Daydreams of Angels

August 17, 2015
In this collection of strange and whimsical stories, O’Neill (The Girl Who Was Saturday Night) explores love and family in present-day Canada through quirky yarns filled with talking animals, modern versions of biblical characters, and countless other curiosities. Many are framed as stories told to children by their grandparents and, as such, are filled with the magical feel of fairy tales, where all things
are possible. In the title story, a cherub
is sent to Montreal during World War II and falls in love with Yvette, a beautiful and vivacious girl whose father has just been shipped off to fight in Normandy.
A grandfather tells his grandchildren about his romantic adventures dating
a half-swan, a half-deer, and a monkey-girl while working on Moreau’s island in
“The Isles of Dr. Moreau.” In “Bartok for Children,” a Canadian solider is rescued from death during WWII by a French toy maker. The toy maker makes him a new clockwork heart and loves him as if he were his own son, but the toy parts in his body create some unexpected problems. “The Dreamlife of Toasters” centers on
an exceptional android in the year 2112, who has an accident that leaves her with the human ability to understand humor. These stories are told with liveliness
and wonder, but they often lack depth and complexity. O’Neill is at her best
in the longer stories and the ones more grounded in reality, where she has a chance to develop her characters and explore their darkness.

August 1, 2015
The farther away the sun, the more unholy the spirits. When angels make an appearance in literary fiction, they tend to be either ethereal and symbolic or wretched and questing. In her endearingly weird debut story collection, novelist O'Neill (The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, 2014, etc.) offers up celestial creatures who don't fall neatly into either camp-they chain-smoke, they pass out business cards, they're even "sleazy and ridiculous." If you're enticed by this idea, O'Neill's dark fairy tales will be right up your alley. She takes the classic trope of a lost soul in search of salvation and gives it a parade of original twists: a Gypsy, himself the product of a child's imagination, has an existential crisis in a whorehouse; a pair of Canadian twins discover their muse on a deserted island; a group of damaged dolls at a rummage sale crave unconditional love but recognize its limitations. The author has contributed to This American Life, and it's easy to imagine her slice-of-surreal-life stories coming through the radio in dulcet tones, the narrator sounding a shade surprised by each reveal. O'Neill's angels are like the unhinged couple at a cocktail party-they can't stop fighting and making out, and we definitely can't look away. Keep this collection on the nightstand, and you'll be sure to kick your dreamscape up a notch.

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