Gill South
The Pets We Have Killed by Barbara Else (Quentin Wilson Publishing, 2024), 142pp, $35
Barbara Else’s short story collection The Pets We Have Killed is a high-quality work of exceptional perceptiveness, although its somewhat sinister-sounding title points also to satirical and subversive intentions. Else has explained elsewhere that the title of the collection refers to how we, of whatever gender, inadvertently or from lack of courage, deny ourselves or are denied the warmth and support of being loved. One thing is for sure: the title and the illustration of a woman with a snake around her neck instantly send a message to the reader that this is not going to be a comfortable read, but rather a confronting one.
In these 18 short and sometimes very short pieces—which shift from a wharf-side departure for a theatre of war on the other side of the world in 1914, to a dystopian and thoroughly climate-alarmed 2077—Else explores matters ranging from misogyny and inequities of race, to class and poverty, to the secrets families keep. Her stories, essentially feminist, depict how women can rise up to make their own protest and thus resist gender prejudice, ethical muddle and political systems that are not working.
In ‘Thrall’, the author takes us back to the 1980s, with a scathing tale of a man thinking he can do anything he wants with his wife, treating her like a possession. Kiwi couple, Kathy and Alan, living in San Diego, are invited to dinner at another couple’s home, and the host, who keeps cooing over how beautiful Kathy is, drapes a snake around her neck, then steps back in glee as the snake does its thing. Both men seem to enjoy the spectacle, despite Kathy’s discomfort. And, as in a number of the stories in this collection, the husband does nothing to support his wife—Kathy is saved instead by the hostess. But it’s clear to us that our heroine isn’t going to forget such callous behaviour from Alan. ‘He thinks he owns her—let him think so,’ she reflects, scornfully, biding her time.
Fans of Else’s novels The Warrior Queen, Eating Peacocks and Gingerbread Husbands will recognise the coruscating humour in The Pets We Have Killed, but there are profound themes simmering beneath the various ironies conveyed by these tales—you get the feeling this writer wants her readers to read, understand, take note, and act.
Else’s 2023 autobiography Laughing at the Dark provides some excellent context as to what motivates and concerns this Dunedin-based author, derived from her own life experiences, where females were often marginalised, sidelined or patronised. In these gathered-together stories she confirms that the world was ever misogynistic, and remains so. The Pets We Have Killed collection focuses on women living in a wide range of eras who are not free to be themselves—from the young woman in ‘Annie, My Anne’ farewelling her beau as he leaves to fight for King and Empire and finding herself trapped by male bad behaviour, to the schoolgirl in 1959 in ‘Collateral Damage’, dragged into teacher politics involving two ultra-competitive males and manipulated by one to do something to hurt his rival: ‘She should have said it didn’t feel right. She should have said.’
Another stand-out story in the book is ‘The Mysteries of My Sister’, set in the 1970s and 1980s and seen through the eyes of a young boy. His cousin comes to live with the family and, over the years, is gradually referred to as a sister. Else packs a lot in here: the way families explain things as if they are normal when they are not, why women go back to unhappy marriages, how the world changed for queer people in the 1980s, and the ridiculous and hypocritical rules of convention that people adhered to not that long ago.
In her memoir we learn that Barbara Else grew up in a family with a bank manager father and every few years, with just two or three weeks’ notice, it would be announced that her father had been transferred to a new town and the family was on the move, leaving friends and schools behind. Undoubtedly that disruption, where wife and family were almost regarded as Biblical chattels, going along with what the patriarchal head of the household decided, had a profound impact.
‘File: on Woman, 30’ is a heart-breaking and beautifully portrayed tale of a young woman whose husband’s job has triggered a move with their three young children from a small West Coast South Island town to Lower Hutt. This quiet woman, still finding her identity and feeling isolated, is drowning in grief and anxiety after the move, but doesn’t want to bother anyone, although doctors have their concerns.
Marrying and starting a family as a university graduate in the late 1960s, Else was one of many women in her age group in New Zealand who felt that the second wave of feminism rather passed her by, relegating her to a homemaker role and nothing more. ‘One can become very tired of being ignored and thought of as second class,’ Else has said in an interview about this short story collection.
