Surreal suburbia

Carnivore Diet
By Julia Slavin
W.W. Norton & Company
296 pages

Available at Powerbooks

Julia Slavin is one prickly writer. She may be deceptively sitting all-peaceful in front of her laptop (typewriter, or with pen and paper), but beware the acerbic wit, the off-the-wall humor, and satirical edge that emanates from her writing. She’s not just bark, but also a lot of bite. Forget chick lit, Bridget Jones, and slice-of-real-life novels with plucky heroines. Julia Slavin comes in from way left field, and as far as I’m concerned, she’s a welcome addition to the growing roster of writers I’m ready to admire.

Carnivore Diet is Slavin’s first novel, and coming on the heels of her excellent short story collection, The Woman Who Cut Her Leg Off at the Maidstone Club and Other Stories, one just knows that the best policy is to expect the unexpected, given her inventive and unusual storytelling. And on that note, Slavin more than delivers. I had been searching for this novel after reading up on it at Amazon.com. Thank God the buyers at Powerbooks brought it in.

The novel is about the lives of two people: Dylan Dunleavy, a former child actor whose claim to fame is being the voice behind one of the most popular cartoon figures on the planet; and his mother, Wendy. Two monumental shadows make excursions into the lives of our protagonists. One is Congressman Matt Dunleavy, pater in absentia, thanks to a jail term he is serving for corruption, and there’s the mysterious Chagwa, a mythical creature that is sowing fear and terror all over the suburbs of Washington DC. Talk of dysfunctional or weird, and Slavin serves it up with gusto. The funny thing is, the further out and bizarre she reaches for, the more real and tragi-comic her novel becomes. It’s a high-wire act that would have many a writer falling off or just failing in their attempt, but thanks to the incessant nuggets of sociological observation and witty asides, she pulls it off and has us rooting every step of the way.

Slavin’s writing and choice of metaphors set her apart, making her a true original. Like when Dylan’s voice begins to break with puberty, he becomes angst-ridden about how his career will come to a careening end at the tender age of 12, and Dylan relates how he "cried so hard I thought my eyes would wash right out of me onto the guy’s lap, two eggs sunny-side up."

Or when Wendy has her incessant reveries and observes while attending the whirlwind of DC socials that she is invited to as a Congressman’s wife. Of some acquaintance, she describes her as "the only woman in the First World with six kids... her happy husband, Charlie Johnson, the Inseminator. Three kids from a previous marriage... Women stepped out of his way, wanting no part, convinced it happened just by brushing against him." The cocktail chatter that is typical of these socials exemplifies the hard-nosed Washington attitude of getting ahead in a city where you’re only as good as your last press release. Overheard in one party is "it’s not the shark you gotta outswim, it’s the guy in the water next to you."

The Chagwa is the make-or-break element of this novel. Seen first as some irrational, unseen terror that has gripped the city in some sensationalized vise, I thought the creature was a metaphor for the Washington DC sniper of some years back. But as the Chagwa actually makes an appearance and intrudes upon the lives of Dylan and Wendy, we see how Slavin is reaching beyond mere metaphor and has introduced something akin to magical realism into this seemingly conventional suburbs melodrama. It’s this playing off between myth and reality, fantasy and the humdrum that brings the novel onto a very unique plane.

I say make-or-break because I know there are some out there who will think the Chagwa to fantastical and feel cheated or insulted. I guess these would be the same people who forget that what we have in our hands is still a work of fiction, one where the author’s imagination is given full sway and it is a matter of whether we want to go for the ride. Sure, there is a break from plausibility or common sense, but that was essentially what a number of South American novels asked of us. And perhaps the exotic setting just made it easier for us dispense with disbelief, while having us smack dab in Washington DC requires a longer leap of faith.

Along the way, Slavin takes potshots at suburbia, politics, cartoon shows, modern culture (or what passes for it nowadays), psychotherapy and drug dependence. Wendy is never less than hilarious when running down the names of all the prescription sedatives and drugs she pops as frequently as she breathes. It’s her personalized survival kit to life in the suburbs, all achingly tragic, yet achingly real.

Carnivore Diet may not be to everyone’s taste. (Yes, pun intended.) But fans of Murakami, Rushdie, and Vargas Llosa, will appreciate this mix of the sublime and the ridiculous. It’s an excursion to a dark side of Washington DC we’ll never see on package tours, it may not even exist beyond the mind of Julia Slavin – but worth the visit.