Note: This reviewer will not touch upon her own story in this review. Rather, I will focus on the efforts of my fellow contributors, whose work still crosses over into that literary border from time to time.
About a year ago, I wrote a review of Swill 4. I was delighted with the content. On the current issue’s cover, Matt DiGangi says, ” Swill is what I always thought underground literature should look like” and I agree. Swill is dangerously close to literature.
That said, this issue of Swill is different than its most recent predecessor. Oh, it’s still disturbing bothersome stuff, sort of like a punk album at 78 RPM, but this time the world of the internal is where the magazine spends most of its time. Number 4 played with the outside world. Number 5 plays with the mind. Eight of the eleven stories in this issue are told from a first person perspective. The remaining three stories play their narration on an internal note. The narrators are not all unlikeable, but they are certainly twisted.
It would be hard to pick a favorite piece. Sean Craven’s brutal Jimmy’s Confession scans as torture for a good cause. You realize you sort of approve of the hero’s actions while you wince at him for his violence and at yourself for your approval. Chia Ever’s very dark The Quiet Type is an x-rated Poe with an Evers-eque twist at the end.
In Janine, Warren Lutz comes closest to delivering a straight literary piece. The characters in his story are neo-Flannery O’Conner. They seem grotesque caricatures, but I know better. There were people like this in my town. Rob Pierce visits the world of the relationship as well. While the exterior details of the conflict in Stomach Punches could be rendered a little more clearly for the reader’s reference, the heart felt emotion of the combatants pulls the reader toward the situational end in a naturalistic way.
Three stories: Remind Me to Show You Your Face by Elizabeth Eslami, The Weight of Fall by Wendy Summer Winter, and By Himself by Allison Landa pull us into the emotional upheaval of three very different women. We are placed in the uncomfortable mind of the unreliable narrator, and we are uncertain about where the story ends. Certainly, it’s not where the text stops.
Swill gets surreal in Son of a Goat by Jasmine Paul, which is chock full of archetypes and realizations, and
Hands-down my favorite for this issue is Z.Z. Boone’s Unmoving, in which a high school girl employs her considerable intellect in solving a family problem. It goes beyond the usual expectation into the weird and corrupt and delivers a surprise twist that I didn’t see coming, although I should have. It’s smooth and goes down easy.
So, you may say, “Catherine, where can I get my dose of existential weirdness about the corrupt nature of humanity? I say right here, my friend. It’s an uncomfortable read, but it’s a good read. You won’t enjoy it, but you’ll appreciate it. Which I think is the point.
Catherine
I’ll touch on your story.
Catherine Schaff-Stump’s “Crystal Eyes” drags the reader into a whirlpool of addiction and sorrow and guilt. The story is tightly focused on a small slice of time – about four beers’ worth, but it encompasses a family’s worth of tragedy.
Thanks to you, now readers know the entire contents. 🙂
Catherine