Nationalism Is Bunk
To perfectly be perfectly direct, the collection does not pursue any particular thematic concept regarding nationalism. Not directly, that is. Indirectly and obliquely, however, is another matter entirely. This is a volume of short stories which literally takes the reader metaphorically around the world. Stories start on one continent and end on another. The locale of the stories sweep the reader from the gritty urban filth of Brixton to the rural Mississippi by way of New Orleans. No matter the setting, however, one thing becomes quite clear: everybody faces problems that are essentially the same. Those specific problems stem from larger abstractions like racism, class division, generational divides. Even the specific continue to pop up: failed romances, the failure of leaders to address issues actually impacting lives and, first and foremost, the obstructions placed in the path of communicating. Nationalism is bunk; humans are an international species.
Communication
Like neurons connecting the individual synaptic burst of electricity that make ordinary uneventful lives suddenly become infused with extraordinary meaning, what binds the stories together more than anything is the lack of communication, the often superhuman effort required and undertaken to try to communicate and the inevitability of failure even under the best efforts. The young refugee who suddenly finds himself at the mercy of Australian reactionary laws requiring detention is the symbolic epicenter of this overarching theme as he leaves metaphor behind to literally sew his lips shut.
On Foreign Soil
Choosing to title a collection of short stories using the title of one of the stories contained within is always a tricky proposition. One ideally wants the title of the collection to apply in some way to the rest of the stories, but often those stories were written over a span of years during which the writer’s obsessive interests may have veered wildly from one topic to another. The decision in this case could not have been more perfect. The closing lines of the story “Foreign Soil” situate the protagonist as a woman geographically held hostage in not just a foreign country, but an entirely different continent from her home. The topographical obstruction she faces to freedom and ending her sense of dislocation become metaphorical for her and easily translate to the characters of each of the stories. That truth extends from symbolic topography challenging the illiterate man learning the alphabet one letter at a time to the young black boy in Mississippi who prefers “lacy blouses” and “dress heels.” Everyone at some point, in some manner, finds themselves on foreign soil or must deal with the potential—like the woman at the center fo the title story—of realizing that “every escape would be ever more foreign soil.”
