From a pond monster called King George to docile dragons and half-shark boys to monsters of the human variety, Bradley Sides’s Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood (Montag Press 2024) puts a new spin on how we view monsters and modern-day mythmaking. Clearly, monsters hold a special place in Sides’s writerly heart because we met after he pitched an interview to Southern Literary Review for Shaun Hamill’s latest, Dissonance. Hamill’s first book, Cosmology of Monsters, has a cult-like following in the horror world and here was yet another member. Sides’s collection of seventeen magical realism short stories are an amalgamation of contemporary myths, ecological horror, modern day fairytales and fables, science fiction and even a ghost story that challenges the edge of realism. There’s something effortless about his writing—light-hearted and pure, and so very clever in the same flavor of a George Saunders’s short story. But don’t be fooled by his light-hearted beginnings. He can get quite Shirley Jacksonesque and go dark in an instant.
Dawn Major
I brought Sides’s book with me to read while vacationing in Mexico. I thought it fitting that I should read a collection of magical realism in Latin America, the birthplace of the genre. As an associate editor at SLR I’m fortunate to be able to read the latest by Southern authors and have noticed a definite uptick in magical realism submissions. And don’t you just love the sound of those two words—magical realism? Inevitably, One Hundred Years of Solitude surfaces when someone mentions the genre, a book you either love or hate; there’s no in between. Of course, the term is an oxymoron, but so is the genre which blurs fantasy and reality and more often than I’d prefer gets away with simply confusing the reader. Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood does not confuse. Sides does not mince words. There is a point to his stories. Even though you may have to accept pond monsters or half-shark boys in his reality, he never wavers from what he’s trying to say. With flash fiction narratives, original and unique story structures, and totally approachable storytelling, Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood would make a fantastic introduction to new readers of the genre. I dare say some of the stories are appropriate for all ages. Definitely, this collection should be considered by professors looking to add examples of flash fiction and/or experimental fiction, and certainly magical realism to their curriculum.
On top of writing Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood, Sides has an impressive publication history and gives back to his writing community by conducting author interviews and writing book reviews. Here’s a tip for new writers, interviewing authors and/or writing book reviews is the quickest way to become a better writer. It wasn’t a huge shock that Sides wrote such an innovative collection. He’s been doing the legwork for years—learning the tricks of the trade and making a few new ones. And if you’re already a published author, be prepared to experience author envy. Sides establishes himself as an unconventional storyteller who defies atypical structure, examines multiple perspectives, and tells his stories with a limitless imagination and without any concern for the rules. Applaud, applaud.
Interview
Dawn Major: Pond Monsters!! I loved “The Guide to King George,” and your description of him was delightful: a “hybrid iguana-bullfrog species…” that becomes the size “a dozen midnight blue industrial sized refrigerators wrapped together with a bungee cable.” For all your whimsicality, though, the story is heart-wrenching. A boy is grieving the loss of his father. For me, George was a big fat working metaphor for filling a void or the manifestation of how big grief can get. It can take over. Sometimes, you just have to put one foot in front of the other and push through the pain and if it means getting a chicken-eating pond monster named King George for a pet, so be it. I also thought it was brilliant how you never mention why the boy can no longer care for King George. That was a real message of hope.
I wish I had this story around when I lost my dad because I was someone who let my loss mutate into something truly monstrous but couldn’t see it for what it was. This story, like many of your fables and fairytales, have a universal quality to them. I mentioned that I thought many of your stories could be read by children and adults alike. I’d love to know the inspiration for “A Guide to King George,” if you would like to share it here. Are there any particular go-to fairy tales you might share? Finally, I’m pretty certain I know why you chose to construct the narrative using a pond monster employee handbook— but I’d rather hear your thoughts about it.
Bradley Sides
Bradley Sides: Hi, Dawn. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me about Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood! I love that we are starting with “The Guide to King George.” Other than a couple of outliers that I kept for thematic reasons for this second collection, “The Guide to King George” was the first story I wrote as I was beginning this new story cycle for my second book. It seems appropriate to reflect on it first.
For this story, I was thinking about the pond back at my parents’ home. The hours and hours I must’ve spent just looking at it since childhood. I wanted to give it life. Well, I needed to give it life. I feel like I had never really embraced the South in my work, and I didn’t really know why. I was born and raised in rural north Alabama. I’ve never lived in another state. I likely never will. Giving life to this pond was a way for me to pay my respect to my home.
A big influence, I think, was likely Big Fish and The Snow Child. These wonderful books combine myth and the fairy tale in various ways. Both capture place really well, and they both allow magic to feel real. I sadly wasn’t a huge reader as a child, so a lot of my influences are contemporary works that use classical elements.
