“Hello, everyone. My name is Mummar. Obviously, I look like a Muslim.” He looked around. “There might be others here, but none so obviously in the young male category which makes me important.” He chuckles. “I only mean important in that so many of you think the troubles of the world are the fault of my people, or people like me. Unemployed angry Muslim youth. No? Am I right? Yes, I am right, I can see it in your faces.”Read More »
“Here comes that Voodoo Lady,” said Trish, peeking over her cubicle wall. She glanced up from a mirror she held in her hand as she picked at the gap between her front teeth with a magenta fingernail.
“Here comes who?” asked Sondra, her world-weary tone deliberate. She had seen the article. Everyone had seen the article. A Voodoo Lady was coming to the office, to visit her specifically. She had to admit that was something.
“The Voodoo Lady,” Trish said, “the Katrina survivor. I showed you the photo.” She sucked her teeth and put away the pocket mirror. “I think it’s friggin’ scary.”
Sondra had skimmed the article, but had misplaced it by the time The Voodoo Lady was assigned to her. Before the headaches, she never used to lose things.
“I wonder if she’s going to be wearing her magical necklace,” Trish said. “You know, the one she wore in the photo?”
Sondra pretended to look for the article in a pile of papers under her desk but what she was really doing was hugging her thighs and bending her neck into an arch as a surge of pain hit. Some chiropractor had made a show of giving her the exercise “for free” after a series of useless spinal adjustments that her HMO wouldn’t begin to take seriously.
“How can someone with a necklace like that be asking for handouts?” Trish said. Read More »
It’s not that the writing is so bad, it’s not. It’s OK. But if a white male (without proper credentials via biography) wrote this, it would never have been published. Though ostensibly fiction, what seems inherent in the attraction of the book is the authenticity of the story. This is a person who’s “been there” not unlike the book A LONG WAY GONE by Ishmael Beah (which my son is reading now). Here’s the thing: one can’t suppress the sense that it is the STORY these people (or people close to them) have lived that makes us read on. These are tragic and dramatic stories. That does not mean, however, that this is necessarily “good writing” (in the same way Graham Greene is good writing, or Patricia Highsmith, both favorites of the moment). Read More »
He could be Bowles’ twin. I can’t say evil twin because the two of them are Nietszche-boys: showing us a world beyond good and evil. Makes you want to stay home and pet your rabbit. J G Ballard // Super Cannes
I*: What’s the most interesting thing about your writing that you can think of?
C.B.: I’d have to say voice, or perspective, though voice is the more popular word. There is a lot of talk about voice in the writing community. I’ve heard it said that “voice�? is the reason literature will survive.
I: So tell me about your voice and how it’s different.
C.B.: I like to think of my voice as a curious voice, motivated by an interest in people, culture, history and philosophy, not necessarily in that order. Also, it’s a voice of someone who didn’t study writing in college and had lots of different jobs. (Laughs) Read More »
As Holly got out of the car, I saw she was wearing her open-toed, sandal-like things with the mini-platforms. What was she thinking? Ever since she saw that miniseries about Patti Hearst getting kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army—which I had to admit was a very cool name—Holly got more serious about being an animal activist. She did not, however, leave fashion behind.As soon as she hit the muddy hill with those shoes, she wobbled as if she were on stilts. She fell backward, right on the little Goth cape she insisted on wearing.”Oh-my-god,” she shouted, as if we should all laugh.”Get up and shut up,” I said, sounding tougher than the usual me. Read More »
Ben stood on the patio in his bare feet, arms outstretched, waiting for the sun to warm the red stones. This was the ritual he performed religiously every day of the month since his father, Joe the Wolf, died. He wore what he called his Tarzan outfit: cut-off jeans like the kind he’d worn as a kid. Kay had made him agree to put on a shirt when he gardened in the front yard, and thinking of her, he glanced at the wall of picture windows above him, but the glare made it impossible to see if she were watching him. But she was there, he knew, drinking coffee and worrying about when he’d return to his normal life and stop acting strange. She’d stand at the window for a few more minutes, then join the commuters flowing out of the nearby houses—and he’d be alone with his plants. Read More »
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