The Review of Contemporary Fiction articles from September 2006

The Review of Contemporary Fiction archives from September 2006

Guest editors' note.(Editorial)
September 22, 2006... New Cuban Fiction presents recent short stories by fifteen of the best writers on the island. These fifteen very different authors, translated here by eight translators in order to better retain the remarkable diversity of voices, write...

Lost places.(Excerpt)
September 22, 2006... (Obispo Street, Old Havana) This is my street. Obispo belongs to me, if a person can own a street without having a business or a house on it, or even the house of a lover or a friend on it. I discovered an old photograph of it in an...

Only afternoon in Granada.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... I lived just one afternoon in Granada. I climbed up to the Arab quarter. Think of a labyrinth spread over a hillside. I went into a tea house, a teteria. The house had wooden walls and was built as a series of cubicles, labyrinth within a...

My mother the writer.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... Today I went out with my mother. One of her friends wrote a book and besides giving a lot of lunches and a few dinners in his honor, and listening to him (my mother, not me), today we went to the place where they presented the book. At the...

My love and my sugarcane.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... He came by again to talk about the land. He's not quite so elegant now. The same clothes, I mean, but all ten years older--the guayabera shirts, the cowboy pants, the riding boots, and Him. The guayaberas are faded and you can see through them,...

Unplugged.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... I've left the country. Spread the word. Make a big splash. Let everyone know. Is that supposed to be a dare? No, it's more like I'm begging. Please, say it loud and clear to friend and foe; tell them Nicanor O'Donnell, the writer, is...

Dreams of flying.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... and everything's fine until I wake up at an altitude of fifteen thousand feet. Terrified, all I can do is close my eyes and go back to sleep, but that's dangerous--preposterous, in fact. No one can actually fly while they're asleep, they just...

The man from nowhere.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... For my father Some people always go against the grain, but I don't go against anything. That may stem from the great handicap that's marked my life: I'm cross-eyed. Ever since I could think, since the first time I studied myself in the...

The happy death of Alborada Almanza.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... Alborada Almanza woke up gently but completely, with the keen sensation that something extraordinary was going to happen to her that day. She had barely opened her eyes when she felt the sharp prick of premonition, and she tried to figure out...

Waters.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... The last trip from the gas station had left him thoroughly exhausted. The distance, the weight, the climb up the steep staircase, all had conspired to crush him. Now before his eyes, defying his famished body, is the rusty container with the...

The colonel's allegro.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... David has a colonel for a neighbor, a very nice man. Every morning the colonel greets him as he leaves for work in his spotless uniform and sunglasses, always admiring the shine of his own shoes. It is unusual to see a person nearing sixty come...

A nude in the rain.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... For Evelyn Hatch, should she ever come back to life One rainy afternoon, E settles down in front of the camera. A powder flash (so to speak) in the studio's shadows and, voila: for the umpteenth time, Bruno captures her smile. E's...

Women of the federation.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... She's stretched out on her back on the bed and I know she's having a lousy day. She has the complexion of a fresh apple. Sometimes I keep this to myself and other times I get a kick out of telling her so, depending on how things are going....

Mirages of daily life.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... The Buildings The trucks pulled up by a vacant lot that was yellowed and covered with caked sludge. Just looking at it gave you a backache. When he looked more closely at the nearby houses, Daniel remembered that a long time ago, in that...

The green violinist, after chagall.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... Now that I've found you, Known you, lived you, Why are you leaving, Love? Mornings, she could be seen out on her balcony with her birds and her plants. She wore thick Coke bottle glasses and a stupid hairdo. Every day...

Paper love.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... For Maria Gala, my inspiration The smell of dampness, of rancidness, of cold sweat, of ancient corruption. The mother puts her little girl to sleep in the room's only bed, the same bed where she'll receive whichever lover comes tonight....

Waiting.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... "You're the Chief, eh? No offense, but around these parts, Chiefs have faces showing the years they've been on the job. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I wasn't expecting a kid fresh out of the Academy, like you guys say. I met...

