Friday, October 07, 2005

Little Sorrel






by R.T. Smith
Zoetrope All-Story
Fall 2005 - Vol. 9 No. 3





Little Sorrel is a comedic little tale of an academic type, Joshua Paxton, who becomes obsessed with Civil War history. After joining a tribe of battle re-enactors, he studies Stonewall Jackson and decides to imitate him. He grows the appropriate facial hair and mimics Jackson's mannerisms while quietly awaiting an invitation to portray the General himself.

A sample:

Along with my evening libation, I was eating cush and hardtack, or to be honest, instant oatmeal and plain crackers; I do what I can to coincide with Secesh pratice, but the lice and weevils some gung-ho Rebel actors adopt is farther out than I can swim. Anyway, they were having a camp dance out by the bonfire, and I could hear the music-banjos and fiddles, a squeezebox, mouth harp, Declan O'Somebody thumping the goatskin of his Irish drum-it seemed too farb for me. All those wives, and a host of sightseers with six-packs and camcorders. I wanted to concentrate and learn the footnote details. I wanted hard core. After all, this was the annual Wilderness Event with six thousand combatants, a colossal costume party and not a mile from where Stonewall fell.

Little Sorrel was Stonewall's horse, and in the modern day the horse's ancient hide is mounted to a pinata of stuffing in a local museum. Paxton begins his tale by confessing over radio airwaves: I stole that horse. The tale that follows is a sermon of increasing absurdity and unapologetic rationalization.

When Paxton reveals that Stonewall's ghost began to whisper to him, things get weird. Alongside this are further oddities that made me smile in recognition: golf carts and Escalades facilitating comfort among mock rebels, facial piercings removed before a costume is donned, the merciless scorn of Paxton's wife for his perverse attraction to historical dress-up games.

Fun stuff, all of it. The calibre of fiction in this magazine is high. I'm not sure whether I'm surprised by that. Most of the stories are heavily workshopped at the All-Story forum, and new writers must jump through hoops before submitting their stories. (If I read their site membership guidelines correctly) That could easily lead to watered down edgeless safety and muted individuality, but it doesn't. The fiction in this magazine is vibrant, diverse, and focused, so the communication and workshopping must be open-minded and light-handed. I recommend this magazine, and I love its exclusive focus on short fiction. I'll be subscribing.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home