“Underwear has nothing to do with sociological barriers,” says the narrator in the opening chapter in Baby Geisha, a collection of stories and monologues told with Dalton’s usual wordplay, vivid language, and unexpected images. Readers will fall deeply into these sketches of charmingly messed up characters inhabiting often ignored subcultures and dreams.

Trinie Dalton has created another evocative world all of her own. As described on the cover, it’s like a travelogue with each chapter being set in completely different states and countries and yet the collection hangs together with skill and whimsy. Each story has a unique narrators voice and setting that reflects the narrator’s interior monologue, so convincing it’s blurs the sense of fiction and biography. We wonder. In Wet Look, Iggy has gone looking for a spiritual awakening, Be Here Now, but unfortunately only makes it from California to Missouri. He talks to himself not to judge even as he’s busy judging, speaking outloud even though “he realized this was an unpopular view.” He finds himself at a firework display in the Ozarks, and “he caught himself making assumptions and aimed to halt this.” This is the narrator who struggles in his tent to put on clean boxers before going out because his dad taught him to be prepared for a possible trip to the hospital. The contrasts of what he’s looking for and how he experiences this trip is revealing, funny, and poignant.

Dalton has a unique way with words as we expect after publishing five other books. She adds such unexpected details and in one story the old cheese “has a doll head flavor,” and we all know what she means. The language is often sensual, sexual and wonderfully silly so that the tales come across as charming, light, whimsical, and you almost don’t notice how she writes about loss, loneliness, grief and even death. The mix of magical and mundane made me laugh outloud repeatedly as I read the collection. “It was moronic instead of ironic,” she writes at one point and I nod, knowing the feeling.

Her world is bizarre, a fantasy made of grounded descriptions within ridiculous settings and with memorable characters: Pandora. Zane. The Perverted Hobo. A Husky called Bob. And Rita.

The first lines nearly always stand out, grabbing my attention, and I want to read more. “Sloths, I’m in.” “I’m the kind of snowflake who likes to be the last one clinging.” And, “The trail to the escalator is lined with pigeon entrails, from diseased city birds that were gutted by Bengali tigers.” Well, of course. What else would I expect from Dalton?

The last lines work a similar magic for me. In context this line becomes something more poignant, sad even, “But will I always be a dog eating kibble?” ends the tale of a shell-shocked father back from Vietnam.

In Word Salad, the unexpected once again says hello, popping up at times to make me grin, laugh, and carry on reading. Delighted, I was constantly delighted by the mischievous in the sensual, the different actions told with such a straight face. A road ends in a lake for one narrator searching for wildflowers. There was “nowhere to go but in. I plunge, my engine dies,” and then climbs out as if it’s the most natural response to drive into the pond.
Trinie Dalton’s flights of imagination are simply beautiful, extraordinary, sexual and sensual in ways that kept me reading and left me wanting to sit down and talk with her over a cuppa tea. The funny lines, the language, a careful study of people and tender insights fill these pages: I’m inspired.

Reading Baby Geisha is like hearing a familiar voice in a crowded pub. You have to listen for more. You linger, you pay attention, and yes, you will laugh. Pure mischief.

photo by Blake Z Rong 2017

BABY GEISHA (stories) by Trinie Dalton

Two Dollar Radio

$16 trade paper (146p)

ISBN 978-0-9832471-0-4