Review: Divine in Essence by Yarrow Paisley

By Jack Moody

The short story collection Divine in Essence by Yarrow Paisley, while impressive and delightfully bizarre, suffers from one of the most common pitfalls of postmodern literary fiction: it wants the reader to know it’s smart; oftentimes dragging out sentences with so many multiple-syllabic, bloated words the intended meaning of the passages tend to drift away from the prose itself. I’ll provide one example before I move on to all that I appreciated about Paisley’s fiction, as there is far more to like than dislike, and I’d rather focus on its merits (of which there are many):

 

“[…] his alcoholism began to regain its former ascendancy in the composition of his character.” 

 

Sometimes it’s okay to just write “he started drinking heavily again.”

 

Now—don’t misinterpret my critique, as injecting a level of poeticism and verbosity into one’s stories can create a certain signature unique to that writer’s work, but when it becomes such a reoccurrence that the reader finds themself scanning passages instead of savoring the prose (as is often the author’s intention), then this is where we descend into the realm of pretentiousness—a realm that Divine in Essence often flirts with.

 

Though it’s when Paisley steps away from the need to flex his vocabulary that these stories in their surreal, discomforting, and horrific splendor begin to shine. At their best they are marked by original and creative concepts that feel deeply rooted in the gothic literary traditions of the 19th century—one example being the epistolary tale “The Metaphor Of The Lakes”, told exclusively through the diary entries of a young girl. This story in many ways incapsulates the overarching themes of the book: death, rebirth, and the afterlife, whilst presenting an uncanny atmosphere of mystery and gleeful dread throughout.

 

Divine in Essence is clearly the work of an author confident in his ability, and one who has certainly earned that confidence. This collection is worth a read for anyone looking for fresh examples of what the weird fiction and gothic genres have to offer today.