Another fine demonstration of storytelling in The Pets We Have Killed is ‘Vengeance’, in which Judy, the mother of young children, is encouraged by her husband, Howard, to return to work before she feels ready. The job is at a medical practice where the boss, Byron, has molested her in the past, as her husband knows and did nothing about. A latent anger at Howard burns beneath this short story, and a surprise ending makes this a cautionary and indeed vengeful tale.
How much better off the whole world would be if it could rid itself of misogyny, Else argues in these stories. ‘Moonbeams’ is a hard-to-read account of a single mother who watches with dismay as her son, nearing manhood, begins to turn on her and subject her to misogynist slurs. She has always pondered and feared how much like his absent father he might turn out to be, even though her husband and their marriage had started out with such promise.
Importantly, Else ensures there are examples of women acting on their own initiative in some of the stories. In ‘Straightjackets’, the protagonist, Virginia, is a woman who has decided to take control and exert change in her life, even though the result is not very pretty. A dissatisfied secondary school teacher living in a small town after an unhappy first marriage, Virginia takes a very cynical step in her next relationship with a local ‘celebrity’ who is incarcerated. Virginia finds a book of poems he has written, and as a frustrated lover of words, she sends him some edits. ‘The dangers of literary criticism,’ she quips. The macabre story has a flavour of Roald Dahl about it. Funny in parts, but there is a sense of chill always lurking beneath.
This return to adult fiction for Barbara Else after a serious illness sees her writing science fiction for the first time for adult readers, just as Margaret Atwood and Doris Lessing successfully did, and Else finishes this slim but feisty book strongly with three excellent stories, some of the best and most wryly funny of the collection.
‘Darkling’ is the ‘transcript’ of a female scientist, visited by a government official who wants her ideas on how to solve climate change. The scientist is invited to ‘freewheel’ and goes down many tracks: how sad that coffee isn’t so easily available, the ups and downs of bringing up teenagers, the climate crisis, and how just a handful of human beings are deciding what’s best for the planet. The reader learns a lot about the Darkling beetle as well, and how it could save the world. It is such an enjoyable read, although again, some deeply serious subject matter is lurking not far beneath the surface. Highly entertaining, but your response is nervous laughter.
In ‘Our New Elections’, Else is performing at the height of her satirical powers. Set in 2077, a policy writer or similar is drafting up a new method of selecting a public senate for Aotearoa for a planning committee. They are in a rural southern bunker before another worst-storm-in-a-century is about to hit. Else’s experience working for the Ministry of Education comes in handy here as she expertly uses civil servant speak. The writer says they’ll use antiquated language so fewer people will understand.
In the document, the writer blithely summarises what has led to the situation the country and its depleted population finds itself in—the current climate, the steps not taken, and the immediate process of navigating the country through the crisis. As the narrator tells us, citing a character called Simon the Prophet against Profit, this is not an environment for a democracy anymore. ‘Democracy means having elections, a process open for influencers with powerful personalities and or the very wealthy to triumph inequitably and unjustifiably. Too many of them turn tyrannical,’ says Else’s narrator. A wonderfully apposite story that deserves several re-reads to appreciate all of the author’s whip-smart points.
The author wraps up with a blunt appeal to her audience about what might happen if we can’t do something about the gender divide, the subject perhaps closest to Else’s heart throughout this collection. In the title story, ‘The Pets We Have Killed’, we see a community of women in the future through the eyes of a 12-year-old girl, Kesley. When a man is brought to the farm, Kesley is constantly asking questions, puzzled by the grown-ups’ behaviour. No one tells her exactly why he’s there, nor why various women in the community are going to him. Meanwhile, Kesley manages to strike up a slight friendship with him and starts to feel sorry for him when she hears he is not doing his ‘job’ very well. It’s an unsettling story of retribution, or turning the tables, to finish on.
The Pets We Have Killed may seem like a slender book but it leaves the reader with much to cogitate. It’s possible to read it in one sitting, but that does not do the stories justice—condensed, fabular and socially resonant, at times restlessly experimental in technique, they should be re-read at leisure to take in Else’s multiplicities of meaning. I am intrigued to see what Else does next—with the memoir, and now this collection of challenging short fiction, this is an author intent on moving the boundaries.
GILL SOUTH is a reviewer and reader who regularly contributes contemporary fiction book reviews to the New Zealand Listener. She is currently working as a small business content creator at Stuff. Based in Wellington, she has lived in Melbourne, London, Pennsylvania and California.
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