River City – Winter 2003

Easily one of the handsomest literary journals, River City delivers a provocative array of short fiction, poetry, and full color art. With a glossy cover picturing the back of a nude male bound from head to foot in heavy chains, this “Ill Will” issue immediately sets the reader up for an edgy ride. The short stories here are mostly concerned with the self-immolating, the transient, and the otherwise marginal characters peopling the terrain just outside of conventional bourgeois life. The two finest stories, “Suspension” by Morgan McDermott, and “Nebulous” by Molly Fitzsimmons, while wonderfully divergent in style, have in common a big-hearted concern for the masochistic tendencies of their fractured protagonists.

Easily one of the handsomest literary journals, River City delivers a provocative array of short fiction, poetry, and full color art. With a glossy cover picturing the back of a nude male bound from head to foot in heavy chains, this “Ill Will” issue immediately sets the reader up for an edgy ride. The short stories here are mostly concerned with the self-immolating, the transient, and the otherwise marginal characters peopling the terrain just outside of conventional bourgeois life. The two finest stories, “Suspension” by Morgan McDermott, and “Nebulous” by Molly Fitzsimmons, while wonderfully divergent in style, have in common a big-hearted concern for the masochistic tendencies of their fractured protagonists.

Ben Bloch’s disturbing story, “Inside Out” focuses on a lonely high-schooler addicted to scarification, yet manages to conclude on a surprisingly transcendent note. And Benjamin Swire’s “Al Capone Taught My Grandma To Swim” affords the reader a jubilant foray into gangster-era Chicago and the bizarre menagerie of a traveling Vaudeville company, which includes twelve-year-old June, a throaty baritone singer who endears herself to Big Al himself at a hotel swimming pool.

Though this particular issue has a few too many distracting typos, River City’s mix of fiction is provocative, baffling, and always surprising. [River City, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, 38152. E-mail: [email protected] Single issue $7.00. www.people.memphis.edu/~rivercity ] – MC