ALU Summer Book Club: Team Discussion, The Rage Letters

1. Is this your first time reading a linked collection of stories? What do you like about this form in particular?

Mandy: I’m a big fan of short stories – I love the balancing act between the economy of language and all the details that make up the scene or snapshot. I got all of that in The Rage Letters. The linked stories for me made the collection feel larger in scope, adding to a loose overarching narrative. There’s also a propulsive aspect to linked stories in general; in this collection, specifically, it was fun to encounter a character from a previous story. Like, hey, I remember you! I also absolutely loved the writing and the subtle humour. 

Laura: I adore linked short stories, and I felt like this one was loosely linked; the links became clear the further you got into it. And when I first recognized the links, it unmoored me a little, but I didn’t mind it.

Tan: I also love linked short story collections, though sometimes they can feel like a novel that didn’t quite get edited into one. But not this one: it had enough variety, and points of view and characters that it really felt intentional in the way that they were broken up. I liked that. Katia seemed like the most recurring character, but I think it was Fred who is the glue that binds the whole collection together.

Lauren: Totally. I think it adds weight to each individual story, once you recognize that they’re linked. When you start realizing these characters are interconnected in some way or another, suddenly that person’s actions don’t exist in the vacuum of their story, but they’re impacting across a range of experiences.

2. At one point in The Rage Letters, one character says of a white art curator interested in work by people of colour that she had an “appetite for trauma.” How does this book circumvent art institutions being traditionally of and for the white, cis, straight gaze?

Mandy: The stories centre the thoughts and experiences of Black, queer, and trans characters with very little attention to white or cis characters. In that, there’s a reclamation of power — who gets to tell the story, who’s in charge of the story. I particularly enjoyed the narrator of the first story “Theft,” who’s this very cool, marches to the beat of their own drum type. There is this sense of pride about having failed a standardized test at class, almost like a quiet protest to the institution.

Laura: It pushes against those conventions, or the “dominant” society, by a constant critique that’s embedded in the lines, and in the humour. I agree with you, Mandy. That word, “deadpan”, appears in descriptions and reviews of the book and it’s exactly right. There’s a killer line talking about a circle of women that said something like “Each thought she was the protagonist of the salon.” It’s so subtle yet so sharp.

3. Bah’s characters in The Rage Letters are an eclectic mix of artists and non-profit workers, but also service workers and security guards, people who often fall outside of notice. What struck you about Bah’s exploration of their interior lives and thoughts?

Mandy: I got a sense that these are people first, the jobs don’t define them. In some cases, like in the story with the call centre, the jobs are just a means to an end.

Lauren: I loved the security guard story, where he’s daydreaming of home while at work. I think, unfortunately, there are certain kinds of professions like security guards where they’re kind of designed to be invisible while working, so seeing this imagining and rich interiority really took me out of myself.

Tan: A lot of the characters had jobs that could be considered “background” jobs – security guards, call centre operators, non-profit workers. Even artists can be second to their art. But this collection really forefronts them as people, and shows that their jobs are incidental to their lives.

4. There is such a strong sense of place in this book; on the streets of Montreal, in Quebec small towns. How did you encounter place when reading The Rage Letters?

Mandy: I liked the references to food spots that show the diversity of the city.

Tan: Yeah, if you know Montreal, it’s very easy to place yourself, in the downtown, or on the hill… I also couldn’t help but imagine parts of the Eastern Townships I know when they go on vacation to a small town in the last story, too.

Laura: I think my favourite story in the whole thing was the one from Fred’s point of view, the foster care story. All those little labels were given to the neighbourhoods as she’s wandering around the city.

Lauren: Metonymy mentioned in their interview that one of the reasons they chose to publish the book was how Montreal it is, but I think it’s also very Montreal for people who know Montreal, but there’s no detraction for people who don’t. That’s a fine line to walk and I think Valérie Bah did it.

5. At the end of the book, translator Kama La Mackerel notes the “creoleization of French” that they encountered when working with Bah’s text. How is this reclaiming of language important for this work?

Lauren: I loved reading about the process of the translation and that the two [Valérie Bah and Kama La Mackerel] worked so closely together. There’s a subversion of language that in a way is easier to do in a gendered language like French, even the French title Les enragé.e.s plays on the word being male / female / plural.

Laura: I do love that original French title, too, “the enraged.” I happened to be poking around and saw that Valérie Bah has a new book coming out with Véhicule Press, and that looks interesting, too. Their writing is stellar for me. I was captivated all the way through.

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