Rarity From the Hollow: A Lacy Dawn Adventure by Robert Eggleton
Review by Adicus Ryan Garton
Imagine Wizard of Oz and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
smashed together and taking place in a hollow in the hills of West
Virginia. Now you have an idea of what to expect when you sit down to
read Rarity From the Hollow: A Lacy Dawn Adventure by Robert Eggleton.
This novel is an unabashed, unashamed exploration of the life of
young Lacy Dawn, as she learns that she is the savior of the universe.
The naked, genderless android, Dot-com, who lives in a ship in a cave,
told her so. Add her abusive father, her weak-willed mother, a
sexually-abused ghost for a best friend that was murdered by her own
father, trees that talk to her, a dog that can communicate
telepathically with cockroaches and so much more.
There is so much to this story, and its writing is so unblinkingly
honest; Eggleton spares us nothing in his descriptions of her father
beating her and her mother, the emotions that the mother and daughter go
through, the dark creeping insanity that eats away at her Iraq-veteran
father, and the life in general of people too poor, too uneducated to
escape.
In part, it is a grueling exposition of what children endure when
being physically and emotionally abused. Eggleton almost seems to
suggest that the only way for a child to escape is to learn that she is
the savior of the universe. Lacy Dawn is strong, tough, smart—all those
attributes that any child should have—and she reminds us that children
are survivors, adaptive and optimistic. Instead of giving us a story of
escapism, Eggleton shows us a girl whose life follows her through the
story.
But don't think you're going to be reading something harsh and
brutal and tragic. This book is laugh-out-loud funny at times, satiric
of almost everything it touches upon (some common themes are shopping,
masturbation, welfare, growing and selling drugs, and the lives of
cockroaches). The characters from the hollow and from the planet
Shptiludrp (the Mall of the Universe) are funny almost to the point of
tears.
I hate happy endings to stories that deal with any kind of
oppression or abuse because they tend to suggest, “In this case, it
worked out okay,” and the reader walks away with the impression that the
world is a better place (think of all those inner-city sports movies
about black kids who win the big championship despite being addicted to
crack). I thought for a long time that this book was an escapist
fantasy, and when the fantasy broke, it was going to be tragic. No one
wants to see a little girl go through heaven only to learn that hell
awaits her at the end. And then when I realized that Eggleton was not
writing an escapist fantasy, I worried that this happy ending effect was
going to take place, making me not like the book, despite all its
positive attributes. But when I realized that Lacy Dawn had to fix her
life first before the story could progress, and that this was IMPOSSIBLE
except by extraterrestrial means, and that Lacy Dawn carried her past
with her as part of her instead of in spite of, it made the prospect of
a happy ending much better.
Go here, buy the book and read it. It's absolutely fantastic, and
the proceeds go to the Lacy Dawn Adventures project. It's like buying
ice cream for charity—everybody wins.
Adicus Ryan Garton is the editor of the online science fiction magazine Atomjack.
He is currently teaching English in South Korea.
Email: Adicus Ryan Garton
Email: Robert Eggleton
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