ChiZine #34, October-December 2007

I’ve found I especially enjoy writing reviews for e-zines, for the simple reason that if a review catches a reader’s attention, she can click right over and read the story for herself. Happily, issue #34 of ChiZine provides a couple of stories I’m more than happy to link folks to.

First up, “Longtime Gone” by Kurt Dinan is a horrible, horrible story. I adore horrible, horrible stories. Not the ones horribly written, of course, but rather stories about truly horrible things. In this case, “Longtime Gone” is about the parent of a missing child, and after reading it, it’s hard to think of anything more horrible than that—the helplessness, the dread, the hopeless, desperate hope. A poor depiction of such themes is cheap melodrama, but “Longtime Gone,” constructed of short, intimate scenes tracing the year following Molly’s disappearance, gets it right. It manages to evoke a taste of this pain—immense and unimaginable, yet we read about new cases again and again in the daily papers—and that makes for a powerful story.

As the story progresses, “Longtime Gone” also becomes horrible in another way—the kind of horrible where you feel a wrench in your gut because you see what’s going to happen next and you start squirming in your seat. You anticipate how bad it’s going to be and can’t wait to see it happen. The plot structure will seem familiar and obvious once you’ve read it, but it’s a very difficult one to pull off convincingly without seeming forced. Here, too, Dinan comes through for us—not flawlessly, as he can’t quite make us forget the familiarity of the formula, but admirably, which is plenty good enough for this reader.

The story is well reinforced by excerpts of advice from the fictional Survival Guide for Parents of Missing Children and by the inclusion of relevant (and all-too-accurate) statistics, which contribute to making the grief and emotions very real and very chilling.

“Hatchie Bottom” by Barry Hollander revolves around the enigmatic discovery of a white girl who is found hanged from a tree by the river and constitutes an exemplary piece of storytelling. While the girl’s identity remains a mystery, an intimate and disturbing link is made between her and a small number of white townspeople—and also with Caleb Johnson, the black man in the boat that found the girl and our story’s protagonist. “Hatchie Bottom” follows how Caleb and others cope with their eerie discoveries, bringing us to the climax, which weaves the true nature of the hanged girl together with Caleb’s character and life.

Particularly of note are the beautiful choice and careful construction of the protagonist. Caleb’s character naturally balances at precisely the right distance from the white community of Jessup; at the story’s opening, his fear of retribution for the white girl’s death gives us immediate tension that carries us easily into the thick of it. Later on, as an outsider, he has the freedom to do things the white townspeople can’t, or wouldn’t think to. All this combines to present Caleb as a character who is unique, intriguing, and driven, and all the different elements click into place naturally and effortlessly. There is no hint of contrivance or fiat from on high; story and character seem to propel themselves forward with a power of their own.

Other storytelling elements are also very well done. Secondary characters have their flaws, but not excessively so; they are easy to believe in and feel for, not convenient caricatures. Pacing is never slack, introspection and emotion are well-presented, and the ending is resonant and satisfying. Highly recommended.

Closing the issue is Alex Wilson’s “Shooting Dogs For Fun And Profit,” depicting two thugs disposing of a pair of dead bodies. It turns out not to be a fun night for Greg, who’s in a tense situation with an annoying, over-talkative partner and two corpses who start giving him lip. This story didn’t really work for me—less due to anything particularly wrong with it, and more due to its failing to do anything particularly right. The story never quite comes into focus: Are we supposed to be chilled at the sight of a corpse mocking her killer? Or are we meant to be gripped by the personal drama and the connections between the characters? Or should we just be amused by the constant banter and the absurd situation? All these elements are present, and yet nothing is really made of them.

Between the title of the piece and Greg’s partner’s mindless chattering, “Shooting Dogs For Fun And Profit” certainly seems intent on macabre comedy. But since the partner is portrayed as inane rather than amusing, not only do we find very little that’s actually funny, his constant rambling makes it difficult to take the rest of the story seriously. To this, add the screenplay-like prose—consisting entirely of dialogue and stage directions—and it is clear why the actual events taking place and the reader’s discovery of the underlying drama seem to carry no weight. Twists and turns are accepted without raising an eyebrow, and near-forgotten at the next one-liner. Without any depth to our protagonist, we have no solid anchor for the absurd situation, so the story comes across as just a silly, simple amusement, making it hard to take note of the sharpness and fire it touches upon.

Ziv’s Final Tally:
Stories: 3
Use of Statistics: Yes
Use of Historical Era and Setting: Yes
Use of Brad Pitt’s Dimples: Yes
Intention of Reviewer to Follow Future Issues of This Magazine: Hell, Yes