Review of Maria Paige Brekke, “Merry Go,” Luna Station Quarterly 56 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I’m not sure if this story was intended to be horror or humor, but I will say this: I’ll certainly think twice the next time I get on a carousel horse!
Review of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Aysel K. Basci (trans.), “Of Tales and Dreams,” Flash Fiction Online (August 2023): 19-21 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Death of a parent.
This is a meandering story, starting here and moving to there, and then to elsewhere, with no underlying sense of narrative, just the reflections of someone who grew up beside the Tigris and both cannot imagine ever leaving and yet yearns to be free. There’s a lot of lush imagery in it, and I felt I got to know the narrator quite well even in such a short excerpt.
(Original published in Hikayeler (Short Stories / Evin Sahibi), Dergah Yayinlari, Istanbul 1983.)
Review of Jennifer Hudak, “Little Fish, Big Fish,” Flash Fiction Online (August 2023): 15-18 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
“The daughters go; the mothers bring them back”: This fist-in-the-gut line encapsulates the essence of this story, about intergenerational trauma and one generation learning to trust the next generation coming to make their own choices, known their own minds. It’s a powerful story of a visceral circle of hate and need.
Review of Phoenix Alexander, “Nancy Shreds the Clouds,” Flash Fiction Online (August 2023): 11-14 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Domestic abuse.
This was a strange little story. Starting off as it did, the story of a lonesome, friendless child who quickly learned that being good meant being alone, it ended up not in some righteous justification of taking the high road, but in a raw, sordid triumph.
Review of M. C. Benner Dixon, “Let the Field Burn,” Flash Fiction Online (August 2023): 7-9 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Death of a parent.
There was something really beautiful in this story about just how ordinary it was. Clearing out a house after the death of a parent. The teen who’d been co-opted into mowing the lawn. The minutiae of life and death. But one of the best thing about fiction, about telling stories, is how the ordinary becomes extraordinary. Dixon nailed that, in this lovely little tale.
SFF Reviews