Doctor Olaf van Schuler’s Brain by Kirsten Menger-Anderson

Doctor Olaf van Schuler’s Brain, the debut collection of stories by Kirsten Menger-Anderson, uses compact, unsettling prose to follow the strains of madness and obsession across a dozen generations of a family of doctors.

The early stories in the collection are short and focussed almost entirely on their characters, with just enough period detail to fix them in place and time. This sparseness of setting makes some of the stories seem strangely intangible, like dreams related by somebody who’s just woken up, and adds to the curious atmosphere of the book. Those descriptive details that do exist have an unsettling quality of their own, such as this early description of Dr Olaf van Schuler’s relationship with his mentally ill mother:

When he was home, he sometimes released her so she could pace the thirty-foot length of their single-room dwelling, or kick the straw pallet he slept on. He let her shuck the corn that grew wild in the small lot behind their back door, and stir empty pots, which he set up on the dining table. She liked tangled yarn. He left bundles—in every color—on the floor amidst the clutter. He recited scriptures to her, knelt with her in prayer, and said nothing when she woke late at night to call upon God and plead for forgiveness.

As the stories progress towards the present, the background details begin to fill in, giving the collection as a whole the feeling of a picture slowly coming into view. Whether this is deliberate, reflects the comparative ease of researching the present day, or is just the chance by-product of a writer finding her voice, it’s a very pleasing effect.

Some of Menger-Anderson’s characters are fairly unhinged (the mother above being one example), while others are simply caught up in the madness, fashions, or ignorance, of their times. From phrenology to silicon breast implants, from the study of “animal magnetism” to Radium-based cures:

Dora found a whole shelf of Radium Ore Revigorators in the shop Rose recommended. In fact, the store sold nothing but radium cures: a Vigoradium, a Standard Radium Emanator, a Health Fountain, the Radium Apparatus, and the Lifetime Radium Water Jug. Glass cabinets filled with bottles of Radium tonics, tablets, and creams lined every wall of the shop. The Ra-Tor Plac, encased in cherrywood, promised to perfectly radiate water with its rays, while the Linarium, which came with a special offer coupon, would instantly soothe sore muscles. The shop was new and clean, the walls and floor so white that the daylight seemed brighter inside than out.

“May I help you?” The clerk, a short man with a pleasant smile and dark hair on his knuckles, handed Dora a glass of water. “On the house,” he said. “You’re looking a little peaked.”

Doctor Olaf van Schuler’s Brain is a beguiling set of interconnected short stories, compact enough to be worth a gamble and good enough for it to pay off.

Dr Olaf van Schuler’s Brain is published in the USA by Algonquin Books.