When life gives you lemons.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... My blood still boils when I think about it. Seems like it was only yesterday. There's no word for what this girl had to go through back then. You couldn't make me return to that life, even if you held a gun to my head. And don't give me that...

Black and white *.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... Rebecca's daughter I don't know whether to think you're a saint or a fool, Luisa, although maybe they're the same thing. Did Rebecca's phone call really upset you so much that you had to go hide? The living room smells like death. How long...

The lady with the pooch.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... A naked woman is a pretty common sight. But if she's leaning against a dog, a guy starts to take notice. Especially when it dawns on him, after he picks his jaw up off the floor, that the animal will play an important role in the drama that's...

How much I love you.(Short story)
September 22, 2006... For Tula, her story Marcial Mendez was obsessed with two things: women and synonyms. When it came to women, things always went badly for him. Synonyms cost him friendships, jobs and all kinds of opportunities in life. In a conversation,...

Jacques Jouet. L'Amour comme on l'apprend a l'Ecole hoteliere [Love as one learns it at hotel school].(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Jacques Jouet. L'Amour comme on l'apprend a l'Ecole hoteliere [Love as one learns it at hotel school]. Paris: POL, 2006. 442pp. 22.90 [euro]. Since the early 1990s, Jacques Jouet has been hard at work on a vast, loosely-organized prose...

Azhar Abidi. Passarola Rising.(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Azhar Abidi. Passarola Rising. Viking, 2006. 244pp. $21.95. This brilliant novel is written for those of us who want to see new worlds, new boundaries (if they exist). It is a 'science fiction,' a thrilling meditation on the meaning of...

T. C. Boyle. Tooth and Claw.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... T. C. Boyle. Tooth and Claw. Penguin, 2006. 304pp. Paper: $15.00. T.C. Boyle's seventh collection of stories demonstrates both his mastery and his range, leaving no doubt that he is one of the major fiction writers of our time. Tooth and...

Christine Montalbetti. Western.(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Christine Montalbetti. Western. Paris: POL, 2005. 212pp. 17.50 [euro]. Western is Christine Montalbetti's fourth book for the Editions POL, following Sa fable achevee, Simon sort dans la bruine [His tale concluded, Simon walks into the...

R. M. Berry. Frank.(Book review)
September 22, 2006... R. M. Berry. Frank. Chiasmus Press, 2006. 202pp. Paper: $12.00. In a world of celebrity novels with perfect skin, hair, and teeth, Frank is a monster of letters. Called an "unwriting" of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, R. M. Berry's Frank is...

Valerie Martin. The Unfinished Novel.(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Valerie Martin. The Unfinished Novel. Vintage, 2006. 224pp. Paper: $13.00. Although I reviewed The Great Divorce, I want to mention Martin's best-known novel, Mary Reilly. That book was made into a move starring Julia Roberts, who is the...

Stacey Levine. Frances Johnson.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Stacey Levine. Frances Johnson. Clear Cut Press, 2005. 230pp. Paper: $12.95. The gift of Stacey Levine's fiction lies in making mundane life strange in order to reveal the normally invisible forces that shape us--in all their absurd...

Jonathan Coe. The Closed Circle.(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Jonathan Coe. The Closed Circle. Vintage, 2006. 367pp. Paper: $14.00. The Closed Circle continues, and to some degree completes, Jonathan Coe's 2001 novel The Rotters' Club. While that narrative was set in a Birmingham, England of the...

Books received.(Bibliography)
September 22, 2006... Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Half of a Yellow Sun, Alfred A. Knopf, $24.95. (F) Addonizio, Kim. Little Beauties, Simon & Schuster, 2006. $13.00. (F) Amdahl, Gary. Visigoth, Milkweed Editions, 2006. $15.95. (F) Bailey, Peter J....

Books reviewed.(List)
September 22, 2006... Reviewers' names follow in parentheses. Regular reviewers are abbreviated: JB=Jeff Bursey; JMD=Jeremy M. Davies; IM=Irving Malin; WM=Warren Motte; MP=Michael Pinker. Abidi, Azhar. Passarola Rising, 3: 146-147 (IM) Albahri, David. Gotz...