Kirby is wry, punctuating the ancient myth of this tragic figure with incongruous, even absurd, glimpses of the modern world. But as much as Kirby plays with her narrative, she’s dead serious.
The juxtaposition of historical and contemporary settings throughout the collection highlights how not enough has changed since Cassandra’s time nearly a thousand years ago. Kirby’s modern women move through timeworn fears. In “We Handle It,” a group of teenage girls at a summer music camp notices that an unknown man has been following them. “We have seen the videos about stranger danger, friend danger, and boyfriend danger. Husband danger and father danger. But we are proud. More important, we don’t want to be the one who fails us all by running away.” They fantasize about finding savage and self-affirming joy in murdering their stalker. Like Cassandra, they place their hope in an imagined future, in the unfulfilled promise of “we will.” Where is that future where women are safe?
“A Few Normal Things That Happen a Lot” explores what might happen if that time were now. In this hilariously weird story, women find ways to fight back against sexist comments, assault, stalking, and the further myriad abuses that constitute women’s “normal” experience of American misogyny. Unlike my high school friends and I, who could only dream of high-tech defense systems, these women develop actual superpowers: fangs that can bite off offending appendages, laser eyes, werewolf capabilities, and even the miraculous ability to walk away from a public masturbator and “never [think] about the man ever again.” Powered by the bites of radioactive cockroaches, women terrify men so thoroughly that men take to carrying cans of Raid. “It isn’t enough, not by a long shot, but the men hold the cans tightly in their hands, like talismans.” I read the story with schadenfreude, recalling every time I’d been advised to carry pepper spray, clutch my keys, avoid walking alone at night, tell a friend where I was, keep my eyes on my drink, download an app that sounds an alarm, stay in a group, bring a male friend, cover my legs, wear sensible shoes for fleeing… What would it feel like to no longer be on the defense?
Kirby thoughtfully explores the consequences of her fantastical conceit. What happens when women are on the offense? One cockroach-woman—who has survived decapitation by her lover—laments the spoils of revenge: “There is nothing worse than knowing that the man she loved cut off her head, except the fact that killing him has not made her whole again.” To end the violence in the streets, these armored women pay a price. They must remain ever sharp-edged. They long for “some softer version of themselves.” Even their strength hasn’t created a world where it is safe to be vulnerable. However far-fetched Kirby’s conceits get, they rely heavily on a core of emotional truth.