Mongrels and Wonder
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Stephen Graham Jones's Mongrels is a novel about werewolves. Oh! I've spoiled it. But of course that much is spoiled. We live in a world of hype and trailers and book covers. You might only pick it up because you are looking for a book about werewolves. (You should pick it up either way—it's wonderful.)
But for the purposes of this column, I'm interested in the idea that the reader might start this novel before they fully understand what the book is about. I'm interested in the way the writer extends the experience of wonder through the first chapter by teasing us about whether these are real werewolves or just metaphorical ones.
Here's the thing about wonder: it's fleeting. You feel wonder when you experience something you think is impossible. But once experienced, you know it must NOT be impossible! And so the wonder abates. To prolong the sensation, a paradox must exist of real and unreal at the same time. Some artists find ways to create a sort of flickering between the possible and impossible and thus extend the experience. I think the first chapter of Mongrels does that well.
The chapter is narrated by an almost-eight-year-old boy who lives with his grandfather, aunt, and uncle. The grandfather tells story after story declaring he is a werewolf, and the boy both believes and can't believe.
Look at the first sentence. "My grandfather used to tell me he was a werewolf." We've got the fact of the telling, the wonder of what is being told, and the impossibility of knowing at this moment if it's true or not. It's both bold and it's hedged. The narrator is telling us the truth, but it's hearsay. We're in "friend of a friend" territory.
Not only that, why "used to"? It implies the grandfather is not around to tell the stories anymore, but it also twists the telling a different way—he used to only tell the narrator, but now, perhaps, the truth is evident.
A very important strategy at play is the point of view. The child narrator genuinely does not know if the stories are real. If it were an adult hearing fantastical tales, that adult might believe them. Or the adult might dismiss them. A kid is much more likely to do both at the same time.
The POV is especially important because it keeps the writing from feeling coy. The narrator is giving us absolutely every bit of evidence he knows, illuminating the mystery rather than obscuring facts, but he himself is not sure. That's a great way to keep a mystery alive and fascinating, especially if you aim to extend it.
The grandfather's style of storytelling also helps the impossible/possible to flicker. The characters call it "going around and around the house," and the narrator says it is "the way werewolf stories go. Never any proof. Just a story that keeps changing, like it’s twisting back on itself, biting its own stomach to chew the poison out." The contradictions mean that when the narrator believes the tales, there is paradox, a magical feel of multiple possibilities existing at the same time.
On the other hand, in the moments when the boy doubts, he still believes the stories hinge on something that is real, but he doesn't know if it's the magic or the mundane details or something more abstract like a lesson. Knowing that truth is mixed with imaginary makes both exist on the same plane. And not knowing which is which makes that plane even stranger.
The stories themselves are vivid, with details that are visceral, gory, or painful. The grandfather describes a tick being sucked into his skin, how if he "popped it, the babies would all go in my blood" and then "stabbing the burning-hot bent-out coat hanger down and working it around like stirring a tiny cauldron." The specificity, of course, makes the story feel real, but so does the grossness of it, the shock. The reader's bodily reaction gives firmness to the imaginary and helps bring it into the realm of both at once.
Different perspectives on the same thing invite the reader to hold multiple understandings, even if they conflict. The grandfather is all on in on werewolf, and the kid wants to believe but isn't quite sure. What about the other characters?
The aunt and uncle are both sensible adults, it seems, and ought to be trustworthy. But their reactions can be interpreted either way. They both push back on the stories—but their pushback is slippery. It's not precisely that the stories are untrue, but that they are inappropriate for a child. Or that they are being told wrong. Or that the grandfather is unreliable. They always say "not that story," or they roll their eyes. Sometimes they'll refuse to comment at all: "Darren just stared at Grandpa about this." They never agree with the stories, but they stop short of saying the premise—that they are a family of werewolves—is false.
Even when the adults confirm aspects of the stories, they question them. The narrator's aunt continues her father's tale like this: “when he shifted back, when the werewolf hair went back into his skin to wrap around his bones or wherever it goes, it pulled the tick in with it, right?” If it's true, why does she ask if she's right? I love how her words both confirm and deny at the same time.
The uncle also chimes in, but his body language undercuts it: "'Like trying to climb a flagpole that’s sinking,' Darren said, probably reciting the story from last time Grandpa had told it. He did his bored hands up and up the idea of a flagpole to show, the bottle cocked in his fingers not even spilling."
Are they dismissing the whole concept of werewolves or just the way their father talks about it? It's as if they are humoring an old man. And the boy who wants to believe acts that way too:
I brushed my hand on the sleeve of his shirt, like to tell him it was okay, I think. That it was a good story. That I’d liked it. That he could keep telling me these stories forever, if he wanted. I would always listen. I would always believe.
Particularly fascinating, even as the aunt and uncle roll their eyes at their father's stories, they are consistently described in wolfish ways:
His rangy mouth would thin out in a kind of grin he didn’t really want to give.
She’d lift her top lip over her teeth at him in reply.
And then we get some insight that might explain either interpretation. The family is grieving.
His research was the big reason Libby stayed mostly in the kitchen. She said nothing he did was going to bring her mom back, was it? There wasn’t any big werewolf secret. Grandma had just died, end of story.
Grief could account for the way the aunt and uncle tolerate the old man's stories if they are made up. It could also be why they can't bear to join the same stories if they are true.
And don't get me wrong, as the chapter goes on, there are more details hinting at werewolf—the uncle showing up naked with leaves in his hair, for example. Not proof but a strong suggestion. Still, our ability to dismiss the signs of werewolves stretches right along with our ability to believe in them. And so the wonder extends impossibly long.
There's a snap, a break, a revelation, when we reach the point of knowing werewolves are literal. And that point may vary reader to reader—that's fine. But for me the definitive proof was the grandfather himself:
Grandpa wasn’t just half in and half out of the door from the kitchen. He was also halfway between man and wolf.
From the waist up, for the part that had made it through the door, he was the same. But his legs, still on the kitchen linoleum, they were straggle-haired and shaped wrong, muscled different. The feet had stretched out twice as long, until the heel became the backward knee of a dog. The thigh was bulging forward.
He really was what he’d always said.
What fun to reach the point of believing with the narrator instead of ahead or behind him!
But the wonder is not over for the boy (or the reader). Knowing his grandfather is a werewolf is not the last revelation, and the writer deftly shifts us from belief into wanting to believe something even more amazing. The boy wonders who else is a werewolf. His aunt? His uncle? What about himself? The teasing flicker between "yes, I am" and "no, I'm not" can continue.