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reviewed by Debra Murphy
Image Journal, indispensable for anyone who takes Faith, the Arts, and good writing seriously, is, as I’ve said before in these pages, also one of the only venues that openly welcomes contributions from writers of short literary fiction with religious themes.
Image no. 69 has three wonderful short stories, “Zero Gains” by Bonnie Nadzam, “Safari Supper” by Tom Noyes,” and “Into Deep Waters” by Laura Bramon Good.
“Zero Gains” is a beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking piece about a father and his severely retarded child, recently abandoned by the wife/mother who’d apparently reached her limit. There are no pat answers in this sometimes grim tale, no all’s-well moments to flood the reader with supernatural consolation and the assurance that all the sacrifices are worth it. Still, one comes away with the conviction that even the most seemingly limited life is mysteriously beyond reckoning, and I was reminded of a line from Schinder’s LIst that goes something like, “the List” (each name, each life, however unimportant) “is an absolute good.”
Similarly, “Into Deep Waters,” a story built around a woman’s reaction to her grandmother’s cremation, coupled with the narrative of her own brutal miscarriage, was sometimes excruciating to read. Almost a meditation on St. Paul’s cry, “Is there no one who will deliver me from the body of death?” I was reminded a good deal of the intensely incarnational short fiction of Andrew McNabb’s The Body of This.
In terms of sheer writing, my favorite story was Noyes’ “Safari Supper,” an episodic narrative following the inner lives and social interactions of a motley church group of (mostly) Boomer-aged Episcopalians, going from house to house in a sort of serial potluck. In this so-called “safari supper,” each household serves up one of the courses of a four-course meal.
The ensuing vignettes vary from harried-funny, as when the “hors-d’oevres” family forgets what night it is, then try to cover up their complete lack of preparation, to the sweet-sad bonding of two women who find at least momentary companionship in their common affection for a friend who has moved away. The absence of this latter “missing” character, the mysterious Patrick Bogardus, haunts this ensemble in a manner reminiscent of the dead friend whose funeral brings about the reunion depicted in The Big Chill.
Here’s an example of Noyes’ lively, painfully funny, writing:
On the drive from the Pike-Stuyvesants’ to the Markhams’, Brangwynne Koonce, president of the Fabulous Forties and Fifties, wonders how the night could’ve started worse. Technically speaking, Drew and Wendy shouldn’t even be in FFF. Wendy shouldn’t, anyway. She’s only thirty-eight. Does Branwynne need to go to the extreme of checking drivers’ licenses? Requiring birth certificates? Someone like Wendy could use another couple years to mature. She had the easiest course of the night and couldn’t pull it off. You volunteer to do something for a group you shouldn’t even officially be a part of, the least you can do is remember. The woman had to get off her elliptical trainer to answer the door for hell’s sake. She greeted her guests in Lycra shorts and a sweaty sports bra, a tiny music player clipped to her shoulder strap, earphones in her head. Embarrassing for everyone. Bad enough. But then not to own up to the fact that she’d forgotten, to try to cover up and muddle through. That’s when embarrassing became insulting. And the husband storming around like a moody toddler. The clownish children. That dreadful word the girl kept screaming. Freakin’. The least Wendy could’ve done for her neglected guests was kennel the children in their rooms.
Another terrific issue from Image.
