The Worry Front by H.C. Gildfind
“Word by word, I seek it: that body-jolt of recognition. For instance, I found this in the depths of a novel: ‘happiness is repetition.’ When I discovered that phrase, it was one of affirmation: repetition makes a promise of itself: repetition falls in love with itself: repetition threads minutes and hours and days together.”
In her debut collection, H.C. Gildfind draws together ten impeccably polished short stories and one modern-day gothic novella to bring us The Worry Front (2018). A rich, sinewy and gritty journey awaits as Gildford takes a no-holds-barred approach to the human body through her flawed and emotionally fraught characters.
The entanglement of the body and mind is deftly explored, as Gildfind focuses on the disconnect between what happens physically to her characters and their internal psyches. The physical experiences of the narrators are often not pretty, but she manages to tell them without embracing the glorification of gore. Gildfind’s torment is far more subtle, setting the scene and then allowing our imaginations to take us into the bloody depths. In the opening story, “The Ferryman,” an overweight and ruined man is stuck in a narrative created by lies, one he can remove himself from physically but not psychologically. Gildfind tells his story with concise yet repetitive prose, drawing us into the ferryman’s circular thought process. A gruesome discovery on the beach draws this story, and it’s lyrical prose, to a gritty close:
“A small blue fist. A small blue fist. A small blue fist clenched on itself; clenched on nothing.”
The titular story, “The Worry Front,” is as near-perfect a short story as I have ever read, starting at one point and delivering us somewhere very different and unexpected. It begins with our narrator, an elderly woman, gathering small pieces of metal from around her home. She talks us through what she and her husband have dubbed “the worry front,” a wall of anxiety that flooded their lives after the birth of their first daughter and never dissipated.
Throughout the story, as our narrator details her life, her husband’s death, and her fractured family, the purpose of these seemingly benign metal pieces hits the reader with a jolt of shock. I won’t give too much away, but the ending of this one will haunt me for weeks:
“I forgot that I would sit across from someone - a real person, not imagined - and I would lie to them. Momentarily speechless, I stare into the boy’s lovely brown eyes: in all my life, I never planned for the kindness of strangers, just as I never planned for the unkindness of my children.”
“Adrian” and “What There Is” were two stand-out favourites for me within the collection. “Adrian” focuses on a young girl discovering a photo of what she assumes is her father as a young boy but turns out to be his deceased brother. It’s a tender story that holds gently onto something almost universal across families - the act of remembering those we’ve lost and their significance to our present:
“He shakes his head, still staring at the table. ‘I told you,’ he says, ‘I don’t remember anything. I never knew anything to remember. That’s the worst thing - not the forgetting but the never knowing.”
“What There Is” centres around a couple, owners of a rural cafe, and the eccentric set of ‘regulars’ who frequent the place. Seeking repetition - a routine to while away the days - is what has drawn the two of them to this life and yet unhappiness dogs them daily:
“Different kinds of repetition. Different kinds of nothing. What there is. And what there isn’t. Which, after all, is everything.”
Gildfind’s stylistic prose is given full reign in the ending novella, “Quarry.” Luke, a disfigured chef in a busy rural cafe has a dark and violent past. He is drawn out of his insular misery when he discovers an abandoned quarry near his home and begins walking around its dilapidated perimeter after his shifts. Luke is larger than life, and there’s a sense of modern-day gothic storytelling with his looming and frightening presence, hulking through the community and befriending a feral black dog. As things unravel around Luke, he embraces the slippery, broken sense of self he’s been avoiding in his depths, just like the quarry he circles.
Repetition, unwelcome thoughts, routine and ritual, as well as feeling stuck and dislocated both physically and mentally, are all strong themes throughout the book. There’s an unsettling sense of desolation that weaves itself through the vivid narratives, even when the characters seem to get what they want.
The repetition and reversing of statements is also a literary trick that Gildfind deploys well, but at times is overused. When every story included this trick, it began to feel distracting and, as a reader, I didn’t feel it was always needed. Nonetheless, this is a collection I found difficult to tear my eyes away from. Like watching a car crash in slow motion, Gildfind’s stories are compelling and engrossing in a way that is disturbing, yet oddly satisfying, in a way we don’t often want to admit to. They will stay with you longer after reading.
Elaine Mead is a freelance writer and book reviewer, currently residing in Hobart, Tasmania. She is passionate about the ways we can use literature to learn from our experiences to become more authentic versions of ourselves and obsessed with showing you photos of her Dachshund puppy. You can find her online under @wordswithelaine.
