Suzette Mayr
Monoceros is one of the most imaginative, quirky and emotionally devastating novels I've read in a long while. Set at a Catholic high school in suburban Calgary, Monoceros illustrates just how painfully un-evolved high schools remain, even in the era of It Gets Better. Kids can be cruel and indifferent, and so can teachers and parents - dangerously so.
Suzette Mayr's fourth novel is her strongest yet, and her ability to nail the voices of her stable of wildly divergent narrators is something few writers can pull off - but Mayr does it with aplomb.
The first chapter is narrated by the Dead Boy. The first line is "Because U R a Fag is scrawled in black Jiffy marker across his locker." By the end of the chapter one, in which he details why he's about to do so, the boy has hanged himself.
With subject matter that could easily devolve into melodrama and clichéd teachable moments, Mayr avoids the sentimental by offering up the supremely real - characters affected by his death, in all their selfish, immature, human ways - and I'm mostly talking about the adults.
The rest of the novel is written by the students, parents and staff affected by his suicide in a collage of short fast-moving chapters. The cast includes Farraday, a nerdy unicorn-obsessed virgin who served the dead boy ice caps at the Tim Horton's drive-through every Sunday; Ginger, the dead boy's secret lover; Ginger's girlfriend, who tormented Patrick with daily death threats; Patrick's newly divorced and frazzled English teacher, who barely remembers him; Farraday's drag-queen uncle, Crepe Suzette; the dead boy's parents, who prayed for his hetero-conversion; the closet-case creep of a principal, Max, thankful the kid didn't off himself on school property; and Max's off-the-record boyfriend, the gentle giant guidance counsellor, Walter who couldn't be more flawed at his job.
Max and Walter live in constant fear for their jobs even though they live in a country with sexual orientation protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms but which nevertheless allows Catholic schools to fire teachers based on sexual orientation. Max hates being gay, and loathes those who are out; Walter is getting tired of hiding behind the drapes watching re-runs of popular sci-fi show Sector Six. Both self-loathing characters are numbly aging into oblivion, and Patrick's suicide shocks them out of their arm-chair stasis.
The novel's plot progresses at an even clip, but most of the action is emotional, as we watch the characters grieve or refuse to grieve, care or refuse to care, and examine their own lives. Mayr's manages to offer compelling detail in convincing teen-speak and in the words of burnt-out teachers just trying to get to the final bell without going mad.
My one criticism is the final chapter, where the unicorns Farraday's ordered off the internet to save her arrive in a sudden switch to magical realism; it's such an abrupt shift it is a little dizzying. At the same time, it is a fittingly dreamy way to bring us to the end of a story that will inevitably keep on as the fallout from the dead boy's choice reverberates in the psyches of those he left behind.
Zoe Whittall loves a good unicorn accessory like most '76 babies.