Review: Former ISU student publishes dark stories

People say you should write what you know. Erin Pringle, ISU alumna, weaves her nightmares and memories, imagination and reality, to create haunting, poignant stories that leave you wondering far past the time you turn the page.

Pringle's new book, "The Floating Order," is a collection of 19 short stories. Pringle'sprowess is obvious from the very start of her short works. She writes with simple language made complex through perspective and true human emotions. Her stories, like paintings, require more than just one read. Each time revisited, details surface, plots thicken and the characters deepen.

Very rarely do I read work that is so honest as to bypass the simple or convenient endings. Pringle abandons the trite fairy-tale endings and instead adopts endings just as complex and haunting as the characters she creates.

Her most famous work thus far, "The Only Child," is written from the perspective of a child in a morgue. Death and murder haunt the story as readers delve into the minds of kids and see the story unfold from their angle.

The story is written intriguingly. Its stream of consciousness technique paired with the simplistic logic of the child can make the story difficult to follow the first time through. Throughout the story I felt uneasy, the unsettlement lingering to the very last word. There are no complex plots or dramatic twists in the story, but rather a story based upon characters that lead you through the story with an ending as unsure and unfamiliar as the rest of it.

There may not always be happy endings with Pringle, however her stories are filled with mixed emotions. One of my favorite stories, "Why Jimmy?" is a disturbing account about a young boy from the perspective of a girl that lives with him. One of the most shocking scenes is when the boy, Jimmy, climbs to the roof in an effort to hide, gets his feet stuck and then decides to cut them off so he can "put them back on later." Unfortunately, when he starts he can't finish, so the little girl finishes the job for him.

The perspective and timing of the story can get confusing, but only because the story stays so true to the characters and their voices. The troubling imagery and subject matter juxtaposed with the innocence of the children despite their circumstances, (both lack a stable family environment) creates both horror and hope. However, the story lacks closure that would uplift, and instead leaves readers with the feeling of sadness and pain.

No subject is too sensitive or morose for Pringle to write about. (From the story "Looker," where a father narrates to his daughter about her dead mother, "Losing I Think," from the perspective of a father whose wife abandoned him and his daughter and then returns and "skeletons/ my fourth birthday/ hell is channel three," where we see how war and death can affect a child, who lines up her stuffed animals against the wall and shoots at them with a water gun, Pringle strips us from usual literary perspectives and subject matters and gives us honest and poetic accounts of human life.)

It is difficult to describe Pringle's work because it requires words as unique and individual as her own voice. My recommendation is to pick up the book, read it, then read it again. For a taste of her work before the collection is released, visit her Myspace page at www.myspace.com/ erinpringle.

I will say that Pringle's short stories are not for everyone. The darker subject matter might not appeal to some. More so, Pringle relies on the intelligence and the imagination of her readers: she won't spell out the stories for you. You have to read between the lines, guess, assume and, more than anything else, think.

Links to her two works, "Pygmalions" and "Sleight," that are not featured in her collection, can be found on her Myspace page. The collection will be published by Two Ravens Press, a small publisher in Scotland and will be released in June 2009.

( Aliya Khan is a sophomore psychology and textiles and apparel merchandising major. She can be reached at sascamed@isugw.indstate.edu.)