CALYX – Winter 2007
I’m happy to report that there are some absolute gems in this issue of Calyx. I particularly enjoyed the fiction; many of the stories here feature strong, distinct voices and new approaches to common themes. Raima Evan’s “Gittel and the Golden Carp” is a fish-out-of-water tale which presents us with a Polish-American immigrant who feels uneasy in her new country, but whose strange encounter with a talking carp from the butcher’s helps her come to terms with it. Another sharp tale is Annie Weatherwax’s “Eating Cake,” which features Missy, a young adult whose homosexual brother has been killed in a hate crime; in Missy’s small town full of people intolerant of boys who meet other boys in the woods, sympathy is often laced with judgment. Missy is wry, she’s smartmouthed, and she’s almost moved to violent retaliation against a closed-minded church lady who insults her brother’s memory. This is a perceptive look at lives left behind by murder, as well as an acknowledgment of the potential for rage and violence in all of us. Continue reading “CALYX – Winter 2007”