Diet Soap #2

Welcome to the second issue of Diet Soap magazine, which has the theme of “sex and gender.” It begins with “Dream Date” by Chelsea Martin, which may be only three pages long, but leaves an impression that’s disproportionate to its length. A (largely) present-tense, second-person narrative voice addresses the female protagonist as she embarks on a relationship seemingly hooked on the superficial (”You send him a text message explaining why you are sending him a text message”) and leaves her cast out of that same relationship by the man, unsure exactly how it happened. Martin’s prose has a similar effect on the reader: disorientating views of otherwise quite ordinary events give a sense of a story that happens somewhat “out of view,” even as we watch.

Katherine Sparrow’s “Be the Bomb You Throw” first appeared in Farah Mendlesohn’s 2007 anthology Glorifying Terrorism, and, for quite some time whilst reading it, I wondered how far it really belonged in a publication themed on sex and gender. I understood the connection by the end, but am still not sure that the tale actually says much about the subject of this issue of the magazine—come to that, I’m not sure it says much in general that hasn’t already been said elsewhere. It follows Theo, a student who’s seeing one of his tutors, Lilly. She gives Theo an illegal book called The Art of Sabotage, and he finds himself drawn in unwittingly to Lilly’s circle, who plan to protest against continued human impact on the planet in a rather visible way. There is some bite to Sparrow’s satire (such as the notion that “the right to know what everyone else is reading” might become thought of as “one of the basic freedoms”), but, on the whole, her depiction of the activities and thought processes of Lilly’s group comes across more as a means of generating plot twists rather than an attempt to pass comment through the fiction. “Be the Bomb You Throw” works as a story because the twists and prose are effective, but it’s less satisfying as an issue-led piece.

I guess it’s not entirely fair to compare individual stories with each other, but Ginnetta Correli’s “Peach” has a number of characteristics that made me think back to “Dream Date.” It’s three pages in length, structured in short sections with headings, and told in a rather oblique style; less superficially, it depicts a woman being left behind in love and life, while all the action is happening to other people. The woman in question is Beatie Scareli, who lives with her friend, Peach, and Peach’s boyfriend, Osama (it’s those two who get all the action). Beatie starts off leaving home full of optimism, with “the beat of sex on the car stereo and the smell of virgin perfume on my skin,” but ends up a “middle aged woman who watches the episodes of [her] past on her television.” Still, there is an implication that Peach isn’t having the best life she could, either. Giving in to that pesky urge to compare, “Peach” doesn’t quite have the same impact as “Dream Date,” but it’s an effective portrait all the same.

“Stitching Time” by Stephanie Burgis is set against the harsh background of Northern Michigan in winter in a community of farmers and their East-Coast “mail-order brides.” It is common for some of the latter to “go mad” with the isolation (whether this is genuine insanity or a euphemism for using the imagination too much is irrelevant to the community); they are then sent to Dr. Horace Grace’s asylum for “treatment.” The story follows Martha Ann, who survives two seasons in the asylum, and her friend, Ellen.

What is striking about Burgis’s piece is how it communicates so much whilst saying relatively little: the stifling loneliness of the women’s existence is encapsulated in just a few lines (”In a three-room farmhouse, there is nowhere to go, except inside yourself”), and there is very little actual detail of what goes on in Grace’s asylum—yet Burgis brings home the horror of the place in full. But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the story is its timeless quality; though presumably it takes place in the past (I don’t know if the events of “Stitching Time” have roots in historical reality—though, unfortunately, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did), there is a sense that this situation, or one similar, could arise all too easily in the future—or even in the present, if we don’t watch out.

The final story in the magazine is “The Growns” by Maxwell James, which I’m not sure I fully grasped. If I read the tale correctly, gender has split three ways: females are called “Heads,” and there are two classes of male—the Alphas, who hold onto their feelings and personalities and constantly try to impress the Heads, and the Growns, who’ve rejected all that stuff and remain aloof, “[doing} nothing but what had to be done.” As the story begins, a boy who wants desperately to become a Grown encounters one and discovers that the Grown’s large body is actually a shell, with another boy inside. I think that James’s story is intended as a comment on masculinity, but, since I’m not sure I’ve understood what’s happening, I’m also unsure exactly what the piece is trying to say. Still, the background is intriguing enough that “The Growns” remains an interesting read.

Diet Soap’s website—and, indeed, the magazine itself—suggest that it’s meant as a provocative publication. Well, I have to admit that I didn’t find issue #2 to be quite that; but it does have some good stories that make telling points about the subject of sex and gender. It may not be as provocative as it hopes to be, but it is thought-provoking.