This book. Is it fact? Is it fiction? Somewhere in between? To
be honest, I don't know and, to be honest, it really doesn't
matter. The words cut. They caress. Kathryn Rantala has been
blessed with THE VOICE.
The physical setting of Missing Pieces is Seattle in the 1930s
and '40s. the mental landscape is much larger. Think of de
Chirico as a writer, or Tanguy. There is mystery in these words,
and melancholy, and a constant, unfocused sense of unease. This
is the world you live in, but not necessarily the one you
know.
Ordinary images are offered, but left unexplained. Characters are
introduced, are given flesh, possibly names. Like any of us, they
live in the HERE and NOW, beneath the shimmering clouds of an
undetermined future. Like any of us, they live in a world of
small moments, each one made MONUMENTAL by the emptiness that
surrounds it.
The poems themselves are gorgeous, are unsettling. They exist
simply because they need to. They move easily from one scenario
to the next, punctuated by prose pieces and photos. And what
about these photos? The endnotes tell us that they're forensics
photos, but what crime has been committed is never made clear, or
who has been harmed, or how. They seem to be telling an entirely
unrelated story, or maybe just their own version of the facts.
The lines between realities become blurred even further. It feels
right.
So, is this book a mystery? Yes. No. Another unanswered question.
More blurring. This tension is always present, a low subconscious
hum, a small nagging voice. The details matter, but there are too
many to keep track of. Moments in time are reduced to fragments
of absolute clarity. Each one poses a question, each one offers
its own answer. Truth, of course, is not a constant.
Maybe what we have is a travelogue. Maybe a history of the
possible. A specific place is being excavated and reconstructed
within these words, and a place in time, and a time independent
from place. Again, think de Chirico, Tanguy, Magritte even.
Surrealism in the best sense. Unsettling imagery that has
meaning, but meaning removed from any context but its own. NEW
meaning. WHO you are, as well as WHERE, as well as WHY. Do you
see? This book is necessary.
You will find yourself in it.
You will find yourself to be lost.
You will consider yourself blessed.
-- Reviewed by John Sweet