Blow the Moon Out

Susan Manningham teaches sociology at Queen’s University in Kingston.

Judy McCrosky’s new collection of short fiction makes one despair of
men and women ever achieving meaningful relationships with one another.
The stories are full of connections—missed connections, wrong
connections, faulty connections—but communication is nonexistent.

McCrosky’s men are unable to experience emotion. In order to feel
emotion, Thomas, in the surreal “Buying Happiness,” undergoes a
series of surgical interventions through which emotion is artificially
induced. The last operation results in a pregnancy, and Thomas finally
experiences a true, organic feeling. Is this route men’s only hope?

While McCrosky’s men exist in an emotional desert, her women feel too
much. Like Salinger’s Holden Caulfield, they have no filtering
capacity and are unable to shield themselves from raw reality. They seek
escape in a world of fantasy inhabited by “wind babies” and
ghosts—a world where real babies turn to dolls.

In “Call Me,” the nonrelationship of a couple is related through
conversations recorded on answering machines; the machinery
connects—the people never do. Blow the Moon Out holds out precious
little hope for those who would rather die than take charge of their
emotional lives.