You know, the structure came right when the idea did, and I never doubted it for a moment. I felt like the manual allowed the reader to have some stakes and some added connection to the larger narrative. Like maybe we have the power to help Ritchie. Maybe we can save him. Maybe we are him. I liked that layer. But I also wanted to use it because I like thinking about legacy and what we leave behind. Ritchie may (possibly) be gone, but his words and story will never be.
DM: You explore personal grief in stories like the one above, as well as in “Claire & Hank,” and “Remembrance Day,” but I felt grief was a major theme in several stories. I hesitate to say this because I don’t want to sad-face the collection for readers because you do balance your darker pieces with stories of optimism. Overall, it isn’t the kind of collection that leaves you in a state of despair. Sure, some of your apocalyptic and eco-horror pieces like “To Take, To Leave” and “Patches” could be characterized as doom and gloom, but rightfully so. On the flip side, you have “Raising Again” and “Our Patches” to sort of offset those stories. Maybe, some won’t agree that “Our Patches” instilled hope, though. But at the heart of your eco-horror stories, we come back to grief, specifically grief for our planet. You see climate horror on the news every day and still there are doubters. So, why is realism failing where magical realism is not? How can writers be agents of change?
BS: I’m so glad you read “Our Patches” as being hopeful. These people lived, and they lived beautifully, telling stories and supporting one another. Death is how it ends, yeah, but think of all of that life. Anyhow, I’m strongly on the side of the story being a hopeful one.
You ask an important question. And a difficult one. Ha! For me, and this is me speaking as a reader, magical realism allows an added opportunity for personal reflection and consideration. I might read a story about the impact of climate change and be horrified for future generations, but if I read a story that explores this same issue, but with an alien kid from a different planet during the apocalyptic destruction, I feel something extra. It makes me think about what I’m doing—what we all are doing. To ourselves. To our neighbors. To our beyond.
“To Take, To Leave,” which you mentioned, I hope does just this, and I present the story with the second person “you” to help it achieve what I’m going for. I hope readers connect with the magical elements and that they see the realness even more because of them.
Writers tell stories, and stories show us the world—as it is, certainly, but also how we might hope it is, too.
Dawn Major
DM: In “Raising Again” with your character, Eva, you allude to Eve from the Book of Genesis. I sometimes overthink character names, but I also don’t want to miss a golden nugget and must ask about the character Janis in “Our Patches.” In both stories you are myth-building and one way to do that is via allusion to other well-established popular myths. Are you alluding to the Roman god of time, Janus? Is this another play on a name like Eva? And when you start the process of writing a modern-day myth, where do you find your muse?
BS: I wish I were that smart! Maybe it’s my subconscious showing itself a bit, though. That’s what I’ll say. Haha! I remember the story of Icarus, and I think about it sometimes. That one, though, is about it in regard to how much of a myth background I have.
I do know stories of the Bible, especially the Old Testament. My family was an every Sunday kind of family. My mom, my brother, and myself. All at Sunday School. These stories we read and discussed definitely inspired names and approaches at times. For example, Eva is from Eve at the beginning of the new world.
I meet my characters often as I’m daydreaming. I’ll have an image, and a person is almost always there inside that image. I write toward what I’m seeing, and those characters reveal themselves as their story comes to life.
DM: “2 Truths & A Lie About The Monsters Atop Our Hill” slew me. “Remembrance Day” and “From 1973” got me, too. But I’ll never forgive you for “2 Truths & A Lie About The Monsters Atop Our Hill.” I had the same experience reading that story as I do when that damn ASPCA commercial with Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” song playing in the background. I can never turn off the tv quick enough or flip the station. Because this story is a flash fiction piece, by the time I recognized what was happening, it was already too late. So, maybe this one isn’t appropriate for really young kids. I was curious about brevity. Some of your stories are under two pages long. Is that one of your first considerations, the length of a story, or do you just go for it?
BS: I feel like I’m in some kind of Sarah McLachlan renaissance or something. I was talking about the same ASPCA commercial just last week with one of my writing classes, and now she’s here. I hope she’s doing well. Makes me think of my teenage days when she was all over the radio.
I really appreciate this question because I think about story length constantly. In real life, I’m not a huge talker. I say what I need to say, and I move on. I’m also pretty bashful, and I’m an introverted introvert. I think a kind of minimal approach is most natural for my writing, too. I’m not interested in flowery prose or overstaying my welcome. I tell the story. I hope it punches. And I hope it lingers a bit. If so, I’ve done what I wanted to do.
