Rat Medicine and Other Unlikely Curatives

Britta Santowski is a freelance writer in Victoria, B.C.

This is an excellent debut collection of 20 stories. Timothy Findley
says it best when he invites readers to “dig into its pages and
discover a new voice, one that can be tender, tough, and—in the best
and most adventurous sense—dangerous.”

A cautious start is recommended, though, as the first three stories
might mislead you into believing that Lauren B. Davis is solely obsessed
with violence. “Rat Medicine” vividly depicts a spousal assault;
“Barbara’s Mother’s Rug” portrays one teen’s near-fatal
alcoholic overdose (think vomit); and “Drop in Any Time” overtly
details a violent assault. These preliminary images are explicit, and
the emotional impact of each experience can be quite draining. One is
relieved upon reading the fourth story, “Change of Season,” where
the most violent act is a woman breaking her teacup.

After this initial cluster of violent stories, the collection ranges
widely in time, tempo, and temperament, and the characters are
incredibly diverse (young, old, male and female, Aboriginal, drunk,
insane, sultry). Take, for instance, Roddy; he’s a
university-student-turned-street-vagrant who lives on a shelf in the
subway tunnels (“The Poet’s Corner”). Then there’s Winnie;
she’s a sexy, slinky, and calculating woman on the prowl who handles
life and the hurts of love best when served with a side of alcohol
(“Smoke and Ash”). And Brewster; he’s an intuitive deaf mute who
communicates with dead benefactors to ultimately save the living (“The
Golden Benefactors of Brewster McMahon”).

Davis has the splendid ability to capture the details of her vivid
imagination on paper. Each story in this fine collection is a tightly
packaged treasure.