Author: Holly Phillips
Cover Artist: Gordon Crabb
Publisher: Prime Books
Binding: Paperback
Publication Date: January 2005

I find that very rarely are we lucky to garner a book recommendation that equals in quality with the zest that it was given in. When I was recommended a collection my misgivings were amplified, not that I have any qualms reading collections - quite the opposite - as I had in relative recent time read a number of fantastic collections related to the genre that include but are not exclusive to works like Jeffrey Ford’s Fantasy Writer’s Assistant, Matthew Rossi’s Things that Never Were, Jeff VanderMeer’s Secret Life, Jeffrey Thomas’s Punktown, Rhys Hughes’ A New Universal History of Infamy, Nowhere Near Milkwood, Kelly Link’s Stranger Things Happen, and Di Filippo’s Lost Pages. I was aware that this collection was the debut work of an author by the name of Holly Phillips, and since I was handed this collection with the promise of reviewing it I was a bit apprehensive having such a fresh recollection of works, of which I thought were just superlative examples of the craft in my mind to subconsciously (and consciously) compare it to. What I found in my visit to Phillip’s In the Palace of Repose is that my worries were unwarranted, and after making room on my shelf where I keep top tier collections, I realized the only thing I had to concern myself was in the event of having to review another collection again in the near future, I now had a new name to remember and include to list amongst those I listed above to make me feel apprehensive about. It shouldn’t be too difficult, as if In the Palace of Repose is any indication I think Phillips will soon make it impossible for her name to remain in any form of ambiguity.

In her debut collection, Phillips offer nine stories. If you have not read the work and the name perhaps sounds familiar, two of the nine stories, including the title story, had been previously published elsewhere, and the remaining seven original to this collection. The collection itself, along with these individual nine stories (lives), is comprised by a rare and satisfying blend of the fantastic, subdued horror, and a touch of science fiction; however they are all written with a literary quality that would seem misplaced and atypical to mainstream readers.

The title story opens the collection, after a quaint and personable introduction by author (not to mention a rather talented one himself) Sean Stewart. In the Palace of Repose serves as a perfect introduction to both the reading experience and author. We are shown the elements that will remain in the rest of works, binding this collection, not by genre but thematically and by tone. The story about a captive King and the bureaucracy that imprisons him for so long they forget why, a story about magic and wonder contrasted with the starkness of the reality of the cold world, some of the scenes nothing less than breathtakingly rendered by Phillips:

“Stonehouse stares, astonished, but the King is gone. The chrysanthemums cloaking his chair have turned to butterflies, somnolent monarchs breathing with their wings. The audience is done.”

The second story ‘The Other Grace’, less fantastic but a more chilling account of a girl who one day lost her memories and her readjustment to life living with her parents and brother. An example of how false the statement “just being there is enough” can be, not from her standpoint but from the perspective of others, and delivers a statement that even though you may not be capable of remembering anything, even you yourself cannot run away from your self.

‘The New Ecology’ is a tale about a young woman realizing she cannot run away from the world around her. Aptly named Millennium, she drifts from place to place in fear of changing ecology manifested to her in strange living constructs. Regardless of what you are doing in it; you must take into account the world itself as it is evolving around whether we do or not.

A tale of metamorphosis, ‘A Woman’s Bones’ takes us to an archeological dig at an ancient burial ground that is interrupted by the appearance of Alyakshin, a tribal nomadic group, who warn of the bad omen to dig up the grounds of a legendary female conqueror. The story is about a woman who is a part of the expedition, who has similar roots as the Alyakshin, who serves as the translator between the two groups which causes her to reflect on her heritage both present and past, and the necessity of it, for her to truly rise again in the world.