I don’t plan length—or really anything. I need to be surprised by where I’m going and what the story might do. If not, I’ll probably just delete it. I’m writing for myself as much as I’m writing for anyone.
DM: Let me apologize for getting overanalytical here with “2 Truths & A Lie About The Monsters Atop Our Hill”. Obviously, the piece wouldn’t have had the same effect if you substituted dogs for dragons, but interestingly enough, I did substitute humans for dragons. When that occurred in my headspace, two things happened. One, I viewed this piece as a parable. And two, I thought this is protest fiction, especially anti-war. Would you agree with either of these statements? Also, do you see yourself to be an allegorist writer? Are the dragons symbols for humans and does it matter if they are?
Bradley Sides
BS: I can’t stop thinking about this commercial now. Thanks, Dawn. Ha!
But, yeah, I’m so glad you brought it up because it does have some relation, right? What if the puppies were, instead, dragons? It seems ridiculous, sure, but it would be the same point. We have to help those things that need our help. It’s the same, too, if humans were in cages. We have to help those things that need our help. We have to love. As humans, I see that as our top responsibility to ourselves and to our world and to each other.
Sturgill Simpson (now Johnny Blue Skies) is one of my heroes. I can’t tell you the number of hours I’ve listened to that man’s music. One of my favorite songs of all time is his “Welcome to Earth (Pollywog).” It has this lyric: “I’ve been told you measure a man by how much he loves.” That’s the truth right there.
To answer your question, I love allegorical writing. I’m perfectly okay with being labeled as an allegorical writer, especially when it comes to certain stories. And I absolutely agree with where you are going with the story. I was sad and mad when I wrote “2 Truths & A Lie.”
DM: I love this line: “We are now a land free of monsters.” I won’t say where it came from so as not to give the story away, but I’d love for you to talk about monsters. Who are the real monsters in a Bradley Sides’s story? Do you believe that monsters are evolving in literature, and if so, how and why?
BS: In my stories, a big, scary pond monster might not be all that monstrous to most of us when we get to know him, but a collective group of fearful humans might very well be. Real monsters, in my stories, are not identifiable by appearance, but by actions and behaviors.
As you might imagine, I love some monsters in fiction. I’m interested in hidden monsters, where we don’t see the traditional monster at all. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” Alexander Weinstein’s “Rocket Night,” and Kij Johnson’s “Ponies” are some of my favorite short stories. Each one contains monstrous actions—all committed by everyday humans. These stories are powerful reminders of the different forms monsters can take.
I also enjoy the traditional monster story, where we see “monsters,” but the expectations shift. A recent example of this is the novel Monstrilio by Gerardo Samana Cordova. What a beautiful book about love and grief and loss.
Wouldn’t it be fascinating to be able to talk to Mary Shelley after all these years? Frankenstein showed us that monsters can be so many things. I need to read it again very, very soon.
DM: Where can readers find you? Any upcoming author events? And in terms of writing, what can our readers expect from you in the future?
BS: Thank you for asking, Dawn. I have a busy fall coming up. Fellow writer Andrew Siegrist and I are presenting “The Short Story: From Imagination to Publication” for Northeast Alabama Community College on Saturday, September 7th. More information will be out soon.
I’ll be doing a special talk about Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood at Arkansas State University Mid-South on Thursday, September 26, and in other big book-specific events, I’ll be one of the featured panelists for the 36th Annual Southern Festival of Books, which takes place in Nashville, Tennessee on the weekend of October 26 and 27.
Readers can check out my website for updates. New things are happening all the time.
I’m stoked to finally be able to say this: I finished my next project. Just yesterday actually. Woohoo! It’s tentatively titled The Volcano Keeper and is a novella in vignettes. It’s set in rural Alabama and is about family, faith, and responsibility. The story follows a young man’s life taking care of a mysterious volcano. I’m so proud of it, and I’m ready to get the process going. I’ll be looking for a publisher very soon.
My first reader says it’s the best thing I’ve written, so I’ll believe that…
DM: Bradley, we love the collection and wish you the very best for its success and for your future endeavors. Also, thanks for being an advocate for other authors. SLR always values your insightful contributions to our review.
About the Author: Bradley Sides is the author of two short story collections, Those Fantastic Lives and Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood. His writing appears in Chicago Review of Books, Electric Literature, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Millions, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. His fiction has been nominated for Year’s Best Weird Fiction and featured on LeVar Burton Reads. He holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, where he served as Fiction Editor of Qu. Currently, he lives in Huntsville, Alabama, with his wife. On most days, he can be found teaching writing at Calhoun Community College.
Leave a Reply