Milk Candy Review

We recently published Abe Mezrich’s powerful “Preservation as Violence.”

Here, we ask him two questions about his story:

1) In your author’s note, you touch on the various depictions of salt. What I’m loving is this idea of preservation. The title refers to it as “a violence,” but do you think there could also be something of a protection in it too? Which is to say, is Lot’s wife being preserved in more than one way?

That’s a really interesting question. I think one way to consider an answer is to look at something that everyone in the Bliblical story is either protected from, or implicitly hiding from. I’m speaking of the sexual violence that pervades. The men of the town want to rape the angels. Lot offers his own daughters to the men. The coda to the Biblical story — which I’m not sure is as well-known— is that Lot’s daughters get Lot so drunk they each seduce him on successive evenings. All the sex in this story is cruel. If you’d be protected in Sodom, you’d be protected from that.

To make a leap here: Salt — and I think I’m half-remembering an idea of Mary Douglas — can be a counter to fertility. Fertile things grow and grow; salt puts that growth to a halt. And as I’m not the first to observe, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah comes on the heels of those same angels promising the barren Sarah that she will give birth to a son. If Sodom is sexually violent, then perhaps it’s taking that miracle of fertility and going berserk. And if Lot’s wife is turning to salt, she’s taking all of this awfulness in and she’s innoculating herself against it. Salt protects against the cruelty that comes — or that can come — of sex.

Is that idea of protection present in my own piece? I’m not sure — I’ll leave it to readers to decide. But as a reader of the Bible I’d say it’s definitely there in the original story.

2) I love the agency that you give to Lot’s wife here — you make her something whole and human and real that was missing from her origin. This may seem off-topic but, if you could name her, what would her name be?

This answer is a bit of a cop out, but I looked it up: there’s an ancient Midrash that her name is Idit or Irit — depending on the tradition. 

Whatever her name is or was, being nameless in the Bible can be a symbol of mystery and power. I’m reminded of the opening of the book of Exodus: the Israelite slavery is beginning, darkness is closing in, and Moses’ mother — nameless at first — defies a genocidal order and decides to hide her baby. Sometimes anonymity is a sign of absolute power: Here is the whole world naming you, pinning you down, and you decide instead to be an Everyperson, a power against the powers. Maybe that’s part of why we’re so fixated on Lot’s wife. The world is literally crumbling all around her, everyone surviving is running away, and she’s staying put. She won’t play the game. Which is in the end why it might be so suiting that she’s nameless. Perhaps, then, I’d simply name her Strength.

We recently published Ayla Marsden’s stunning “60s Thai Funk Radio.”

Here, we ask her two questions about her story:

1) I really love the voice here — it feels so true to the high school experience! How do you balance the confessional feel of the narrator’s tone with the act of storytelling here?

I like to think that it was less about balancing the two and more that this story couldn’t have been told the way it was if it was from any other character’s perspective. While I was writing I felt like the narrator’s voice came suddenly to me and then sort of just took on a life of its own – it felt fully formed even though it wasn’t a perspective or setting that I’d written from before. Also, I definitely wanted to focus more on evoking strong images and feelings instead of trying to create a coherent narrative.

2) The narrator’s mom is such a great character too. I feel like a lot of readers will see glimpses of their own mothers in her. Do you?

Not my own mother, but more so an amalgamation of mothers from the small town I grew up in. With her character – in the brief time that she appears – I wanted to attempt to capture the sense of sadness and monotony that many people feel being trapped in towns like these, and the cycles of poverty, abuse, and addiction that often plague these places.

We recently published Marjorie Drake’s luscious “Skin Hunger.”

Here, we ask her two questions about her story:

1) I love the transition to include a second person character here — it’s a moment that really invites the reader into this story with our protagonist. Do you think this second person character might be just as hungry for touch as the woman at the bar?

