Friday, October 28, 2005

El Camino





Make: A Chicago Literary Magazine
Summer 2005 Issue 1

Fiction: El Camino
by Aaron Michael Morales





First, a confession: I was handed a copy of Make Magazine by the fiction editor. Yes, I went to high school with him. Well, sort of. Summer school. One year. He was an aquaintance. That said, by scout's honor and my grandmother's grave, I promise this review isn't the result of cronyism, favoritism, or sexual favors.

I heard through the grapevine that he started up a literary journal and I was both curious and deeply afraid that it would suck, that it would be some sort of basement effort by a sloppy chucklehead with too much money to spend at Kinko's.

Fortunately, my fears were unfounded. It's a beautifully produced journal on 8 1/2" x 11" glossy paper, and the content is high quality. It's heavier on poetry than I like, but most of the poems share a gritty urban sensibility that reminds me a bit of Charles Bukowski. (who wrote the only book of poetry I've ever bought) I even liked most of them.

The story I'm going to praise is "El Camino" by Aaron Michael Morales. It tells of two Latin Kings in Tucson who try to save a baby from a burning car. Let me begin with an excerpt:

"One driver, Cesar Valdez, wouldn't have stopped if someone had offered to pay him because the flesh on his arms and face and chest was still scarred from two summers earlier when his car had overheated in a Circle K parking lot and he had lifted the hood and pulled off his shirt and wrapped it around his hand, then used it to grab the radiator cap and twist, thinking at the last second that maybe he should've let the car cool a bit, having forgotten his father's warning to always test the radiator first because he was rushing to get home to his new girlfriend who liked to greet him at the door dressed in skimpy black lace lingerie and a set of handcuffs dangling from one wrist, which still pleased and baffled him-..."

That's less than half of that sentence. It goes on for a long time, as do many in this short story. If told that, without having an opportunity to read the story, I would assume the writer lacked focus, an editor, and tended to wander aimlessly. Not so. The structure served to draw me in. By screwing with my mental reading rhythym, I began reading faster and faster. In one particularly suspenseful passage late in the story, I wanted to yell at the magazine: "Please, stop fucking with me, just tell me what's going to happen!" Instead, the play by play sequence builds pressure up to exploding point, just like the El Camino itself. I was impressed by this simultaneous tempo build within both the narrative and the style.

The characters and setting add a lot to the story, too. Chuey and Peanut, the Latin Kings, are horny arrogant little gangstas who become heroes because they see the desperate mother's sky blue panties as she bends in to rescue her older children. A gun Peanut carries is used to save a baby instead of shoot a rival. There are several potential cliches, both character traits and props, that are used in unexpected ways, serving to add color and humor to this unique story.

Get a copy of Make. They're only $3 an issue. I don't have any cover art to display above, so I just put up a favorite Chicago picture of mine, since this is a Chicago literary journal. It's well worth your time, folks. Go here: Make: A Chicago Literary Magazine

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Break Up




Failbetter.com
Issue 18 Fall 2005
Art: Horizon Fields V
by Lependorf & Shire

Fiction: Break Up
by Douglas Light



I get a kick out of eavesdropping on confessions, especially ones that allow me a false sense of superiority. When I hear something that lets me think "I'm a better person than that poor shit," I feel good about my life.

I got the same feeling of amused smugness from reading Break Up by Douglas Light. The story is composed of conversation fragments: break up anecdotes punctuated by the hapless narrator apologizing to his current date, wondering how the subject came up, unable to stop himself from recalling one tale of misery after another.

Light manages to be funny in unconventional ways. He uses the device of having a breakup occur on a ferry, and another atop the Empire State Building, both resulting in the former couple getting stuck together for many long, awkward, painful minutes after the breakup.

The narrator is never clearly defined. Hs recountings show him to be aloof and sometimes casually cruel. He is emotionally distant, readier to paint each woman with quirky details than to express any feeling about one of them.

Douglas Light uses those details to bring definition to each anecdote. He brought each woman to my mind with clarity. I recognized them, despite never meeting women quite like them. Light is excellent with economy of words, a skill I admire.

An excerpt:

The Staten Island Ferry is the worst place to break up. Jodi was the worst, with her large white parka, rabbit fur stoles, and the habit of sucking her teeth before she spoke. I can’t say what I saw in her.

No matter what, wait until you’ve docked. There’s nothing worse then being trapped out on the waters, with the engine churning through the wetness below. There’s nowhere to go, no way of escaping.

When her tantrum grew violent, the ferry’s crewmen had to be called.

I learned my lesson. I don’t date women from Staten Island. I don’t date women who end their names with an "i."


This brief story concludes with a dark one-liner. Go read it, and be sure to check out the rest of Failbetter's fare. I enjoyed their other selections too, particularly Somebody's Drunk Wife by Susan Buttenweiser.

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.