A Short Journey by Car

Linda M. Bayley is a freelance writer based in Sudbury, Ontario. She is
the author of Estrangement: Poems.

Liam Durcan is a master of the opening line: “I didn’t know you
could die from a bleeding nose.” “It all started to change when
something unusual fell out of Gerald’s ear.” “The real problem is
that no one knows how to operate a water cannon anymore.” With each
story in A Short Journey by Car, I paused after the opening line,
savouring the possibilities that echoed through my head before plunging
down the path that Durcan had chosen.

Durcan also has a flair for the original. Would anyone else think to
write about the last days of Stalin’s dentist? Of a metro driver who
becomes notorious when his train is involved in a series of suicides? Or
of a long-haul trucker smuggling 14-litre toilets from Canada into the
United States? In addition to these, we meet a man with a picture of
Christ on his tongue, another who generates poetry through machine
translation, and a 16-year-old boy who starts to understand his own
power after he punches his father.

It’s not just the situations and characters that are original here;
Durcan is also experimenting with form. The story of Nolan, the one with
Christ on his tongue, is told through third-person accounts, newspaper
articles, medical records, and snippets of screenplay. The title story
is given in snippets as well: events, photographs, descriptions of teeth
and dental procedures. A story of the Quebec City protest is told from
both sides. And it all works. If A Short Journey by Car is any
indication, Liam Durcan is set to become a force on the Canadian
literary scene.