I’m not sure it matters. The protagonist is indulging vague fantasies about who could possibly fill her need—and suddenly, apparently for the first time, a person she knows slides into the role. It’s a small step. It’s likely that the second person (just like the bartender and the customers) will never know about the thoughts. Who knows what roles we are playing in someone else’s head? On the other hand, if I am wrong, and the protagonist is actually ready to act on her thoughts, I hope he’s feeling similarly—the woman could use a break.

2) The reader doesn’t get the details of the woman’s loss — it’s clear that, at one point, she did have someone to touch and who touched her, but now she is alone. There is a small hint (“and for so long the thought of holding someone else made her feel sick and it still often does”) that there is, perhaps, some trauma in her past. Do you think she will get past it and manage to find someone to touch again?

I don’t think one ever gets past loss, but at some point, it may become possible to let other experiences, and other people, into one’s heart. The loss, and the love that goes with it, will always be there too, undiminished. The protagonist’s ruminations are triggered by a reminder of the loss—seeing a couple touching in a public place, the type of casually intimate contact that is a part of being a couple—an ordinary sight, but one that stops her breath with pain. I do think it’s a positive sign that she allows herself to consider the possibility of touching someone again. So, I am cautiously optimistic for her!

We recently published Rebecca Field’s devastating “Parallel Blouse.”

Here, we ask her two questions about her story:

1) I’m a sucker for an alternate/parallel universe story — it’s so interesting to think of universes where things are different like this, even in small ways. Could there be a universe for these characters where something even different than this has happened, do you think?

I’m not sure whether or not I believe in a multiverse theory where there could be multiple other parallel universes coexisting alongside the one we live in, but I’m open minded about the possibility. I often find myself thinking about the different choices we make day to day and how those many tiny decisions we make without even really thinking about them will have a ripple effect on so many other people our lives interconnect with. Death, and what we leave behind us when we die is another topic I think about often (there’s another piece of mine called ‘Traces of You’ published in Phare Magazine that explores this idea) and so this piece is very much an insight into the slightly morbid things I am often thinking about. So in answer to the question, I’d love to believe there are many possible realities for these two characters in which there are other outcomes, good or bad.

2) And of course, even if there is a parallel universe where there was no argument and the blouse is worn for different reasons, that doesn’t change the fact that in the universe of the story, our narrator is still enduring this loss. Do you think they would try to trade places, if they could, with their parallel counterpart? Or would they think that would be too cruel?

Absolutely I think the narrator of this story wishes to trade places with their parallel counterpart. Imagining that there is a parallel counterpart where something different happened may very well be part of their coping mechanism in dealing with and processing the loss. I think it is natural when we lose someone to spend time imagining the what ifs, and to wish you could go back in time to change things and I think it is also normal to get stuck in that mindset for a period of time as part of the grieving process, as well as to experience guilt or regret that we didn’t get to say or express what we wanted to before it was too late. I know these things have been my experience and so that is something I have drawn upon in writing this piece, which I hope brings some authenticity of emotion to the piece. Ultimately I wanted to end the story on a hopeful note even with the loss still being present, and I hope I got the balance right.

In the parallel universe in which we don’t have an argument before you set off for work, I look anxiously at dove-grey clouds over distant trees, trying to gauge if they are coming my way. I peg out your favourite blouse, the one with the gold-edged pearlescent buttons, on the washing line next to my T-shirts, hoping they might dry a little before the rains come. You only wear the blouse on special occasions. You almost didn’t buy it at all because you thought it was ‘too nice’ and you didn’t need a blouse like that, until I told you to just get it, because life is too short to worry about stuff like that.

In the non-argument universe, I take in the washing just as the first fat drops fall from the ashen sky, hug the crumpled pile close to my chest and sprint indoors. I throw the tangled heap onto the bed in the spare room and go back to my work in the office next door, uninterrupted by calls from the hospital.

