Back then, Yale sat behind the front desk counter in the resident section of the Y and I sat beside him. Reggie worked maintenance and had the gray cast and steady hands of a true alcoholic. […]
The Y
by Bethany Ball
Issue: ZYZZYVA Volume 37, #2, Fall 2021
The Family Issue
“Wedding Favors” by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton: “Her mother had once said, She should have asked you to be a bridesmaid, Liana. Y’all grew up like sisters, and Liana had said she was glad she hadn’t asked. She didn’t have $200 to be burning on no ugly ass dress …”
“Radical Empathy” by Robin Romm: A young egg donor, just starting her life, finds that what should have been a simple transaction continues to unexpectedly tug at her.
“The Kollwitz Hand” by Victoria Redel: Four etchings by the famed German Expressionist open a line of inquiry connecting Kollwitz’s art to Redel’s mother’s “passion to be in the presence of the disquieting.”
“Wool” by Mark Labowskie: Faced with a failing relationship with Eli back home, Martin heads to the country to visit bohemian friends Dot and Lola and their daughter, his biological child.
“Cousin Abraham” by Andrew Mangan: “Cousin Abraham came to live with us because my mother was a special-ed teacher and would ‘know what to do.’ That’s how my Aunt Maureen put it the evening she turned up alone at our house…”
Plus fiction and nonfiction by Bethany Ball, Ben Lasman, Cristina Perachio, and Mieke Marple.
Interview
Jonathan Franzen talks to Paul Wilner about what constitutes a family novel.
Poetry
E. Kristin Anderson, Kathleen Balma, Fay Dillof, Zach Linge, Ann Lovett, and Andrew Navarro.
Art
And featuring the art of Melissa Joseph
You can purchase a copy of No. 121 here, or order a subscription to ZYZZYVA now and we’ll start you off by shipping you the latest issue.
Wedding Favors
by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
Liana turned the radio up and signed into the Lyft app. Some drivers kept the music flat, classical or Top 40, out of respect for the passengers’ preferences, but this was her car, goddamnit, and she played whatever she woke up feeling: Big KRIT got her out the bed most Mondays, Ms. Aretha Franklin three weeks straight after her last birthday, and now, she was on that Dwayne Carter: You had a lot of crooks Trying to steal your heart Never really had luck Couldn’t never figure out how to love She felt that shit. Liana wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t surprised […]
Wool
by Mark Labowskie
Martin exits I-89 before he needs to and progresses town by town. He keeps pulling over to eyeball a fiery spruce or an outcropping of mica, admire quaint inns with ivy wreathed around their VACANCY signs and crumbling breweries offering hard apple cider tastings. He’s eager to reach Tunbridge, but knows anticipation is the greatest pleasure. He stops to buy a mason jar of corn whiskey from a sweet old man on a porch, thinking how happy he’ll be once he reaches Lola and Dot’s barn. Then, realizing his spirits are at that peak where they’re in danger of toppling […]
The Family Issue: Letter from the Editor
by Laura Cogan
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 […]