Chapter Headings
Imagery is subtly implied through the chapter headings. The book is comprised of thirty-one chapters, each of which except for the last is subtitled either “Predators,” “Moth Love” or “Old Chestnuts.” The first applies to the storyline of Deanna and her coyotes, the second to the obsession of Lusa the entomologist while the old chestnuts references the farming dispute between the older characters Nannie and Garnett.
Implied Zoomorphism
Personification, in which human attributes as assigned to non-human subjects, is a well-known and popular form of imagery. The opposite is also true, imagery in which animal attributes are assigned to people. The example below is a subtle form of this type because the character speaking has just compared the wildcat known as the lynx to another character, but the imagery is actually literally just describing the cat with the metaphorical reference not directly stated but rather implied as he describes the lynx as:
“About three parts pissed off to four parts dignified. They’re gorgeous. If you find one caught in a trap line and let it go, it won’t scramble around and run, nothing like that. It’ll just stand there glaring at you for a minute, and then turn around real slow and just strut away.”
Eroticism
The mainstreaming and subsequent prevalence of straight-up pornography has had a deleterious effect on the writing of quality eroticism. If one ever wondered what the difference is between pornography and erotic writing, check out the imagery used in this example:
“He was covered in fur, not a man at all but a mountain with the silky, pale-green extremities and maroon shoulders of a luna moth. He wrapped her in his softness, touched her face with what seemed to be the movement of trees. His odor was of water over stones and the musk of decaying leaves, a wild, sweet aura that drove her to a madness of pure want. She pushed herself down against the whole length of him, rubbing his stippled body like a forest between her legs, craving to dissolve her need inside the confidence of his embrace."
The Moment of Epiphany
The instantaneous strike of self-awareness shot right through with a bolt of blue is an epiphany which can usually only be accurately described in retrospect afterward. Fortunately, writers in control of their own universe can hasten this ability through imagery which just as immediately captures the essence of the moment as well as the epiphany itself:
“She cursed aloud and sat up. Damned thing, self-consciousness, like a pitiful stray dog tagging you down the road—so hard to shake off. So easy to get back.”
