The Twistical Nature of Spoons by Patti Grayson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The marketing blurb for Patti Grayson’s fourth novel reads:

Blisse has guarded the family secret for her entire childhood. No one can know the origin of her unconventional birthday gifts. Her mother, Ina, has insisted that Blisse never tell a soul – believing it’s the only way to keep her daughter safe from a dire fate. Together, mother and daughter must sift through their own versions of events to understand how the secret has led to the unravelling of their lives. Chock-full of masks and curses, art and magic, seduction and spoons, their stories are both fraught with misdirection and awash in whimsy. Can their revelations negate a tragic prediction? Or is the dissolution of love and family inevitable?

Sounds intriguing, yes? Perhaps a combination of CanLit and magic realism? I’m all prepared for an Atwood-ish immersion. The marketing metadata for the novel, however, lists it as Women’s Fiction, Literary Fiction, and thirdly, Fantasy. After having read Spoons (title abbreviated in the interest of my keyboarding fingers), I’d have to say the bibliographic metadata is spot on, although very loosely associated with fantasy.

Why am I belabouring metadata? Well, partially because I found myself a bit confused as to what, exactly, Grayson was trying to communicate in the novel, and it must be understood that confusion likely rests solely on my shoulders, not on Grayson’s. By now you’ll know that I’m a very critical reader. I nitpick. I huff and deconstruct, analyze, and debate. Can’t help it. Guess it’s the editor and years in the publishing industry. Or maybe I’m just an old crank.

Having said that, allow me to deconstruct, analyze, and debate.

The opening of the novel presents an ill-considered, steamy night of intrigue and passion between Ina Trove, the future mother in the novel, at this point working as a tavern waitress, and a tall, dark, handsome stranger (cue the bad-boy stereotype) by name of Taras, married, and a fabricator of family occultism who seduces her through an elegant and fascinating private presentation using the masks of commedia dell’arte. Everything about that segment suggests a deep fantasy undertone, something which might inform the entire story arc. Alas, that never happens. There is no magic, real or imagined. It was just a night of passion with someone who is a very good actor, which results in an unwanted pregnancy and all the social and financial calamity that follows. Taras disappears before Ina’s pregnancy becomes known, leaving her not only with his child, but the story of a curse—a curse that shapes what is to come.

That promise of fantasy or magic realism continues in alternating chapters between Ina and her daughter, Blisse. Blisse, it would seem is the recipient of twisted spoons, allegedly created by her father and left as gifts for her. Said father is allegedly dead. (There may be spoiler alerts throughout this review.) Blisse makes the spoons into her own little fantasy family, imaginary friends, as it were, and with them discusses and solves many of her childhood problems.

It is at this point that pesky editor and cynic in me began to whisper insidious and critical phrases like:

How can Ina support herself and her daughter solely through rent from a boarder, and craft show sales?
How did Ina manage to renovate the house she inherits from the death of her mother without building permits and sufficient funds?
There were more, many more, but you get the point.

Then there’s the problem of how Grayson has chosen the voice for Blisse, which comes across as just a bit too twee, and far too adult at times, most definitely into the extreme end of precocious and precious.

Dialogue throughout the novel is stilted because of the complete absence of contractions. Who consistently says: I will not, I do not, I cannot? We speak in contractions: I won’t, I don’t, I can’t. (I did warn you: I nitpick. And I did wonder where were these editors Grayson so graciously thanked in her afterword?)

Then there is the romantic element of the story, which for me lacked credibility: Ina carries a torch for Taras for the rest of her life. She is hopelessly in love with someone with whom she spent one night of lust, a few charged hours. This is love? Obsession might be a better term. Unhinged most definitely. In need of therapy most likely. But love? And so again this reader is halted, says, “Oh yeah?” and pretty much wants to close the book.

In the soap-operatic denouement, the star-crossed lovers are reunited, only to have him immediately suffer a massive heart attack after hearing he is a father. Blisse, the daughter, by this point knows all about her mother’s life-long deception, has estranged herself, and only through chance discovers her father is in fact real, in peril of dying before she ever gets to meet him.

By that stage I’m really feeling I’ll never get those hours back, that I am not the reader for Grayson’s novel, that I’m far too critical and demanding to accept the world and plot as laid out, and all that makes me feel apologetic. I’m also feeling a lot cheated, because reading about Taras lying in a hospital bed, all I can think is: where’s the magic? What of the masks? What of the promise implied in those opening pages? It’s like being teased with a taste of extraordinary chocolate only to have the remainder be stale Easter candy.

And the ending, well, it’s a bit of shiny tin foil wrapping for that stale, old candy. There’s nothing really new here. No nuance, nor insight, nor moments of brilliant phrasing. It’s just another sort of fantasy, definitely romance, misdirection and misunderstanding. If you like that sort of very easy reading, then Grayson’s The Twistical Nature of Spoons is most definitely your next read.

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