Rainbow bright

Wing’s Egg a winner

By Tim O'sullivan

Ariadne’s Egg was released on July 1. Wing will be reading at Books, Etc., on Exchange Street in Portland, July 26 at 7 p.m. Call (207) 774-0626.

CHRYSTAL WING: with Ariadne’s Egg, she has produced a book difficult to categorize, but good.

Portland author Chrystal Wing has written a book beyond categorization. Ariadne’s Egg, Wing’s first published book, may look like a short novel, but its plot is too loose and setting too surreal. It seems like a collection of short stories, but there is a beginning and an end, and a definite emotional thread that runs throughout, not to mention the that there certainly is a main character, the unpredictable and wildly imaginative Ariadne. There’s no doubt, however, that the book is full of artistic language, provoking imagery, and a woman’s quest to understand herself.

Wing is 44 and has been living in Portland her entire adult life. She was a music major at USM, a music teacher at Waynflete, and only in the last 11 years has she turned her creative talents toward the written word. Currently, she teaches creative writing to a wide range of students, from gifted and talented kids at Lyman Moore Middle School, to adult education, to teaching at retirement homes. But the music background shines through in her writing, lending a lyrical, graceful air to her work.

“I think the music informed my writing a lot,” Wing admitted, “shaped the way I write.”

It was during Wing’s stint as a student at the creative writing program at Goddard College that Ariadne’s unique form came to her.

“There is a lot of pressure in the graduate program and I felt sort of at a loss to find a form that worked for me,” Wing explained. “Poetry didn’t work very well because I didn’t enjoy the line breaks. And the longer, more traditional short stories didn’t work either. The character [Ariadne] just came up and she sort of suggested these short pieces.”

As you begin to read Ariadne’s Eggüit becomes immediately clear that the book is unusual. The first chapter/section/story has Ariadne eating a breakfast of Pop Tarts. But she doesn’t take the tarts for granted, rather she “smiled at the two tarts nestling side by side,” and you can almost feel their pain as Ariadne watches them “turn golden under the fierce red bars of the toaster.” And suddenly the story is over, leaving the reader with the sweet taste of a pop tart breakfast, but also with the feeling that Ariadne’s world is a bit different than your own.

That feeling is confirmed in the next chapter as Ariadne tries on a plethora of outfits, from a Lois Lane suit to a Grateful Dead T-shirt, and eventually decides on a pair of fairy wings and a blanket. This makes the rest of her clothes very angry. “There was a riot of color and textures: red taffeta arguing with polyester pants, an alligator purse snapping at fleece-lined zippers. A silk kimono tried to slip to the back of the closet, only to be snared by a brass buckled belt and pulled back in.”

The clothes riot is hilarious, but not to be lost is Ariadne’s attempt at finding herself through the variety of outfits. This search for self is at the center of the book. Ariadne looks for answers from her mother, a mail order friend, and the pharmacy. But not until the story “Ariadne goes to the grocery store” do we realize that at the heart of Ariadne’s search lies her sexuality. “The check-out lines were long, but she managed to queue up at Annie’s register. Annie was tall. Annie had sweet brown eyes. Annie was kind to all of her customers, treating their bananas and apples with respect.” Ariadne thinks those apples and bananas have it pretty good, so she climbs onto the check out conveyor belt herself, lets her body run over the scanner as she looks up into Annie’s sweet eyes.

That story is followed by the darkest section of the book, entitled “A knock at the door.” Ariadne is woken in the middle of the night by a man from the FBI on some sort of Gay Inquisition, demanding to know what is her relationship with women. Of course Ariadne herself is still unsure: “Sometimes I can’t even decide where to kiss a woman . . . the lips or the cheek? So I veer at the last minute and kiss her beside the nose.” Eventually she blurts out “I just love them, okay? Is that what you want to hear? I love women.” A physical struggle ensues, perhaps the FBI man wants to take her to homosexual conversion camp, but Ariadne escapes and continues her quest.

This search for a sexual identity is very close to Wing’s heart.

“Writing Ariadne led me to coming out,” Wing explained. “I actually came out during the process of writing the book. It’s one of those examples of writing being about discovery, and you never know what you are going to find out. And it was a surprise, I had an inkling, but as I wrote the book it became clearer and clearer to me. I was definitely part of that whole thing that was going on with Ariadne. She was leading me to the conclusion that I came to.”

Wing used the term “magical reality” (not to be confused with mythic fantasy) to describe the world of Ariadne. Not only does Ariadne live in a magical world, but the publishing story of Ariadne’s Egg is magical as well. While at Goddard, Wing met Marilyn Wakefield, who later founded mwynhad (a Welsh word meaning pleasure) press in Seattle. Wakefield remembered Wing’s writing, and it was the publisher who contacted the writer.

“That’s like a writer’s dream,” Wing acknowledged. “So I felt very lucky and grateful when we started to correspond. It’s wonderful, too, because I get to collaborate on everything.”

Tim O’Sullivan can be reached at timanddenise@earthlink.net