Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

 

 

Reviewed by Ambrea 

Tales from Outer Suburbia is a collection of short stories written and illustrated by Shaun Tan.  It features a mystical—but taciturn—water buffalo, several mysterious visitors, a dugong, strange machines, and otherworldly adventures.  Each tale is followed by interesting art:  some of it lovely and entertaining, some of it strange and haunting, some of it weird and disconcerting.

I placed a hold on Tales from Outer Suburbia after hearing about Tan’s work in the award-winning book The Arrival.  After doing some more research online and investigating his books, I decided to give this particular collection a shot and—well, truthfully, I’m not sure what to make of it.

Tales from Outer Suburbia is—and there’s no other way to describe it—a very strange book. 

I loved the variety of artwork found in the pages—different mediums, different colors, different styles—and I liked that Tan combines his stories and artwork, allowing them to complement each other.  I particularly liked the stories titled Eric, which is about an unusual exchange student, and Distant Rain, a story about what happens to all the poems people write but never share. 

But, like I said, it’s also a very strange book.  It features magical things beneath the mundane, and it’s filled with stories that have no context.  Some stories, like Night of the Turtle Rescue and Broken Toys, feel like you’ve just been plopped into the middle of something unfinished, like you’ve been dropped onto a baking hot sidewalk in suburban Australia, trying to figure out what in the world is actually happening.

I spent most of my time feeling just a little confused, but I won’t say that’s a bad thing.  Truthfully, I found I savored the stories more and studied them even longer, because I wanted to understand them.  I liked puzzling over the stories and the artwork, and I’m sure every reader will take something a little different from each story—a meaning behind the art and the words that’s totally unique. 

Overall, I enjoyed Tales from Outer Suburbia.  Despite its short length, it’s one of those books I could tirelessly flip through and ruminate on all the little details I missed at first.