The Photographer in Search of Death

Michael Mirolla
Fiction
Exile Editions, 2017
125 pages
ISBN: 9781550966862
$19.95
Reviewed by Elliaz A. Luna

Michael Mirolla’s collection of 10 surrealist short stories, The Photographer in Search of Death, is an absurdist journal of nightmarish proportions that begs the reader to search for truth as if rallying memory after waking from REM sleep. In Mirolla’s hands, the pen becomes a camera, becomes a mirror, where fabulist concepts meet metaphysical questions.

This collection investigates how it would look and feel “if a camel were actually passing through the eye of a needle.” Despite employing various points of view, each piece blends seamlessly with the other, foreboding and melancholy.

In the first story, “The Possession,” Amir and Wolf orbit each other, both possessor and possessed, their identities fraying until the only fixed point is the box—a physical vessel through which they enter and exit again and again.

 “Exorcism” is a Saltburn-esque third-person account of an unconventional arranged marriage. The main character and his betrothed live in a mansion as intangible as they are, where rooms phase in and out of existence.

The third piece, the collection’s namesake, features a city whose structures crumble. Meanwhile, a photographer working for International Darkrooms Ltd. desperately searches for death.

The remaining pieces feature a flurry of colourful scenarios: a stalker called “The Saviour” who absolves his prey; a world parallel to our own in which suffering has become fashionable; a man on a mission to save statues; and a sci-fi journey of magical realism.

The final piece is a short but sweet example of one of Mirolla’s favourite tropes — conflict between a fated pair. “Strangers” mirrors “The Possession,” bookending the collection.

Michael Mirolla holds degrees from McGill University and UBC’s MFA program. His distinguished career includes articles for The Montreal Star and Gazette, as well as many novels including The Last News Vendor, Berlin, and At the End of the World, short stories, and plays. His writing has earned three Bressani Prizes, Pushcart Prize nominations, and inclusion in The Journey Prize Anthology. Since 2010, Mirolla has served as Editor-in-Chief of Guernica Editions, publishing 35 titles annually.