‘Pen and Ink’ along with ‘ Summer Ice’ are perhaps my favorites in the collection. A young artist is looking for her father, a famous artist himself who disappeared. She does so by unconventional means by locating and looking at her father’s various works, looking for him in the paintings. The ending of this piece reminded me of the painting of the dream house/landscape in the Robin Williams movie ‘What Dreams May Come’ that his wife had painted. To locate these paintings, which were sold by her mother to various buyers, she enlists (or is it the other way around) the help of a disturbing figure, a museum curator who feeds off the art itself. I found a passage in this story depicting the character Cezzanne’s thoughts, on sketching and art that really seemed equally appropriate regarding the effect of Phillip’s prose:

“It was uncanny, the way so much solidity and distance so much color, and depth, and light-so much reality - would consent to be bound and anchored by a few lines of black ink on a page”

Phillips displays her talent for the surreal in ‘One of the Hungry Ones,’ a story of a street urchin who is invited to join her “friends” in a masquerading ritual, a social gathering that turns into a surreal game of hunt - not a game of chance but a game she cannot play and win, nevertheless a game she find herself yearning for.

‘By the Light of Tomorrow Sun’, a story about the completion of a circle, albeit by less desirable means, at aptly a place called End Harbor, a setting described as a “meeting place of worlds”, as a young boy Daniel returns for his dying grandfather.

Along with ‘Pen and Ink’, the next piece ‘Summer Ice‘, are my favorite of the collection. All the stories in In the Palace of Repose are bound by the presence of a varying degrees of a gloomy ambiance, and The Summer Ice’ does not deviate from this, but in the end offers a hope bred from what seems to be born of sentimental origins. It’s also a subtle story where Phillip’s describes a setting peripherally, offering much more then what readers who require being directly told something to glean the truth of its presence. Of all the stories I felt this one really displayed the deftness Ms. Phillip’s has in the craft aside from her immaculate and beautiful prose, which is obvious at the collection’s onset. Let me pause for a moment for my “head in the gutter moment” part of my review. When I finished reading this story, the choice of name Manon (which I am sure is common), and the fact that Ms. Phillips is Canadian from my understanding as well, and the prominent role of “Ice” in the story, stuck out to me. Besides being a fan of speculative fiction, I am a bigger sports fan, and a proud member of the ESPN Sportscenter generation, and all these unrelated elements for some reason made me think of Manon Rheaume, a female hockey player who made some splash a few years back being signed and playing in a preseason NHL game - Okay, my heads out of the gutter now.

The concluding piece is ‘Variations on a Theme’ two interwoven stories of two musicians linked in a mysterious way, and offers a satisfying conclusion to the collection. The choice of stories to bookend this collection were flawless.

Needless to say I really enjoyed my reading experience with Phillips’ In the Palace of Repose. The stories spanning multiple sub-genres not only demonstrated Ms. Phillip’s versatility and bear witness that her prose is as effective in one as it is in the other, but also made the work seem not repetitive as it could have been, due to the aforementioned theme and tone shared among the stories: a melancholic perspective that loomed albeit in different degrees…well like a shared fog:

“Sometimes like it was that day, it’s a thin veil that glitters in the trees when the sun eases through the clouds. Other times it submerges the world under a breathable ocean of gray. Days like that the only clarity is at the still surface of the ocean, where a seal coming up to gasp for air sounds like a message from another world”

Going back to the prose, it’s both accessible and provides depth reminiscent in is aesthetic value to a Patricia Mckillip. Sean Stewart in his introduction touches on it:

“But if you are open to simple pleasures of a ravishing metaphor, Phillips carpets the stories with them, so they release their fragrance as you walk by”

Like in all collections some parts do not equal up to others; however even the stories that didn’t grab me as much as some others were still a marvel and exercise of an author who has an obvious love for words and the prose to indulge that love. There are legitimate gems here with works like ‘Summer Ice‘, ‘Pen and Ink’ and ‘The Other Grace’, and that said my final grade for Holly Phillips’ debut collection,

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Topics: Collection, Holly Phillips, In the Palace of Repose, Prime Books, Short Fiction