Answering the Phone in Allyson McOuat's "The Call Is Coming from Inside the House"

Alexander Pyles

May 2

Allyson McOuat's debut ends with a quote by British cosmologist, Brian Cox: "You dig deeper and it gets more and more complicated and you get confused and it's tricky and it's hard but it's beautiful." He was referring to the universe, but McOuat chose this appropriate and lovely line to summarize her collection of essays. Ranging from the unsettling ("The Harbinger (Death at Every Corner)"), to the horrific ("The Man at the End of the Bed (Terrifying Tales from Beyond the Balcony)"), to the absurd ("The Crone, the Maiden, and the Racoon (Trash Convention)"), wry humor is shot through every essay. McOuat agilely slides through intimate moments of humiliation to the rare personal triumph, all while maintaining a light-footed two-step through this crazy thing we call life. Her work embodies this complicated, confusing, tricky, hard beauty and encourages us to embrace it.

Navigating femininity, queer/bisexual identity and motherhood have led McOuat to not be afraid to admit her inadequacies to her readers. While referring to her daughters, she writes in an essay about motherhood, "I worry that no matter what I do, I am destined to infuse them with my anxiety." Thinking back to her teenage years, she recalls, "But frankly speaking, I was crystal clear on one thing—that as a woman, keeping my body under control was my one job in life, and I failed at it miserably." Here and throughout the collection, McOuat offers an encapsulating critique of culture, including its tyranny against women's bodies.

The self-consciousness of the author is present throughout, but never weighs the prose down. In many cases, each injection of humor makes the collection lighter, such as the conversation she has with her then-partner about how to deal with the pregnant raccoon living in their attic. After having an exterminator offer his rather expensive non-lethal method while still mentioning a "guy who knew a guy" to "take care" of the problem (via raccooncide) for almost 50% less, McOuat bursts into tears, "YOU ARE NOT KILLING HER! WE ARE PREGNANT! SHE IS A SINGLE MOTHER!" The deep empathy she felt towards the raccoon was caused by the hormones that arose during pregnancy. But more than that, the kinship she feels comes from her months of being bedridden, whereas the raccoon mother must still survive and take care of her kits. McOuat first and foremost wants the kindness that has been done for her–her partner taking care of things while she gestates–extended to her fellow mammalian mother. It is a touching, but also absurdly funny moment in the collection.

Beneath each essay in the collection is McOuat's concern for how her words impact others. Using dozens of books and mostly horror films as gentle filters or extended analogies, McOuat unpacks the social critique embedded in these examples of media that point and twist under the surface. A primary example of this is found in her essay focused on All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, a film starring a young Amber Heard. The essay is titled, "The Psycho Chick (Or, The Culling of the Heard)." We can chuckle for a moment but taste sour as we move further into the essay. Women, even beautiful women, must begin "looking ugly" to hope for justice.

While there is not a clear arc, the collection is centered on femininity and queerness. The metaphorical vehicles of horror cinema and literature also connect each essay. There is not a strict lesson to take away or even a firm sole message, but the experience and perspective of one person in one specific part of the globe that feels universal all the same. Is that enough? This writer would like to think so because such thoughts, insights, and stories are welcome and must be brought to the table to be refracted alongside the rest of human experience. The hope would be true empathetic listening and understanding, which may be too "woo-woo" for even McOuat, but should be highlighted all the same.

Reading The Call Is Coming from Inside the House feels like sitting at a kitchen table and listening to a range of issues. While the essays may tell eerie or heartbreaking stories, they are gently glazed with humor, and the reader can take solace here, despite all of the problems in the world. So, why not pause from the rush of the world, walk inside, and answer McOuat's call?