Review: Animal Husbandry And Other Fictions

Myths and Modernity
Review: Animal Husbandry and Other Fictions

Ethan Gross
Jeff Fleischer
Short Story Collection
Running Wild Press, pp.191
​Cost: $19.99 (paperback)
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Jeff Fleischer’s collection of short stories, Animal Husbandry and Other Fictions, experiments with adding a healthy dose of magic to create a sort of modernized mythos. While not included in every story, the majority weave mysticism, fantasy, or both into otherwise grounded stories—little girls making deals with witches, a king of the cats, and multiple varieties of the classic talking animal. This push to expand the “acceptable” boundaries of magical realism in fiction ultimately allows Fleischer to convey a wider array of narratives that, had he gone an entirely realistic route, likely would have come out rote and structurally similar to many other short fictions.

Looking at the title story, “Animal Husbandry,” as an example, we see this creation of myth in action. The concept revolves around normal midwestern farmers dealing with one of their cows birthing a minotaur. Despite their shock, the farmer whose cow brought the beast to life decides to house and care for it at first. Ultimately the characters recreate the story of the original minotaur by dropping it off into a hedge maze. While some characters fear the beast and can’t believe it’s real, there’s no panicking. It straddles the line of realistic fiction and a fantasy world where such beasts have always been real. Fleischer’s characters can comprehend the minotaur, but are stunned to see one for themselves. 

This is best exemplified by one of the characters when he says, “I’ll be darned. Looks like you got yourself some kind of cow-boy. Only time I ever seen one of them was back in Davenport when I was a kid” (3). You can see how the creature is viewed as rare and somewhat foreign, but not like some impossible fairytale manifesting in the physical world. Because the characters buy into the situation, however confused they may be, the audience is encouraged to come along for the ride. It primes the readers to be ready for a sprinkle of fantasy throughout the book. From here, the following mystical elements and allusions don’t seem out of place.

Fleischer has a knack for interesting, vivid scenes with a small cast of characters. That smaller cast allows all characters and their relationships with each other to be three dimensional. I found a lot to love in the dialogue that manages to feel like someone talking to you rather than an author explaining a premise. The stories are fairly short and snappy, often with some form of moral or message just below the surface. Each story stands alone, wholly unconnected from its book mates, and each offers a different takeaway. Of course, the short nature means that the tales are compact and don’t leave as much room for interpretation, but for this style of collection that’s not a bad thing. It feels like Fleischer has collected these various stories from around the world, compiling them into this book.

In many ways it's reminiscent of an anthology. This allows him to cover a wide variety of concepts and meanings without redundancies, which I appreciate. It’s always nice for a collection to have this kind of wide variety within its genre. In “Clarksdale,” the message is that shortcuts can’t replace practice, a lesson taught to a young musician tricked into honing his skill after traveling to an infamous crossroads hoping to make a Faustian bargain for talent. In “The New Shepherd (A Fable),” the message is that security always comes at a price. A farmer’s flock must decide if they wish to have total security in the pen but be slaughtered on a whim or be given the freedom of the forest but have to routinely sacrifice one of their own to the fox that would release them. These messages underline what makes mythology compelling: characters coming to grips with very real lessons as told through the lens of fantastical events. 

Most of his stories feel ripe for expansion to some degree, and that brevity entices the reader to consider how they might have handled a situation like that. For example, in “The Oracle’s Curse” the main character is taken to a fortune teller by his date, and when he dismisses the teller’s power to her face she places a curse upon him that results in his date dumping him. In this scenario, how would you reconcile your desire to be with someone with your distaste for a belief that person holds dear? Would you be yourself or play along for their sake? How openly dismissive would you be? If a fortune teller told your date to dump you because they didn’t take kindly to your lack of belief, how would you react? A lot of these stories left me with these kinds of questions, and I found it enjoyable to consider how my decisions would differentiate from those of the characters.

While the effect of mythology on modern media is felt throughout storytelling, Fleischer has opted to create a selection of modern myths in the style of old. He doesn’t stretch out any one tale into a long, winding road, rather he keeps things concise and tells an interesting story of flawed people interacting with people and forces they don’t fully understand. By the end the reader is left with a lot of little bites to chew on rather than digesting a large, heavy meal. Readers fond of short fiction, mythology of all kinds, and even genres like urban fantasy will find a lot to enjoy here.