In the parallel universe in which we don’t argue about something so petty I can’t even recall the details now but had something to do with our dinner plans, I iron your blouse a few days later and hang it in the wardrobe. You probably won’t wear it for another few weeks because of your policy of saving it for an occasion when you need a boost; the self-confidence of knowing that an outfit looks good. You tell me how you love the feel of its soft fabric, the cool nip of the gold-edged buttons at your neck, the way the hem skims your waistband just so. In that universe I don’t take your blouse in a carrier bag to the pebble-dashed building on the outskirts of town where your body lies, wishing I had picked something else because I don’t want to let it go, but knowing I have to because this is the outfit you would have chosen, if you could have chosen for yourself. 

In the parallel universe in which there is no argument, no altercation I will forever turn over again and again in my mind, the last memory I have of you is not a slammed door or a raised voice. Your car pulls onto the driveway, your kicked-off shoes hit the hallway skirting board, stockinged feet pad up the stairs. You poke your head through the office doorway, smile hello, then put on a pair of slippers in the bedroom. In that universe I persuade you to wear the blouse when we go out for lunch that weekend, tell you how much it suits you, how it is my favourite too. The buttons glint in the sunlight and there isn’t a cloud in the sky.  

***

Rebecca Field lives and writes in Derbyshire, UK. She has work in several print anthologies and has been published online by Reflex Press, The Daily Drunk, The Phare, Ghost Parachute, Fictive Dream, Gone Lawn and Ellipsis Zine among others. Forthcoming at Tiny Molecules and Sunlight Press. Tweets at @RebeccaFwrites 

We recently published Mauro Altamura’s devastating “Breathing Quietly.”

Here, we ask him two questions about his story:

1) I love the strangeness of Mrs. James’ last day — that odd (and somehow beautiful!) hostage situation gives this piece such a wonderful flavor. What do you think the hostage takers’ end game was? What were they hoping to accomplish?

I didn’t have a specific motive for the strangers. It might be a metaphor for the way religions also hold hostages, keep believers in their thrall. Or perhaps a torturous taste of Purgatory, though Presbyterians state that “Purgatory is consistently denied and vigorously opposed by Protestant Christians.” Well, as a former Catholic, Purgatory loomed pretty large for me.

I first thought the men were enacting a random act of violence, an intimidation that came unannounced, out of the blue, beautiful day, and altered the world. (All the mass shootings are a more horrible and tragic example.) There’s a clue, though, when Mrs James’s missing Bible was found, shot through with five rounds, tossed below the willow. A long brown braid with a kitty clasp wrapped the Bible tight. Something disturbing occurred, and that braid and kitty clasp ask who the hair came from and why. Coupled with the bullet hole in Mrs. James’s tire, we’re left to ruminate, to imagine what forces floatin that dark Western sky. I like the questions as well as the fears that remain. We only know what happened to poor Mrs James. Who else was harmed? What were the men trying to cover up? The strangers may have seemed benign, but their act led to the death of at least one person. I haven’t answered your question, ‘why.’ Let me simply say they were evil men who wanted to wield power. Sounds too familiar, to me.

2) The imagery throughout is so powerful, from that opening image of poor Mrs. James (“who taught high school Latin and spoke it like a saint”) being pulled from the river to the end with Gregory and the gypsy moths, and returning to Mrs. James as she is cut from her restraints, “make-up yet in place.” Seriously powerful stuff! What came for you first with this story — the imagery, the characters, the music? Something else?

I’ve been to the area outside Visalia, CA, a couple of times for short visits. The story began from remembering those long ago trips and the surrounding environment near the Sierra Nevada. After that I imagined what might happen in such a location – terrifying and perhaps inexplicable events – a kind of Twin Peaks scenario. While ruminating on the location, the images and the accompanying actions started to flow. The descriptions of the people, place, and objects were a gush of the horrifying, beautiful, and confounding. I was a visual artist for many years, so describing images is familiar practice. When I’m writing and the images come so fast and free, I feel like all I have to do is type, and sort the threads for the story to arrive.