Family ties tangled in twisted truths

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This article was published 09/12/2023 (1029 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sometimes a decision to keep the truth hidden leads to a complex pathway filled with big and small lies. This nugget lies at the heart of Patti Grayson’s novel, The Twistical Nature of Spoons.

Grayson, who lives in St. Andrews, Man., is the author of two award-nominated novels and one award-nominated short story collection. Her debut novel, Autumn, One Spring, was translated into German and a popular book club selection. The Twistical Nature of Spoons is her fourth novel.

Ina (Regina) Trove is working at the Three Sheets Tavern in Thunder Bay when a mysterious stranger appears. Good looking but unkempt, he captures Ina’s attention with his unusual way of speaking. “If I wanted my vodka chilled, I’d merely place it here, over my heart,” he says.

He tells her his name is Taras — named for a famous poet from his family’s homeland, Ukraine. When he spots a scar on Ina’s palm, he says it’s fate that brought him into the bar since Ina has an extra lifeline, which matches a prediction made years before by his great-grandmother. He manages to slip a small silver souvenir spoon with a twisted handle into Ina’s hand before leaving.

After work, Ina follows Taras to Lakehead University, where he shows her his collection of Commedia dell’arte leather masks which he features in a touring workshop. Declaring that his wife has cursed him to a sudden death, he seduces Ina.

Ina hopes Taras will come by the bar the following night, but he doesn’t appear. She tries to write their lovemaking off as a one-night stand until she finds she’s pregnant. She wonders if the great-grandmother’s prediction could be true, asking herself, “What if my extra lifeline didn’t extend my own life — maybe it just meant a second life?… Would a curse befall me if I didn’t live out my destiny of giving birth to Taras’s baby?”

Ina becomes more confused when she learns Taras did return to the tavern, but the owner sent him away and threw out the note he had left for Ina. When she speaks to Taras’ instructor friend at the university, he tells her Taras has returned to his wife, and that he is sterile. Taras’ wife also curses him: “[I]t was a good thing Taras was infertile because any kid that had to grow up with him as a father would surely choose to stab him dead. Right in the heart!”

Ina takes this proclamation seriously. “Our child would not go to prison for murder. I was the right person to bear Taras’s baby because I already loved them both so much that I was willing to do anything to keep my child and my child’s father safe — even if it meant protecting them from a cursed fate.”

She vows to keep Taras’ identity a secret from her child. When her daughter, Blisse, eventually turns 12 and asks about her father, Ina creates an entirely false narrative. She says he was stabbed by a relative during a visit to Ukraine undertaken before Blisse was born. However, he left a collection of 12 spoons, each with a twisted handle bent by Taras using his mental abilities. She says he asked Ina to give one spoon to Blisse as a gift on her first 12 birthdays. Blisse treasures these spoons, especially the one Taras first gave to Ina.

Grayson includes other oddball characters throughout The Twistical Nature of Spoons, giving the novel a magical quality overall. Her decision to have Blisse speak in a stilted, theatrical manner, as Taras does, is perplexing and gives the impression Ina is the only one who speaks naturally — even though she is continually telling lies.

Andrea Geary is a freelance writer in Winnipeg.