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‘Runaways: A Writer’s Dilemma’ by Michael J. Seidlinger: The Perils of the Blank Page

by Shelby Hinte

Posted on by Zack Ravas

“A writer, a little bit lonely and a whole lot desperate, signed into social media. They didn’t know what they were looking for. That was kind of the problem. They were having trouble getting started.” These are the opening lines to Michael J. Seidlinger’s novella Runaways: A Writer’s Dilemma (100 pages; Future Tense Books). In many ways, Seidlinger’s book asks an age-old question: how does a writer face a blank page? The modifier here is: how does one do this in the age of the internet—particularly in a time when dopamine-producing distractions are more abundant than ever? These questions are […]

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ZYZZYVA Staff Recommends October 2021: What to Watch, Read, & Listen To

by ZYZZYVA Staff

Posted on by Zack Ravas

Shelby Hinte, Intern: “Don’t f*@% with the original,” declares Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell) during the climax of 2011’s Scream 4. It’s a quote that has become almost as iconic for fans as the ominous ringing telephone and the unidentified caller who asks, in a low, distorted voice, “What’s your favorite scary movie?” Sidney Prescott and Ghostface, the fictional Woodsboro residents from Wes Craven’s Scream franchise responsible for these meme-worthy lines, have reached a certain level of iconography that has settled into the pop-culture vernacular for 25 years. While the Scream imagery may be fodder for internet fun and mockery, it […]

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‘Leave Society’ by Tao Lin: Our 21st Century Malady

by Zack Ravas

Posted on by Zack Ravas

If part of the success of any novel involves timing, Tao Lin perhaps couldn’t have chosen a better moment for Leave Society (352 pages; Vintage) to have come out than during an extended pandemic. Though the story takes place over several years prior to 2020, its main character maintains a hermetic lifestyle many of us can relate to at present, whether we’d like to or not: “… isolating himself in his apartment in Manhattan, replacing pills and friends and most of culture with cannabis and books, and finding new interests…” Leave Society continues Tao Lin’s tendency for autofiction by following […]

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‘The Savage Kind’ by John Copenhaver: Seeking Agency By Any Means Possible

by Supriya Saxena

Posted on by Zack Ravas

The femme fatale of classic detective fiction and noir films rarely offers a kind portrayal of women. Mysterious and alluring, she commits all sorts of devious and despicable acts for her own gain, and the narrative invariably punishes her in the end. As misogynistic as this archetype is, the concept of a woman who seeks independence and agency through lethal means is certainly an intriguing one. It is easy to understand why John Copenhaver chose to reimagine the femme fatale in his coming-of-age mystery novel The Savage Kind (384 pages; Pegasus Crime). This dark, captivating novel follows two teenage girls […]

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‘Dante’s Indiana’ by Randy Boyagoda: A Severe Satire

by Shelby Hinte

Posted on by Zack Ravas

We are living in an era of instant gratification—information accessible via our fingertips in a matter of seconds, food delivered to our doorsteps without so much as having to talk to another human being, fast-track degree programs, and attaining inner peace through a single weekend meditation retreat—not to mention the omnipresence of quick-fix drugs that can calm your nerves, kill your pain, eliminate excess weight, liven your libido, grant you access to euphoria, and, in general, make life a little less miserable. Randy Boyagoda’s newest novel, Dante’s Indiana (224 pages; Biblioasis), a standalone sequel to his novel Original Prin, is […]

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‘I Wished’ by Dennis Cooper: Serving Witness

by Zack Ravas

Posted on by Zack Ravas

George Miles. To the average reader, it’s not a name that necessarily conjures associations; but for followers of underground literary icon Dennis Cooper, it’s a name that has loomed large since the publication of Cooper’s first novel, Closer, in 1989. That book marked the beginning of Cooper’s most enduring body of a work, a five-novel series collectively known as the George Miles Cycle. The novels form a loosely connected narrative that, by Cooper’s own admission, represent his attempts to process his relationship with Miles, an enigmatic young man suffering from mental illness and a general difficulty at articulating himself. Unbeknown […]

