Not On Fire, Only Dying by Susan Rukeyser
(Twisted Road Publications, 2015, 277 pages)
Reviewed for Cholla Needles by Greg Gilbert
Lola says her baby is kidnapped, and the reader soon wonders
if the child is real. Only Marko believes that the baby isn’t a figment of her
mental instability and pharmaceutical haze. An ex-convict and drug-dealer, he
is devoted to Lola and acts as her knight in an effort to right her world. Armored
with his love, his honor, and his black oilskin duster, his allegiance to her
fragile belief in the child is the great test of his knighthood. Though his
eyes, we experience Lola as a fully formed person, at times jittery and ragged,
and at times “better.” As for Marko, one may ask if he is an antihero. This is
a central question in the story. Is he tilting at windmills, or is there a gallant
obligation in his quest? Is true heroism founded in the heart of the warrior,
regardless of the rightness of the quest? In a world of artifice, Marko may lack
the qualities of a “leading man,” but just as Rukeyser’s depiction of love is cleaved
to the bone, so too is Marko’s heroism. His strides are long, his love is true,
his duster spreads behind him like a cape. He is all sinew and scars and heart.
He is never ridiculous. Even his violence and his moments of confusion and
doubt are virtuous – except for when his violence has the final word. And even
then, we are inclined to forgive.
Not On Fire, Only Dying is a compelling novel. Susan
Rukeyser is a gifted writer and storyteller. Without relying on sentimentality,
she draws us into the lives of her characters, some worthy of our affection and
admiration, others deserving of our scorn. Her scene setting is brief and atmospheric,
often poetic but never heavy-handed. Her pacing is patient, and her narration
occurs from within the story’s interior. This is a streetwise book. Hardcore
realities are commonplace, a one room apartment without a closet, bitter icy
waters that promise infinite rest, hopes hung on a precarious balance, the
world of pharmaceuticals and back-alley sleight-of-hand, and, hauntingly, in
the background – the punctuating cries of a lone infant. The story of Lola and Marko
is one where love is acid etched onto the hearts of two weathered souls who
might become one another’s redeemer. This is a story that will sit in the
reader like a personal memory.
reviewed by Jennifer E Bradpiece
It’s raining. Kelsey Bryan-Zwick’s voice crackles like fire. Not comfortable flames in the fireplace but a controlled burn heading straight for the nape of your neck, then searing through your spine.
Outside, the rain falls gently. In “Self-portrait -after an Epidural,” the narrator admits they “only ever weep / when it is raining.” The sky’s tears above are no cover for the visceral ravage of bone and flesh this author lays bare.
Throughout Bone Water, Kelsey goes into her body with the surgeon’s “rapid hands” and “knives.” She stretches the reader as her spine has been painfully stretched and stressed over and over. It is unbearable, yet there is a vicious beauty in how she relates the ravages of her body. Her perspective is at once dissociated and visceral.
In “Kintsugi,” the narrator “offer[s]” their “broken body, time and time again.” Like the art form the poem is named after, all of these pieces speak to the necessity of constantly creating beauty in fractured spaces. “Everyday a new story …” (“Left Thigh”). This genre is the Art of Survival.
Kelsey won’t allow you off the operating table or out of bed. But she will gift you the wry absurd humor it takes to live artfully in a pain wracked or ill body. This is a vantage point that is too often invisible in this bustling world. Invisible — like many of us Painlings and chronically ill folx are or feel. These are deep seldom explored waters. And in this time of pandemic, when many who survive are left with lingering or permanent ailments, it’s time to dive in.
presence
Open Poetry Reading
Mar 6, 2022 2-4 PM
