BETWEEN C & D: New Writing from the Lower East Side Fiction Magazine

by Joel & Catherine Texier--Eds. Rose ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1988

The co-editors of Between C & D (Texier is also the author of a novel, Love Me Tender, 1986) select 25 stories from that gritty, street-inspired forum: tight, tough parables of life in the stark real world. A high point here is Gary Indiana's ""I Am Candy Jones,"" a hilarious send-up of a ""true confession"" in which a woman is convinced she's been brainwashed by her husband into thinking she's been brainwashed by the CIA (as proof, she recounts memories of bizarre missions as a hooker-assassin). Also notable are Barry Yourgrau's fake pastoral, ""Oak,"" in which a man gets trounced by a belligerent Bt) Peep while his mother cheers him on in backwoods gutter-lingo; and Bruce Benderson's ""A Visit from Mom,"" in which a young man deposits his mother at Port Authority and then drifts into a bar and trouble, all the while tenderly imagining Mom in her good wool suit traveling safely home. And editor Texier shows off fine, evocative writing in the fragment-style ""The Fedora,"" while Kathy Acker delivers a punch to the mind and groin in ""Male,"" a characteristically raw evocation of the hurt, wild part of her that could have been a pirate--a stark contrast to the modestly life-scale portrait of the writer as a young urbanite displayed in Peter Cherches' ""Dirty Windows,"" or the whimsical profile of a business type in Lee Eiferman's charming ""Summer Flying."" A contribution from Tama Janowitz, however, is sketchy and disappointing, and appears included for commercial purposes only. While a few of the stories indulge in sex and violence for blunt effect, the best use gritty material to classic avant-garde end, jolting but also reviving, full of wit, energy, and unsentimental hope. A good representation from today's literary underground.

Pub Date: April 5, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Penguin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1988

Categories: FICTION