James Nicoll Reviews

Jennifer Stevenson’s 2004 Trash, Sex, Magic is a stand-alone modern fantasy novel.

Atlas Properties executive John Fowier has a simple dream: sell every unit in the Berne, Illinois, Foxe Parke Townhouses. To sell the townhouses, the townhouses need to be built. To build the townhouses, the land bordering the Fox River has to be cleared. To clear the land, Atlas needs unquestioned title to the land.

The only impediment is a small ramshackle trailer community located next to the river. Still, how hard could it be to convince no-account poor people to sell out, or if they refuse, find a legal pretext to drive them out?

While conventional folks might cluck at her roster of lovers, young Raedawn ​“Rae” Somershoe is the responsible one, the one with the job, the one who brings in the cash money that her family and hangers-on need to get by. The rest of her kin have little interest in jobs or discipline, and entirely too much interest in booze and sex. Thus the endless chaos down by the river.

The first step in any construction project is cleaning the land. Too impatient to wait for the Somershoes and company to sell and leave, Atlas clears all the trees on land Atlas already owns. Among the casualties, a huge old tree. Aside from the age and size, the tree seems unremarkable.

Rae and her mother Gelia could tell Atlas otherwise… if Atlas had any interest in the Somershoes beyond getting them of the future Foxe Park estate, or if the Atlas employees saw Rae and Gelia as anything other than pretty women to chase — or impediments to run off the land.

The tree was less a what than a who, a guardian who ensured that the Fox remained in its current course without destructive excursions. Without the tree, the river is sure to shift destructively. The community needs its guardian… which means someone new will have to be recruited.

Alexander Caebeau came to Berne to help build the Foxe Parke townhouses. He may find entirely different employment

~oOo~

I like living within eyesight of water, but I can’t express how reluctant I would be to live within a stone’s throw of an actual river. Happily for developers, particularly those in possession of nice, flat land immediately adjacent to rivers [1], that’s not a qualm widely shared.

No doubt if the relevant authorities took a closer look at the activities in and around the trailers, they would find much to concern them, from public drunkenness to children running wild. Disapproval would be in part due to simple distaste for non-conformists, but there’s some basis for legitimate concern. It’s poor odds that every child mentioned in the narrative will live to adulthood. Some of what goes on down by the river is joyful exuberance, but some is self-destructive.

The novel’s omniscient narrator clearly sides with Rae and Gelia, so this book could be pigeonholed as rural fantasy. However… townies made aware of just how flood management works near Berne might take a different view. They might insist that what’s planned for Alexander (or a less nimble replacement if he escapes) is human sacrifice and hence the novel is really horror.

It just goes to show that the same events can be interpreted in wildly different ways.

The author doesn’t explain all early in the book; she doles out information only when necessary. She treats the trailer community with sympathy, without being blind to its faults [2]. Despite the novel’s brevity, the author takes time to skillfully detail the surprisingly large cast that surrounds Rae and Gelia. The result is an engaging rural … well, whether it is fantasy or horror depends on the reader.

Trash, Sex, Magic is available here (Amazon US), here (Amazon Canada), here (Amazon UK), here (Apple Books), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Kobo), and here (Words Worth Books). I did not find Trash, Sex, Magic at Chapters-Indigo.

1: The trailers are routinely inundated. Aware that this is inevitable, the people living in them take steps to ensure they can survive floods… at least floods of the usual magnitude.

2: Atlas, the developer company, seems very much a black hat, although not all of its employees are willing participants in the eviction campaign.