Book Review: Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima
Craft is unlike any other short story collection I have read. At times, it felt less like an anthology of tales, than a continuous narrative. This is because of “the writer”, an unnamed character at the centre of it all who happens upon the devil at a party in her twenties and sleeps with him. After their encounter, he periodically haunts her life, and she writes stories for the devil that purport to be about other people, but feel more like thinly veiled pieces of the writer’s life.
Writing stories for the devil sounds dark, but this book is anything but. The devil in this story, is not the fire and brimstone monster torturing souls forever, nor is he a completely misunderstood angel, a victim of a vengeful god. This devil is more of an elusive idea, or phantom, guiding the writer through her life, and who may even be nothing more than a figment of the writer’s imagination. And although too much ambiguity can leave me frustrated, here it is welcome and fits the style of the book well.
The book may not be dark in and of itself, but the themes tackled aren’t always lighthearted. Craft addresses unrequited love, moving far from home, watching a loved one being seduced by a cult, favouritism among siblings, love, loss and the difficulties of being an immigrant in another culture. The author is a Brazilian immigrant to America, who lives in Chicago and one of the major themes throughout is navigating those disparate identities in Trump’s America. The peak of this comes in the story, “Ghost Story,” where the main character heads home to Brazil for the first time in a long time because her mother is haunted by the ghost of her future daughter. The ghost is likely a manifestation of the mother’s guilt over favouring her son, and the daughter tries to navigate the complexities of that.
Inbetween the stories are “alt-chapters” where The Writer returns to centre-stage to describe their life and further meetings with the devil. Through the stories she tells and the encounters with the devil, the world of the writer expands offering insights not just on her character, but life itself.
Nestled somewhere between novel and collection, Lima’s book will linger within me for a long time to come.
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