Farrago’s Wainscot IV

Issue 4 of Farrago’s Wainscot contains five stories. Two are reprints, one’s an excerpt, and two are original. As Farrago’s is “an exhibition of the weirds,” one expects unconventionality to rule. But some of the stories left me feeling like an anime character with huge question marks hovering above my head.

Timothy S. Miller’s “The Miraculous Nature of Everything” starts off with a mother taking her sick child to the hospital and ends up being a ride through the mind of a very weird and more than slightly sexist man. There’s no good way to describe this story as it works hard at being indescribable beyond the generalities. Unfortunately, the story also lacks a center or anything concrete to ground the reader. I found it hard to care about or connect with the narrator or his girlfriend.

I had a similar reaction to “Clover” by Forrest Aguirre, but at least felt that this story had something I could grab onto. When I reached the end, I felt very “Um… so?” Obviously, there’s a commentary here about the tension between belonging to a supportive, if suffocating, small community and wanting to escape into a wider world. As in most cases, the old long for days past, and the young either blow off golden age nostalgia or succumb to it. But the story’s strong middle can’t fully make up for the weaker beginning and ending.

Michael Jasper’s “Gunning for the Buddha” is still as great as it was when I first read it.

I particularly enjoy fiction that masquerades as something else. In the case of “Notes on the Necromantic Symphony,” the story pretends to be program notes. There are many ways in which this kind of device can go wrong. Luckily, Yoon Ha Lee has the skill to pull it off. “Notes” illuminates a sliver of a multi-layered world but doesn’t leave the reader feeling as if the story is unfinished or that the author is hiding more than she’s revealing. Certainly there’s more to this world, but the story is done and that’s all the reader cares about. “Notes” is by far my favorite offering in this issue, followed by Jenn Reese’s “Memree.”

“Memree” is also a reprint, but definitely worth a read if you haven’t seen it already. A beautiful little story that takes place in a strange little world where some girls die with their first periods and others are left to remember them. “Memree” is sweet (without being precious) and haunting and left me feeling a mixture of sadness and hope.