Do not mistake THIRTEEN FICTIONS FOR MIDDLING MILLENNIAL MELANCHOLIA by Elmore Collins as a cure for melancholy, or even a means of escape from it. This is not comfort food, not chicken soup for the millennial soul, but a deep and vivid exploration of the ailments that plague that generation and its now-middle-aged adults. Melancholy pervades every page of these thirteen poignant stories. These are short tales, most of them only a few pages long, but they pack a deep and sorrowful emotional punch. Not a word is wasted, as if the author were writing prose poetry, illustrating a whole world of loss and frustration in just a few spare, well-chosen paragraphs. Most of the stories involve characters trying to figure out their purpose, or to connect to others in healthy relationships, but never quite reaching their goals. Their lives are rather like the vegan sausage one character is served by his brother: “It wanted to taste good, but it couldn’t quite get there.”
There isn’t a real fulfilling relationship in the book – lovers are perpetually settling for brief physical pleasures while looking over each other’s shoulders for something different and new, parents and children feel like they’re speaking different languages, and siblings feel more resentment than affection for each other. Jobs are things you do to get by, until they become unbearable, and even the wealth that one protagonist acquires can’t satisfy him completely. Even the protagonist of the last story, sent to a peaceful spiritual retreat, just goes through the motions to please his mother, spending his time fantasizing about what he can’t have and ending up agreeing with another character who tells him, “There’s no such thing as spirituality. Stop thinking there’s something when there’s nothing.” Despite their resignation, though, most of the characters in these tales truly crave something real, something true and fulfilling, but don’t see a way to find it, and that frustration builds through the tales. The lack of real purpose and of true emotional connection is like a ghost haunting these pages, something missing that’s mainly visible by its absence and by the way the characters ache for it but can’t quite find it. This is not a book to read while you’re having a depressive episode, but it is a powerful and beautifully-written expression of the melancholy of being middle-aged in a culture that seems more cold and impersonal every day.
Elmore Collins’ short, poignant tales pack a solid emotional punch, capturing the loneliness, frustration, and emotional isolation of a generation in THIRTEEN FICTIONS FOR MIDDLING MILLENNIAL MELANCHOLIA.
~Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader