{"id":816,"date":"2023-03-12T04:38:58","date_gmt":"2023-03-12T04:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/wordpress\/greenblotter\/?p=816"},"modified":"2023-03-12T04:38:58","modified_gmt":"2023-03-12T04:38:58","slug":"a-hinterland-for-suburban-stupefied-tramps-review-of-rick-whites-the-hand-gone-lawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/2023\/03\/12\/a-hinterland-for-suburban-stupefied-tramps-review-of-rick-whites-the-hand-gone-lawn\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cA hinterland for suburban stupefied tramps\u201d: Review of Rick White\u2019s \u201cThe Hand\u201d (Gone Lawn)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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reviewed by Isaac Fox<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Image from Gone Law<\/em>n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

Rick White\u2019s short story \u201cThe Hand,\u201d<\/a> <\/span>which appeared in Issue 47 of\u00a0Gone Lawn<\/em>, is a roulette game of playful barbs, a miniature satire aimed at an endless array of targets. From tennis to conspiracy theorists to any number of fictional genres and tropes, no one and nothing is safe from White\u2019s dark humor. His main target, however, is upper class suburbia.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Ghost House Lane in the fictional English town of Blatherwick, an array of exaggerated, kooky characters live their lives. Among their ranks are Gregory Fist, a conspiracy-minded critic of the \u201cmainstream media\u201d; Tom Tum, a retiree and skeptical new user of FaceTime; and Genevieve Corgi-Slippers, who believes that making martinis is hard labor. Life on Ghost House Lane is orderly, consistent, spotless. Until, that is, someone finds a severed hand in the hedges.<\/span><\/p>\n

At first, the residents of Blatherwick react to the hand as suburbanites often react to tragedy: they really don\u2019t. Gregory Fist assumes it must be a conspiracy; Tom Tum calls his daughter to tell her about it; and Genevieve Corgi-Slippers reassures herself that she\u2019s taken self-defense classes and will be just fine. All of these reactions maintain the status quo: they back up the residents\u2019 personal narratives, defer action, or both. However, an immediate, urgent unanswered question\u2014and a possible threat of violence\u2014cannot exist within an unbroken suburban social order. So the suburban social order breaks. People fight in the streets and go outside naked. Soon, Ghost House Lane is \u201cone hive mind\u2014with one single entity [the hand] at the centre of it all.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the tradition of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and generations of other British absurdists, White seamlessly blends a bizarre, bleak narrative with near-constant humor. For example, his description of Ghost House Lane\u2019s descent into chaos culminates in this passage: \u201cShopkeepers covered themselves in boot polish, armed with sharpened biros. Teachers captured small children in nets. Vicars drowned wasps in holy water. Cats slept.\u201d Even this moment of swelling tension is alleviated by the absurdity of its imagery and by a snarky little joke about cats.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, as the plot of \u201cThe Hand\u201d grows both darker and more absurd, the jokes that previously alleviated the story\u2019s weight increasingly serve to exacerbate it. Interspersed bursts of comedy contrast sharply with the growing horror of what\u2019s happening in Blatherwick, creating jarring tonal leaps that keep readers off balance. The sly joyfulness of White\u2019s humor makes the ominous, bleak overtones at the heart of \u201cThe Hand\u201d feel all the more unnerving.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gone Lawn<\/em> is an online literary magazine publishing strange and speculative fiction, prose poetry, visual art, and more. Issue 47 came out in December, and Issue 48 is forthcoming. More of Rick White’s work can be found on his website<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Isaac Fox is a student at Lebanon Valley College, where he majors in English and creative writing. When he\u2019s not reading or writing something assigned, he\u2019s probably reading or writing something unassigned. His work has previously appeared in\u00a0Tiny Molecules<\/i>,\u00a0Rejection Letters<\/i>,\u00a0Fifty-Word Stories<\/em>,\u00a0and several other publications. You can find him on Twitter at @isaac_k_fox.<\/span><\/p><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

reviewed by Isaac Fox Rick White\u2019s short story \u201cThe Hand,\u201d which appeared in Issue 47 of\u00a0Gone Lawn, is a roulette game of playful barbs, a miniature satire aimed at an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,23],"class_list":["post-816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-isaac-fox","tag-micro-review-3","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}