Welcome to another installment of If My Book, the Monkeybicycle feature in which authors compare their recently released books to weird things. This week Samantha Edmonds writes about A Preponderance of Starry Beings, her new story collection out from TriQuarterly/Northwestern University Press.
If A Preponderance of Starry Beings were a Rorschach Inkblot Test, you might see a ghost clinging to a cradle or a lone figure on a mountaintop, depending on how you turn the page. The figure might be praying or shouting or singing. The ghost is doing all three at once.
If my book were to practice a religion, it would be squirrely about it. It would not like to respond to questions. If my book were able to offer answers, it still wouldn’t.
If my book were a conspiracy theorist, it wouldn’t believe in gravity.
If my book were a student in an astronomy class, it would be lucky to receive a C-. Probably because it doesn’t believe in gravity.
If my book were an animal, it would be a bird. Same reason.
And if it were a bird, it would be a songbird.
It would certainly not be a bird of prey. It would be a sparrow or a finch, perhaps, something familiar—little birds you’ve seen around your home before but, upon taking a closer look, you might be surprised how little you’ve actually noticed them. Unless you are a bird enthusiast, in which case, such a songbird like my book, a sparrow or finch, might feel extraordinary no matter how many times it visits you in your garden.
If my book were a bird, it would sing for you.
Then again, if my book were a bird of prey, it would not be anything as majestic as eagles or falcons or hawks. A Preponderance of Starry Beings is an airborne buzzard with a keen eye for the lost and forgotten things on the ground.
If my book were a mirror, it would be broken. Its stories would be the shards of glass holding cracked reflections. If you picked up the pieces, it would apologize for cutting you.
If my book were to become a dog right after being a broken mirror, it would try to lick your wounds. The book-dog has soft ears and sharp teeth.
If my book were to ask you on a date, it would try to take you home. It might not know the way.
If my book were an adrenaline junkie, it would not be afraid of heights. Because it is not an adrenaline junkie, it still gets a little shaky in the knees whenever it looks down. It jumps anyway.
If A Preponderance of Starry Beings were a spellbook, it would belong to a witch with a soft spot for lost girls. Her cottage is warm and wistful and welcomes weary travelers. She would share her spellbook with anyone who asked but it would only open for those few hungry-hearted humans who still believe in fairy tales.
If my book were a mother, it would say I’m sorry. Even if it wasn’t.
If my bookwere a planet, it would be Earth. Perhaps this surprises you, because you might be thinking it should be Venus or Jupiter or at the very least it might make a case for Pluto, beloved outcast, but no. It’s your home planet, easily taken for granted as somehow less mysterious than other planets and yet still just as miraculous: Earth. As in down-to, salt-of-the, heaven-on.
Samantha Edmonds is the author of the story collection A Preponderance of Starry Beings as well as the chapbooks Pretty to Think So and The Space Poet. Her work appears in The New York Times, Fourth Genre, Ninth Letter, Michigan Quarterly Review, Mississippi Review, Creative Nonfiction, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, among others. She’s an Assistant Professor in the creative writing program at Berry College and lives in Rome, Georgia.
Order A Preponderance of Starry Beings here.