‘What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours’ Reveals and Obscures

The motifs of Helen Oyeyemi’s first short story collection, “What is Not Yours is Not Yours,” are keys. At times, they act as a central element in the plot, defining a character’s unknown origins or hiding the deadly secrets of an artifact. In other moments, they play a minor role, providing the means to a happy resolution or co-conspiring in a prank. Regardless of keys’ prevalence in any one story, however, their recurring presence hints at one of the book’s themes: one of opening doors—literal or metaphorical—into the lives and psyches of other people and into certain social constructs. This idea is one that governs every story in the collection, whether it be for the characters or solely for the reader, and one that defines the impression left on the reader. “What is Not Yours…” is an engrossing, provocative exploration of the human desire to unlock the truth and of the impossibility of ever succeeding.

Oyeyemi’s collection delves primarily into the human experience, but she blends the stories together often with a fantastical twist. In “Is Your Blood as Red as This?”, puppets house the souls of once-living humans and even move, carrying other marionettes and lost keys at one moment. A psychological experiment on mourning creates living specters of people in “Presence.” In “Dornička and the St. Martin’s Day Goose” an old woman makes a promise to a “wolf” and as a reminder of her oath receives a wart-like bruise, which she chops off and keeps locked in a chest—to the danger of her goddaughter’s child, who finds its scent alluring. Despite these outlandish, extraordinary embellishments, “What Is Not Yours…” remains grounded in realistic themes. At its heart, “Presence” explores human grief and the fantasies that people invent to cope, along with the relationship between husband and wife. And “‘Sorry’ Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea,” despite its obscure ending, delves into serious questions about abuse, victim blaming, and ownership of one’s wrongdoings. Rooted in social truth, these ideas, when combined with the supernatural, allow Oyeyemi to successfully present her collection as an introspection into human behavior and the often unsettling questions that surround it.

Making the collection even more engaging to read, the author exhibits incredible mastery of language, stringing simple words together to create vivid, memorable images. “Montse saw that the Señora sometimes grew short of breath though she’d hardly stirred. A consequence of snatching images out of the air—the air took something back,” Oyeyemi writes as she describes the work of a painter in the opening story “Books and Roses,” which focuses on an orphan who unknowingly wears the key to a secret inheritance. Here, the last phrase rings in its striking poignancy, an effect that Oyeyemi consistently exhibits in her writing through the collection. For instance, as the narrator of “Is Your Blood as Red as This?” describes her first meeting with a crush, she says: “I saw your eyes like flint arrows, and your chin set against the world, and I saw the curve of your lips, which is so beautiful that it’s almost illusory—your eyes freeze a person, but then the flickering flame of your mouth beckons.” Once again, Oyeyemi smoothly impresses a picture of desire on the reader through subdued metaphors. Such linguistic restraint and emotional power drives every individual story.

But language is not the only feature connecting the short stories; a sense that all the stories exist in the same universe also ties the collection together. In the latter half of the book, Oyeyemi achieves this effect by referencing characters from earlier pieces, particularly “‘Sorry’ Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea” and “Is Your Blood…” Myrna and Radha of “Is Your Blood...” are the tenants of protagonist Jill’s Catford house in “Presence.” Meanwhile, Chedorlaomer, the absent friend of the protagonist in “‘Sorry’ Doesn’t…,” and Tyche of “Is Your Blood…?” make a cameo in “Freddy Barrandov Checks...In?” These moments not only serve to build a cohesive setting but also provide answers to the many unsolved mysteries of earlier tales. The resolution of Myrna and Radha’s turbulent relationship in Presence” gives some hints, even if a hundred pages earlier, “Is Your Blood...” remained ambiguous. The mystery behind the unknown woman, breaking into Ched’s house and answering his calls? “Freddy Barrandov...” offers the likely explanation. While referring to previous narratives might seem to undermine the mystery that Oyeyemi painstakingly sets up moments earlier, this is in fact far from the case. Oyeyemi does provide some answers, but she refuses to offer any clue as to the events that occurred between when the reader last saw the characters and their present iteration. Without this backstory, the author further emphasizes the enigma of her characters’ lives—an enigma that try as the reader may, she will never grasp.

The result is a collection of stories that both reveal and obscure. In that respect, “What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours” is aptly titled: It is a book that affirms the impossibility of an outsider—the reader, in this case—ever comprehending the mysteries of another being’s life and a work that revels in the everlasting locks that exist between people. Fiction often opens doors into the intricate workings of humans, but for Oyeyemi and her latest work, reality often contains more secrets than answers. The reader comes to realize that what is not ours will truly never be ours.

—Staff writer Ha D.H. Le can be reached at ha.le@thecrimson.com.