‘Household Gods’ pulls together several themes from previous stories. I don’t want to say too much about its plot, because part of its power comes from how it skilfully leads us to discover what is going on for ourselves. Tracy Fells has the captivating ability to hold a reader inside someone else’s reality, whether their truth is entirely grounded or contains elements of magic.
“Multiple prayers to multiple deities distributed your fielders across a dangerous pitch.”
The central character, Mo, is easy to like. He works at a plant nursery, is polite to his elderly neighbour, cares for his incapacitated mother, his wife, and a baby in Intensive Care. “A nappy hung off the baby’s bony hips. From her nose, protruded a plastic tube, taped across her tummy. She wore one pink, hand-knitted mitten, on her right hand.”
Mo gradually offers truths about his life, until we are completely absorbed, possibly to the point of weeping. I could have chosen any of the stories in Fells’ collection, The Naming of Moths, but ‘Household Gods’ was the one which made tears run down my cheeks, which is rare for me when I am reading.
Anthologised in Unthology10, Unthank Books, 2018. Shortlisted for the 2014 Commonwealth Prize. Collected in The Naming of Moths, Fly on the Wall Press, 2023
A Personal Anthology 