Literary reviews by Tim Love.
Warning: Rather than reviews, these are often notes in preparation for reviews that were never finished, or pleas for help with understanding pieces. See Litref Reviews - a rationale for details.

Saturday 8 April 2023

"Glimmer train stories (issue 57)"

A 2006 issue of a defunct stories-only magazine, on heavy paper. 14 stories, 230 pages.

The pieces are mostly about childhood, with a section at the end of childhood pictures/anecdotes by the authors. I didn't see why a few of the pieces had been selected, but I liked "The Best Man" and paticularly "My Father's House" by Silas Zobal. The latter, nearly 30 pages, builds up a life from a pile of memories and anecdotes often channelled through the voices of the main character's parents - though she'd failed to impress on Mom a deep sense of the spiritual, she had given her a sure liking for, as Pop said. the Catholic vernacular. They married, Mom and Pop, at the courthouse just two months after Mom swelled up pregnant. The doctor foretold a boy and Mom named him Michael two weeks before he was born, after a great uncle who owned a glue factory, but Michael slipped away on a misbegotten Sunday just days after. Pop said it took three years to get back on that wagon. And shortly thereafter, I came along. Pop said Mom never quite got over Michael slipping away, and he blew smoke and watched it float upward from the stoop toward the sunset

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