Sundress Reads: Review of What Blooms in the Dark

What exactly does it mean to be a young woman in this decade? Just how different are your thirties from your twenties, and is this shift into perceived maturity altered in any way from the forced infantilization experienced by Millennials and Gen Zers due to the unique struggles of this century, itself merely in its mid-twenties? In many ways, this is exactly what Audrey T. Carroll attempts to explore, if not answer (hint, our unique struggles might need magic to be overcome!), in What Blooms in the Dark (ELJ Editions, 2024).

Carroll’s first collection of short stories is the type of book only a young writer could and should attempt; as the title suggests, the collection is about growth, blossoming, and blooming. Save for the collection’s eponymous last story, every story centers on a young woman, typically queer, struggling to understand their place in the world. What Blooms in the Dark is full of doubts, worries, and anxieties but frames these as the water, sunlight, and nutrients necessary for growth.

Many of the stories are firmly rooted in reality, though some break away like stray feathers and take us soaring through the fantastic. “The Keepers of Miller’s Grove” features a cast of teenage girls with supernatural abilities, “Domestic Spirits” will leave you wondering about the spirits behind happenstance, and “Beyond the Veil” will have you pondering the power of memories. In “The Button Shop,” Carroll writes:

“The Shopkeeper had no control over which buttons the shop provided, or what the
visitors did or didn’t choose. She was a facilitator, not a judge or even a
peacekeeper. Still, her shoulders slacked with relief when the man released the
blood-red button and, arms tightened to his sides, left the shop with a soft little
chime marking his exit.” (76)

Here she magically gifts us our deepest desires whether we’re ready for them or not.

Other stories move away from the imagined, focusing our senses on the material world
around us in order to find the very real magic within everyday objects. For example, the introduction of “A History of Radiance” reads:

This is the story of a lamp. There was no lamp without its wirings, without its
brass body, and so perhaps these structures coming into existence are the
beginning of its story. But, in truth, no one makes a choice based on fundamental
inner workings. The choice comes down to appearance, nine times out of ten, and
so the nuts and bolts of a lamp’s particulars hardly seem to matter in the long run.
And this story is one about the long run. (82)

I promise that after this story, you will never look at a used lamp the same way ever again.

“Something Old, Something New” plays out like the pilot episode of a show about
two old friends who grew out of their punk rock days that I’d love to someday binge on Netflix.
Alice and Siobhan embody the classic setup of an “odd couple” but transformed by the fact that they use to be on the exact same page. Carroll writes:

“Alice wasn’t sure what kind of work Siobhan was into lately, but this place was nice enough that Siobhan couldn’t afford it on her sporadic bartending jobs from back in the golden days of The Sapphics. It was definitely way nicer than the rathole where Alice had been for the past two years, at least until she’d had to reduce hours at her job and her landlord served her and her roommates with an eviction notice within twelve hours of them not being able to make rent.” (141-142)

In that story too, the quotidian becomes profound, a photo, a blouse, even a cup of tea is
infused with meanings and memories.

Though not all the characters in What Blooms in the Dark find their happy ending, the
collection never leaves you feeling without hope. Hope is a central theme in the book, and its
goal is to remind you that even where there is no light, something beautiful may still grow. The
overall sense I get from this collection is something like “bedtime stories for young adults.” Yes,
there’s trial, and yes there’s tribulation, but in the end there’s something hopeful. There’s one
character, Leigha from “Domestic Spirits,” who sums up what I think the reader is meant to take
away from the book, “try not to think too hard on anything but the construction of something
new and hopeful” (Carroll 126). Because maybe if you do, you too will find what blooms in the dark.

What Blooms in the Dark is available from ELJ Editions

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