms in this book are just shitty, which is fun to read about.
So much behaviour in this book is questionable. Rarely is the reader confronted with someone actually doing some illegal, instead, most of these characters are behaving on the edge of what our society deems acceptable. It’s not wrong, but it’s not right either, it’s just…shitty. Young demonstrates her skill by softening these actions, in some cases even bringing us closer to seeing it from the offenders’ point of view (almost), and although I rarely agreed with the shitty acts, I understood them a bit more.
My only quibble with this one is that some of the stories felt more complete than others, so the collection came off a bit uneven, but this didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment of the book. It just felt like a handful of the stories could have been removed to maintain a tighter edit.
Short story collections are often uneven, aren’t they? I suppose it must be hard for an author to decide to drop some, though, but it would often make the overall collection better.
Yes, I’m finding that more and more. Although the last book I reviewed, Other Worlds, was not uneven! I find the more stories included, the more uneven it is…
I loved her first collection, so I’m looking forward to reading this one too. The diversity of experiences with mothering appeal to me in particular: it’s tiresome to see the same aspects of a particular role repeating like an endless echo in fiction, as if there’s only one way to be a(n) “x” (whatever that might be).
Exactly! I think you’ll like this one Marcie, it’s a great examination of different behaviours.
There are so many short story collections about motherhood that when I read one written by a man and was about fatherhood, I almost couldn’t believe it! I wrote that post recently about women in horror always setting their stories in the home. It makes me think gender roles haven’t changed nearly as much as we might think.
I know what you mean, there are many, many stories about motherhood. Which is good, but it does get a bit tiresome when so many focus on the fact it’s hard. I liked how this one was pointing out the whole range of mothers and mothering, and the fact that some women just phone it in a bit LOL
This sounds good and like a collection I’d be interested in. I know I read her last one but don’t remember much either. That story of the old lady and the mountain biker reminds me of a news story of an elderly woman who set up wires along the trails in the North Shore mountains here in order to knock cyclists off their bikes and ended up injuring several.
I wonder if that news story was the inspiration behind this fictional story? Sounds very very similar. Plus, Clea lives out there, so she no doubt heard it too :)