White Van, Meg Tuite

 

 

Having devoured every one of Meg Tuite’s prior masterpieces, it thrilled me to get her latest collection, White Van, yet I was also somewhat worried that she might be unable to keep her astonishing streak alive.

Turns out, I was foolish to even ponder such a thought.

White Van is many things—bedazzling, eloquent, crippling in parts, mysterious, riveting, wholly relevant and topical, not to mention emotionally unflinching.  

Reading Tuite’s latest book is a little like bathing in a tub that’s too small, where escape seems easy enough, but each porcelain side is incredibly slippery, not to mention crafty. It’s also like being in a tub where the water temperature is many degrees hotter than you’re used to, yet the extra heat turns out to be just the very thing you needed to remind you that you’re still alive and breathing.

In White Van, Tuite takes on the role of patron saint for abused and/or missing young women, and she does so fiercely, unapologetically, and with unabashed honesty. Never mind that the subject matter is gritty; Tuite handles the material so deftly that it feels as if each tale is indispensable. She writes with sword, dagger and shiv. Though fictitious, Tuite’s authenticity makes it seem like the events taking place are pages ripped from her own life, as if the traumas she describes are her own brutal scars, laid bare for anyone to see.

It’s a brave and masterful undertaking. Every page is replete with lush, unique, and visionary vernacular such as these brief excerpts, which would make any lover of language gawk and swoon:

 

I reside in a house full of holes.

 

A bruise the size of bankruptcy whips the map of childhood from her ass to the back of her knee…

 

Squandered tomorrows stunt into rotted yesterdays.

 

Nothing carries on without the lick of droning confusion.

 

Organs pump leaks through your chitchat. Language becomes malignant with pastel nausea.

 

Sometimes in the morning I can lie so still that nobody remembers me.

 

In the hands of anyone else, subjects so intense and raw would naturally get botched, portrayed entirely maudlin and melodramatic or else rendered soulless, but under Tuite’s adroit hand, each haunting spell comes alive in dizzying fashion. It’s truly something to behold.

Unvarnished is an overused word to describe a writer who takes the veil off of their writing, but in White Van, Tuite goes much further and peels the skin off. She’s unafraid of showing you the horror, and the repercussions of that terror. In fact, her willingness to do so is the very thing that makes this book so indelible, so ruthlessly and beautifully frank, a classic for our times and all that follow.