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‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ by Anthony Doerr: Across Time and Space

by Mike Berry

Posted on by Zack Ravas

Anthony Doerr thinks big. His latest novel, the follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning All the Light We Cannot See, not only clocks in at more than 600 pages, but follows five major protagonists across three meticulously detailed timelines. Added to that, it focuses attention on a lost, resurrected manuscript that exemplifies the power of literature and of librarians by envisioning a magical place between Earth and Heaven. Cloud Cuckoo Land (628 pages; Scribner) is set in 15th-century Constantinople, contemporary Idaho, and aboard a generational starship in the not-too-distant future. The cast of characters includes a teenage ox driver, a young […]

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ZYZZYVA Staff Recommends September 2021: What to Watch, Read, & Listen To

by ZYZZYVA Staff

Posted on by Zack Ravas

Oscar Villalon, Managing Editor: Like a throwback to the sort of off-beat shows NBC slotted on a Tuesday night at 10—a Shannon’s Deal, a Homicide—Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building envelops us with its charming cast and its evocative setting. But unlike those other shows, set in Philadelphia and Baltimore, respectively, the grittiness is decidedly muted here, as is any and all internal anguish. There’s suffering, sure; the characters played by Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Selena Gomez have all been through it (and maybe still are), as have some of the ancillary characters. But the acknowledgment of grief and […]

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‘Householders’ by Kate Cayley: Of Misfits & Runaways

by Peter Schlachte

Posted on by Zack Ravas

In a 2013 interview, Canadian writer and theatre director Kate Cayley noted the influence of Wendell Berry’s poetry on her writing, describing him as “a voice crying in the wilderness.” It’s an apt description of Berry’s work, suffused as it is with a sense of the bucolic and the simple in the face of the anthropocene and capitalism. Yet, in a very different sense, it’s also an apt description of Cayley’s stories in Householders (224; Biblioasis), her most recent story collection. Even surrounded by others, Cayley’s characters in Householders are often alone—misfits, runaways, forsaking the ties of friends and family, […]

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The Family Issue: Letter from the Editor

by Laura Cogan

Posted on by Zack Ravas
ZYZZYVA Volume 37, #2, Fall 2021 (No. 121)

Dear Readers, Water, food, air: these are the essentials of existence. But for many, family—however we define it—is as central to our experience of life, and our sense of self. Whether we define ourselves in terms of or in opposition to our families of origin; whether the families we build and seek out appear traditional or unconventional; whether family represents a source of stability and community or of tension and loneliness: family—that inner circle in which we find ourselves supported and challenged, embraced or painfully invisible—is the site of so much of the drama, intrigue, romance, tragedy, and comedy of […]

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‘The Manningtree Witches’ by A.K. Blakemore: Compelled to Torture

by Supriya Saxena

Posted on by Zack Ravas

The Manningtree Witches (320 pages; Catapult) is about all the ugliness that comes with being a woman in a society in which they are oppressed and deemed inferior. Set in the small English town of Manningtree, A. K. Blakemore’s first novel illustrates the anti-witch hysteria sweeping the townspeople as related by Rebecca West, a young woman who lives in Manningtree with her widowed mother. It is a picture both vivid and ugly, and though the book is set in the 17th century it feels relevant to our present day.  Rebecca makes for an insightful protagonist, describing the extraordinary and horrific […]

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‘Death Fugue’ by Sheng Keyi: A Tower of…What?

by Colton Alstatt

Posted on by Zack Ravas

In Sheng Keyi’s absurdist novel, Death Fugue (translated by Shelly Bryant; 376 pages; Restless Books), a tower made of feces appears in Round Square in the fictional capital of Beiping, much to the intrigue of young people who do not believe, as the government and media say, that the nine-story heap is composed of gorilla excrement. Concerned with more than sphincter logistics and scatological expertise, this excitable group demands answers from an unaccountable government. In response, protesters are rounded up, thinkers put on watchlists, and the movement’s final gathering quashed with incredible force. Banned in China’s bookstores and circulating in […]

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