Black Juice by Margo Lanagan

Black Juice by Margo Lanagan, EOS, 2004
ISBN:978-0060743901

Plot Summary

Recipient of the 2006 Printz honor, this collection of ten stories by Margo Lanagan challenges readers to examine their everyday assumptions. Each story highlights a character who has lost something or someone dear to them. At times, the characters are bitter over their loss while others revel in it. In the collection Lanagan profiles a variety of protagonists including a grieving brother who must watch his sister slowly sink to her death in a bog, a loyal servant who struggles to understand his lord’s loyalty to his lady, and a disillusioned clown who is out for blood. Other stories include elephants in search of the boy they love, a boy who must revisit the abusive cult he grew up in, and a lost girl in search of the chapel where she will become a bride. Some of the tales border on the bizarre such as Earthly Uses which details a poor boy’s search for a terrifying angel and Perpetual Light a story about an ailing girl’s struggle to attend her grandmother’s funeral set in a post-apocalyptic world. Rounding out the collection are two tales that serve as antitheses of each other. While the protagonist in Yowlinin loses everything the young hero in Rite of Spring gains the new status he had been hoping for. Overall, the collection is strange, unique, and utterly compelling.

Critical Evaluation

While Lanagan’s Black Juice is clearly a work of art it is difficult to discern what sort of art it is. Certainly critics praise the collection, bestowing the Printz honor and two World Fantasy awards upon it. And it is clear to see why they would as Lanagan’s language is rich, complex, and wonderfully evocative. Her symbolism is finely interwoven into her plots and her characters are as intriguing as they are unique. However, all these fine traits cannot excuse several of the stories’ incoherent plot lines. Some of the tales are so convoluted that they are hardly readable. For example, Red Nose Day relates the story of a disillusioned boy who enjoys massacring clowns. Not much else except this detail is clear throughout the entire story. The readers never learn why the boy likes killing clowns or even why there are so many clowns in the first place. Certainly the tale cannot help but evoke a sense of horror in the reader but frustration quickly sets in as Lanagan provides only the scantest of details. If Red Nose Day was the only obfuscatory story in the collection Lanagan might be forgiven but it is not. Just as readers struggle through Red Nose Day, they are equally baffled by Perpetual Light’s numerous high-tech devices. While readers understand that the tale focuses on ill, penniless Daphne attending her grandmother’s funeral, the remaining details are vague. Readers cobble together sundry facts to conclude that Daphne’s world is a post-apocalyptic one but the endless references made to seals, Nutri-domes, and WundaVerms result in an inaccessible story. And while the other eight tales in the collection make some amount of sense the reader is immediately thrust into the action in all of them without any foothold or sense of direction.

Of course, some may argue that this confusion is partly what makes Lanagan’s collection brilliant. Readers feel voyeuristic as they peer into the most intimate moments in characters’ lives. Just as so many of the characters feel lost or overwhelmed so too do readers who are trying to make sense of their literary surroundings. Indeed, Lanagan’s stories are more emotionally charged vignettes than fully actualized tales. For example, Berry’s anger towards his mistress is palpable as he seeks to help his master find his lost lady (My Lord’s Man). Dot’s fear of angels is so real that readers can almost smell the reek of fear as he approaches one with his bribe of cheese (Earthly Uses). But, just as readers begin to understand the characters’ inner conflicts, the doors of the stories are unceremoniously slammed shut leaving readers with lots of questions. Simply put, few of the tales involve sufficient closure. While Lanagan should be commended for her exquisite language, creative ideas, and relevant themes, her jarring storylines and confusing details may leave readers, such as myself, feeling nonplussed and less than enthusiastic over Black Juice.

Reader’s Annotation

This collection of ten short stories includes the tale of a loving brother singing to his dying sister, a wayward wife running away with gypsies, a clown massacre, elephants searching for their favorite human, a boy escaping a cult, and a girl running from man-eating insects.

About the Author

Growing up in Hunter Valley, Australia, Margo Lanagan always loved history and travel. After majoring in history at the university in Perth and Sydney, she worked as both an encyclopedia seller and kitchen-hand before she became an editor. She is now a full-time author writing both fictional and technical books as well as articles. So far she is the author of fifteen published books including Printz honor Black Juice and Tender Morsels.

Lanagan has always enjoyed blurring the lines between reality and fantasy and does so quite a bit in all her novels. She also firmly believes that difficult, mature topics such as sex and war should be firmly ensconced in young adult literature. As she says in a interview, “I guess I'm not a big fan of corralling sex, death and war into the adult world and then giving children a terrible shock when they realise their existence” (Walter, 2003).

Walter, T. (2003, August). A conversation with Margo Lanagan. SF Site. Retrieved from http://www.sfsite.com/09a/ml159.htm

Genre

Adventure, Coming of Age, Fantasy, Paranormal, Science fiction, Short stories

Tags

Short stories, Middle Ages, murder, tech, nobility, unrequited love, clowns, shooting spree, elephants, cult, accordion, bride, coming of age, abusive parents, angels, supernatural, mysticism

Curriculum Ties

Most of the stories in Black Juice could be used in a short story unit, particularly one focusing on themes and symbolism.

Booktalk Ideas

--Tell one of the short stories from the perspective of the main character. For example, be the bride that is featured in Wooden Bride or the young, abused boy from Earthly Uses.

Reading Level/Interest Age

Reading Level: 6^th grade

Interest Level: 9^th-12^th grade (14-18 yrs.)

AR BookFinder (2010). Black Juice. Retrieved from http://www.arbookfind.com/bookdetail.aspx?q=86546&l=EN&slid=190647428

Challenge Issues

N/A

Why Was This Included?

I chose to include Black Juice because an Australian writer wrote it, it won a 2006 Printz honor, and it features short stories in a variety of genres.