Sexy Tales of Paleontology by Patrick Lenton
“When you’re 43 rats crammed into a trenchcoat, you don’t particularly want people to question what’s underneath.”
Sexy tales of paleontology (2021), Patrick Lenton’s playful and zany short story collection, is hard to describe as anything less than an absolute romp. It follows on the heels of Lenton’s previous work Uncles Hercules and other lies (Subbed In) and A Man Made Entirely of Bats (Spineless Wonders). These books have picked up the accolades of being bizarre, original, hilarious, inventive, darkly comic, surreal, tender and absurd, and Sexy tales of paleontology impressively follows suit.
In these stories, we meet a lesser-known relative of the Kardashians who gets beamed up to Mars; a woman who summons up a far more sinister version of her ex-wife’s pet Labrador; and a robot designed for war that falls in love with the US president. The charming microfiction “Homing Pigeon” is also included, which won our summer flash fiction competition in February.
The collection is steeped in pop culture (perhaps unsurprisingly - Lenton is the editor of news and pop culture website Junkee, after all): there’s the aforementioned Kardashians, Millionaire Hot Seat and dating apps. The stories draw on elements of pulp fiction, ranging wildly in genre from speculative fiction, sci-fi, horror and crime fiction, all connected by Lenton’s darkly comic narrative voice and larger-than-life characters. There’s queer romance and heartbreak, revenge and velociraptors, artificial intelligence and several unexpected erotic encounters. Big questions about the slipperiness and performativity of identity, what it means to be human and what it means to love are dealt with throughout in variously hilarious ways.
Many of the stories have the same energy as a comedy sketch, delivering and then riffing off each joke with impeccable comic timing. In the opening piece, “43 Rats,” our narrator is the eponymous “43 rats crammed into a trenchcoat.” This becomes a refrain throughout the piece, getting funnier each time it’s repeated, especially as the situation becomes more and more absurd - whether the 43 rats in a trenchcoat are talked into running for local council or accidentally incite a Rat Pride parade.
Lenton is adept at creating outrageous and memorable characters through dialogue, which reminded me of the darkly funny stories of Kelly Link. Their monologues or proclamations are delivered with supervillain camp, such as the paleontologist in the title story or the Russian grandmaster in “That’s Chess, Baby!”:
“I am Garry Kasparov, and I was born to play chess. My first word was ‘en passant’. For the first four years of my life I only moved in an ‘L’ shape.”
This element of performance makes the stories seem designed to be read aloud. You can imagine the back-and-forth between the soldier and his captain in “A Letter From A Dying Soldier To His Sweetheart Who He Had Never Fulfilled Sexually” performed on stage.
‘No — listen to me!’ Marchenko wheezed, grasping the Captain’s arm with his bloodstained hands with what little strength he had left.
‘My wife, Dolores … back in Ohio … please give her this letter I wrote … it’s nothing much, just three pages of me describing what army pants feel like … I’m pretty emotionally repressed …’
‘It’s a generational thing,’ said Jack, soothingly.
As well as character, Lenton has a real knack for narrative: when he leads you down a twisted path, you feel compelled to follow. It seemed to me that many of the pieces began as “what if” questions and were extrapolated to their very extremes: What if every toaster in the world stopped working? What if sex robots became sentient? What if Bono took over the world and you needed to resurrect a computerised version of Princess Diana to take him down…? Lenton’s imagination runs rampant and it is a delight to see.
The exploration of modern life, relationships and technology through surreal, satirical and speculative pieces also brought to mind other Australian short story writers such as Julie Koh and Elizabeth Tan. Lenton shares the same playfulness, a willingness to go where no writer has gone before and that most refreshing and entertaining thing – a great sense of humour.
***
To read an extract of Sexy tales of paleontology, click here.
To preorder your own sexy copy and receive it on or before 26 July, click here.
This review was based on an Advance Reading Copy generously provided by Subbed In.
Emily Riches is a writer and editor from Mullumbimby, currently living on Gadigal land (Sydney). She founded Aniko Press to bring passionate writers and curious readers together, discover new voices and create a space for creative community. You can say hi at emily@anikopress.com.