Beautiful human-as-animal stories, fable-like, but sharp, talon edges. Gorgeous language, lush and built up like layers of embroidery, etched secret meanings under secret meanings. Sensuality, sexuality, no separation of the body and mind in these lovely, deadly stories. Experimentation, but with form rather than subject matter–formulae, repetition, one sentence stories, play–never two stories quite the same, never a dull moment, despite the shared themes of love, sex, food, bodies.
A life’s love told through an avocado in a burrito bowl. A woman who gnaws off her arm rather than be trapped in a relationship. Word art scattered like glass shards about Gustav Klimt’s art, reclaiming his women’s bodies. Perception through a mirror’s reflection.
Strong, but sensuous, not strident beings, women as they are, as they are expected to be, as fantasy, desire, and drab reality. Men trying to find themselves in all that silk and lipstick and steel. Couples at play, in roles, in disguise as themselves. Pinter-esque partnerings. Women using the archetype, succumbing to the archetype, overcoming the archetype, but never in conventional or expected ways.
It’s like Rae Bryant has invented a whole new literary feminism, one that expects more from you than you’ve been asked to give before, but one you’re glad to swim languid in. Offer whatever thanks you can to the maker of such fine and fancy tales as these. Pre-order today and dive in to stranger waters.
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