This was a strange little book. The characters all have an almost supernatural trait in addition to being quite bizarre. The intersect in various ways, all involving love. The heat of that summer in Durban also plays a role. ( )

Bridget McNulty’s Strange Nervous Laughter is peopled with bizarre characters. There’s Beth, whose feet float an inch or so from the ground when she’s happy and Pravesh, the undertaker, who gets a tingly thrill when in the presence of anything dead: dead people, dead bugs, deadbeats, dead ends. And there’s Harry, the garbage man, whose body emits a strange odor that attracts anything broken. Piles of broken appliances and dishes slowly inch their way toward him and pile up around his feet. People with broken spirits are attracted to him and edge as close to him as possible, without knowing why. McNulty throws all of these people and a handful of other quirky characters together and watches relationships unfold. Her tongue-in–cheek comments to the reader are spattered throughout the book, and while humorous, she sometimes hits the nail right on the head when describing human reactions to love and relationships. ( )

I haven't read much magical realism, but from where I stand this author has quite an imagination! This book is like a fairy tale for cynical adults in their 20's and 30's. The omniscient narrator introduces each of the six main characters and explains what they're thinking and why they do the things they do. Each of them has their own special magical traits, like levitating, attracting broken objects, and talking to whales, and they all have normal human problems that are exaggerated in physical ways, like the woman who wears a corset. We can all certainly recognize pieces of ourselves in these characters.

I am including a couple of my favorite quotes so you can get a sense of the style.

What is it about the human animal that simply will not let go? Oh, you might like to think you're the exception; the one who has managed to walk away from all your past relationships with a clear heart, and a firm resolve.

I don't believe you for a second.

And if you have managed to walk away without pain and torn fingernails from hanging on so tightly, then I'll bet there was an Incident when you were younger that devastated you, and turned you into the unfeeling slab of marble you are today.

I understand; don't take it personally.

For the rest of us, though, there is a definite tendency to clutch onto whatever shred of the relationship is left over from the arguing, the heartache and the spite. And even if this shred is dirty, and smells funny, and is really very obviously not what we want in our lives, we reserve the right to hang on to it, and if anyone else even thinks about touching our snotty little shred of leftover love, we will injure them in any way we know how.

It's called not letting go.

Not moving on.

Being human. (p. 58-59)

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Perhaps it is in these moments in our lives - the moments when we take leaps of illogical abandon - that we are nudged out of a rut by our impatient souls.

If we are here to do something bigger than the everyday slog of work, TV, banal relationships and tasteless food (and I would argue that each of us is), then perhaps, on occasion, when the ruts we are living in start resembling complex mole holes more than shallow dips, our souls get edgy.

Put more simply – perhaps, when it is time to change, we are governed by something deeper than common logic. And at the same time, deep down, don’t we all secretly want to be swept off our feet? The still, small space within (many of us) dreams of meeting someone who will dare to say, after three encounters: ‘You are amazing.’

Don’t we all want that?

Meryl, surprisingly, did. (p. 174)

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