Ryan Turner, What We’re Made Of (Oberon, 2009)

Short fiction – Turner has been published in numerous journals, like Prairie Fire, Qwerty, and The New Quarterly.

- Shortlisted for the 2008 Metcalf-Rooke Award.

- (Note: A shorter version of this review appeared in the latest Atlantic Books Today.)

The opening line of Turner’s book immediately speaks to his strength as a writer. “[Julie Rossiter has] calves too big for the boots she wants.” A lesser writer would be more literal is describing Julie, more bland, would give us a paragraph-long description of her character and physique. This is where Ryan Turner excels: his honed eye for detail that lets him confidently shed all filler so that his stories are pure punch. His calculated style of writing serves up perfectly presented characters, and he skillfully captures the nuances in the fine threads that bond (or do not bond) his characters together. He delivers clever and calculated one-liners that say it all, and his one-liners give us more insight into a story — its characters and their relationships — than most writers could give us in a paragraph. This economy of words, his spare style, is what makes his writing remarkable, and a pleasure to read. That and how some of his more aphoristic lines beg to be read twice. Another clear strength here is his unobtrusive rendering of dialogue, and the catchy cadence and rhythm to the writing. It’s a style all his own, though comparisons to Burning Rock short fiction, namely Michael Winter, will be inevitable with lines like, “I’ve known her a month and I want a year to pass. I want time to reflect my devotion.”

All the stories in What We’re Made Of share the same protagonist, Benjamin Wallace, which lends a readability to the stories in that you get to know characters in the same way you would in a novel. Taken altogether, it could be said that What We’re Made Of  is a portraiture of a generation, or a segment of a the modern late-twenty-something generation. A generation caught between changing tides, a generation “less likely to know what a screwdriver is for than to have travelled the world, looking for meaning,” a generation severing the connection between human impulse and social constraints, and a generation with new issues and concerns.

There is a line in the opening story, Losing Teeth, “He used to say we’re the accumulation of a gazillion moments.” There’s truth to that, and those moments are kind of what this book is about, what is capturing. The basis of bonds between two people and the potency of passing moments. Turner deftly captures the essence of relationships, what bonds two people, or doesn’t. What lingers when two people separate. “I think of the corridors of ourselves we never travel. How the rooms are built but lights aren’t on.”

With What We’re Made Of, Ryan Turner goes beyond showing promise with his debut: he leaves you wanting more, soon. Short fiction is making its comeback, earning due respect as its own medium, it is being reinvigorated, and it is people like Ryan Turner who are doing that. I was dazzled as a writer, relating as a reader. In his author’s acknowledgements, he says, quote, “… for making me feel like I could actually be a writer with enough dedication and hard work. Let this be a first step.” It’s less like a first step, and more like an Olympic leap into what will be a well-regarded writing career. (if all was fair anyway. I hope all the right people take note of this debut.)