Dear Readers, At the risk of stating the obvious, most of us will spend a large portion of our waking hours working. For many people, the work they must do is in tension with the life they want to lead. For others, work is the site of the most profound expression of their life force. Many of us labor somewhere in the middle, as both our work and our sense of self are subject to major change over the course of time. And while work and life are not the same, the sheer number of hours devoted to work (or […]
Month: August 2019
‘Be Recorder’ by Carmen Giménez Smith: A Call to Action
by Scout Turkel
Anyone who has ever questioned the capacity of poetry to do something needs to read Carmen Giménez Smith’s newest collection, Be Recorder (88 pages; Graywolf Press). Be Recorder refuses to pretend it lives elsewhere, in some untouchable world of the lyric. Rather, each poem is undeniably here, in the now of state-generated violence and imperialism, of oppressive immigration policies, of love, of motherhood, of writerly politics. This list, while certainly marking many of Giménez Smith’s major attentions, is painfully incomplete: Be Recorder sees everything, even what it has yet to witness. It is this impulse –– to witness and uncover, […]
“Ms. Lonelyhearts”
by Paul Wilner
The phone calls me to attention. An old friend, dead. 89. She had a “good run,’’ as they say, it was for the best, whatever that means. Trumped, quickly, replaced with wincing news that another’s son killed himself, jumped off a bridge too far. Words fail, repeatedly. Searching for emoticons in lieu of emotions. Stir and mix the customary repetitive political jabber, echoing indignation. Where is love? Is it in the stars above? I sink below, mired in timeless sorrow, time beyond time. Multiple failures, fumbles, fright. Who to “speak’’ to? God is dead, or so it’s reliably said. We […]
‘Home Remedies’ by Xuan Juliana Wang: Perfect Worlds
by Scout Turkel
“Family,” “Love,” and “Time and Space” comprise the three sections of Xuan Juliana Wang’s first story collection, Home Remedies (204 pages; Hogarth). These categories describe this book better than much else could: Wang conjures an incredibly wide range of characters and plotlines, all tied together through notions of familial bonds, love, and temporality. There are no broad strokes or homogenizing glances in Wang’s work. These stories, concerned with Chinese young people and their engagements with culture, curiosity, and identity are complicated and specific, personal and detailed, messy and absurd. Each story Wang creates is so perfectly and wholly its own […]
‘The Churchgoer’ by Patrick Coleman: The Limits of Doubt
by Zack Ravas
Even if Patrick Coleman’s first novel, The Churchgoer (354 pages; Harper Perennial), was not prefaced by a quote from Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, the story’s noir flavors would be unmistakable. Mark Haines, a former youth pastor turned burned-out security guard and amateur surfer, lost his faith and more than a step when his beloved sister committed suicide years ago. In his rearview are a wife and a teen daughter who can barely swallow their bile to speak to him on the phone every so often. Meanwhile, always close at hand is the alcohol addiction he fights to keep a […]
‘Stubborn Archivist’ by Yara Rodrigues Fowler: The Preciousness of a Moment
by Julia Matthews
The task of organizing one’s life experiences into a comprehensible narrative is a universal one—why else do so many of us go to therapy? Through our internal dialogue we create stories, or perhaps allow ourselves to live according to the stories that best help us cope. This is a work of inclusion and omission, of unearthing and rearranging: But there were good times There were good times. Come on. Be honest with yourself. Yeah the sex had been good sometimes… And she had loved him… And there were other things. But she’s a stubborn archivist. Yara Rodrigues Fowler’s first novel, […]
ZYZZYVA Issue 116 – Now Available for Pre-Order!
by Zack Ravas
Dear friends, the newest issue of ZYZZYVA is here! Issue 116 is now available for pre-order, and you won’t want to miss what we have in store for you. You can look forward to a collection of writing on the subject of labor, including fiction by Tommy Orange and Dagoberto Gilb; an interview with Jim Gavin, the creator of AMC’s Lodge 49 (catch the the premiere of Season 2 tonight at 10pm!); and essays by Michael Jaime-Becerra and Michelle Latiolais. You’ll also find poetry by Cedar Brant, Rage Hezekiah, Major Jackson, and Carl Phillips; and more prose by Andrew Altschul, E.K. Ota, […]
In the Fall Issue
by ZYZZYVA
In this issue: Work Stories “Mrs. Sorry” by Gabriela Garcia: The young woman tending a luxury cosmetics counter knows of ravages beyond the aesthetic. “Wilshire and Grand” by Dagoberto Gilb: A construction worker’s coffee date with an old flame picks at knotty threads of memory. “Session Drummer” by Tommy Orange: More than the studio gigs, it’s managing an unstable father that’s truly challenging. “Todo Se Acaba” by Michael Jaime-Becerra: Working at the same supermarket chain that employs his father fuels Jaime-Becerra’s longing for other ways of being in the world. “Hospitality” by Michelle Latiolais: Every aspect of providing service at […]
ZYZZYVA Recommends August 2019: What to Read, Watch, & Listen to
by ZYZZYVA Staff
We’re officially in the Dog Days of Summer now (speaking of which, have you seen the literal Dogs Days on our Instagram?). We’ll be sad to see the summer go, but before the season departs—here’s a roundup of the works we’ve been reading, watching, and listening to: Scout Turkel, Intern: Wild Milk (166 pages; Dorothy, A Publishing Project), the first work of fiction from poet Sabrina Orah Mark came out in October of last year. Fall seems almost too appropriate a season to mark the birthday of this haunting collection of short stories. Surrealist, creeping, and piercingly sweet, Mark’s stories […]
Q&A with Homeless: ‘This Hasn’t Been a Very Magical Journey So Far’ and a Vague Reality
by Julia Matthews
This Hasn’t Been a Very Magical Journey So Far (257 pages; Expat Press) is a difficult novel to categorize. It isn’t often that a crushing romantic tragedy unfurls in a universe so absurd. The book’s biting dialogue, irrational laws of physics, and buddy-comedy dynamic recall Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Beneath the story’s self-deprecating charm, however, lies a relationship that, in both its gentle initiation and passionate conclusion, raises questions about caring for one another and caring for oneself at the crossroads of love and mental illness. This Hasn’t Been a Very Magical Journey So Far is the […]
‘Stay and Fight’ by Madeline ffitch: Living Off the Land
by Scout Turkel
Building family in the face of capitalist-driven environmental collapse might look something like Madeline ffitch’s first novel, Stay and Fight (304 pages; FSG), at once indulging fantasies of reclusive living outside the gaze of the State, while simultaneously narrating the impossibility of such an existence. This is not to say Stay and Fight denies the prospect of, or human capacity for, crafting alternative, distinctly non-traditional ways of surviving. On the contrary, ffitch’s characters sustain themselves, maintain a home, and even raise a child, all miles outside the comforts and confines of urban or otherwise familiar civilization. And yet, even in […]