Issue 51 starts off with ‘The Fish Factory’ by Joyce Carol Oates. The body of the narrator’s sixteen year old daughter has been found near an abandoned fish factory. The body disappears after it is sighted, and is never seen again. The police assume she’s been murdered and the body removed, but this is a girl with a history of playing hide and seek games. The story deals with the mother’s grief, her confusion, and the disintegration of her marriage in the aftermath of the event. The mother-daughter relationship is central to ‘The Fish Factory’. The mother’s love is too much for the daughter, who already put some distance between herself and her parents before her disappearance. The mother wonders if this is another game of hide and seek. She finds out her daughter had a boyfriend with a history of violence (though not towards women) and a criminal record. The ambiguity of the girl’s fate haunts this story. Is she dead or isn’t she? Has she run away, making a final break from her mother?

In the accompanying interview, Oates points out that even if the girl is still alive, this does not rule out anything happening to her in the future. The boyfriend could still do her harm. But the girl could also be dead. The fate of the mother, never knowing what happened to her daughter, reflects the fate of many parents in such circumstances.

’The Fish Factory’ is a powerful, haunting work that lives on long after the final words have been read. It’s complex in its themes, in the sense that it is also about the oppositional relationship between youth culture and the family, the inability of many parents to see their offspring objectively as individuals, and the tendency of adults in unrewarding marriages to transfer the burden of their emotional needs onto their children.

The second story, Gerald Locklin’s ‘Italian Food’, focuses on a conversation between two older men of a similar age in an Italian restaurant. It is well written, believable and understated, but doesn’t lift off the page the way Oates’ story does. The realism of the dialogue meant that it went on too long at times, but there was also a sense, occasionally, that more was being told to the other character, and also to the reader, through dialogue, than would be said in real life. The characters, however, were well drawn, and came across as real human beings.

The Italian writer Massimo Lolli is the third writer to be featured in Storie 51. ‘The Ballroom Habitué’ follows a man who frequents dancehalls in an attempt to pick up women. He’s not looking for a relationship, and operates in a predatory way. Ugly women are “dogs”, but although he is relatively young, he is quite happy to pursue much older women. This is a bleak and lonely world, where people seek company and sex. When chasing one woman, the narrator is up against a rival suitor in his nineties. Things take a turn when the predator himself is preyed on by a woman who treats him the way he has treated others. His reaction is to defecate on some clothes before he leaves her house. Lolli’s style is emotionally disconnected, like his character. This holds the reader at a distance, rendering them a voyeur to events, but never involved or engaged.

Other writers in issue 51 include Jeffrey H. Weinberg, Lois Michal Unger, and in Italian there’s Rosaria Sgroia, Stefano Pelloni, and Alessandra Carnaroli.

Issue 55 of the magazine features part of a novel by Lydia Lunch. Entitled ‘Johnny behind the deuce’, it follows a woman and her self-harming lover in their dysfunctional but mutually dependent relationship. Johnny is covered in scars which are self inflicted. He cuts himself again while they are having sex. The story is based on a real relationship in Lunch’s past. In the interview that follows, she claims she doesn’t read or write fiction much. Her work is rooted in her own life. ‘Johnny behind the deuce’ is a novel that she says might never be finished. The writing is vivid, vibrant, dark, alive. Lunch doesn’t pull any punches.

Giannina Braschi, ‘Views from Ground Zero’ starts with images of 9/11, including a torso without legs or head falling from a building. Later, the narrator encounters a Russian whose business went under because New Yorkers wouldn’t buy foreign goods in the months after 9/11. The Russian is now an assistant in someone else’s shop. The glasses he used to sell, he now sells for someone else. A pair hang from a skull he claims was used by Sarah Bernhardt in a performance of Hamlet. It’s at this point in the narrative that dialogue and voices take over. It’s not always clear who’s speaking, and the voices of others seem to be channelled into the story. These are voices who have experienced 9/11 as a possible end of the world on a beautiful day, but also as an event that makes a mockery of everyday lies and hypocrisies, including those of politicians. ‘Views from Ground Zero’ refers to “seeing” a lot - the narrator starts four consecutive sections with the words, I saw. Braschi gives us visions first, and then a cacophony of voices reacting to the sights of that terrible day.

There are other works in issue 55 worth pointing out, but my favourite is the poem by Molly Peacock, ‘All of it’. Every line is just perfect, particularly “Dawdling, we stopped to buy / a cantaloupe, a ripe, lobed dome, / and cut right into it when we got home, / eating the flesh against the sky.”

Storie 56 is a special issue dedicated to beat poet Gregory Corso who died in 2001. Those who knew him recount their memories of Corso. He was a larger than life figure. There’s a particularly good anecdote worth repeating here. It deals with a trick Corso used when he owed someone money: “Ginsberg wrote me out a check. I countersigned it over to the person I owed money. Nobody ever cashed it, nor did they ask me for the money again. They were better off keeping the check… You have any idea how much a check with both Allen Ginsberg’s and Gregory Corso’s signature is worth?”

Corso’s wonderful poem, ‘Deluge’ is published at the beginning of the magazine, exhibiting fluidity and a marvellous use of rhyme.

The various articles on Corso take up quite a bit of issue 56. Later on, there’s fiction by H. E. Francis, Vanessa Russell and others.

Storie is a first class magazine offering quality fiction and poetry from around the world. It comes in book form, and has high production values. It is, without question, one of the best literary magazines on the international scene, and one that should offer inspiration to other small press publishers.

Kara Kellar Bell is a film and media graduate from the West of Scotland, with a passion for European novels, French films, silent cinema, and Brazilian music (everything from Daniela Mercury and other pop stars through to bossa nova). As a writer, she likes to have room to move around creatively, so she’s not located in one genre. She writes realism and also stories of a more fantastic nature, usually grounded to some extent in the real world. She also takes delight in writing across the sexual spectrum, and as a bisexual, considers it important to remind people that things are not always black and white, either/or, in sexuality or in gender. For a selection of Kara’s writing on the Showcase section of this site, click here

© 2005 Laura Hird All rights reserved.