The White Room
by ROBERT GADKEY Otis Covington uncrossed his legs and swiveled in the brown leather chair, sliding his worn athletic socks underneath the gray tanker desk. He wore a standard uniform: faded blue jeans...
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Walking the Dark Path: A Review of Chelsea Rathburn’s Still Life with Mother...
by JESSICA Q. STARK credit: LSU Press Chelsea Rathburn, Still Life with Mother and Knife (LSU Press, 2019), pp. 80 I read Chelsea Rathburn’s Still Life with Mother and Knife in the wake of my own new...
View ArticleLike Water
by B.J. Hollars Fifteen minutes into our first lesson at The Kung Pow School for Martial Arts, my daughter Joan and I struggle through the proper pronunciation of the word “karate.” “Ka-ra-te,” Sensei...
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Checking Into Hotel Swampland: A Review
by GEOVANI RAMÍREZ credit: Publication Studio Hudson Ian Felice, Hotel Swampland (Publication Studio Hudson, 2017), pp. 84 Ian Felice, like William Faulkner, has created in Hotel Swampland his own...
View ArticleDawning
by BRAD JOHNSON At night, my wife and I lie in bed like we’re stranded together in a wooden boat in the middle of the Atlantic afraid the dawn will deliver uprooted trees caught under the overpass,...
View ArticleEnough Wind, Enough Road
by KATARINA PALACIOS We swept the desert when my sister came to town. Broken glass, insect husks, casings, cigarettes, small bones…we swept it all away, behind the garage. There wasn’t much we could do...
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River of Fire: A Review
by MICHAEL MCGURK credit: New Directions Qurratulain Hyder, River of Fire (New Directions, 2019), pp. 448 “Human nature would never change, men would continue to hate and kill one another.” This...
View ArticleKey Cutter
by BRIAN DRUCKENMILLER Donning his glossy black tights with a purple stripe down each leg, Gill Grimshaw wound electrical tape around his arms to exaggerate his biceps. Through the streaks of the...
View ArticleGrace
by JOHN DUDEK If the angels of vengeance are generous, they will place in your hands some icon of a long former love. A favorite mug you can pitch to the hard floor of a dumpster, a claddagh ring to...
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Violent Dichotomies: A Review of Lima :: Limón
by DEBORAH BACHARACH credit: Copper Canyon Press Natalie Scenters-Zapico, Lima :: Limón (Copper Canyon Press, 2019), pp. 75 This review originally appeared in the Fall 2019 print issue of Carolina...
View ArticleThe Nuclear Deterrent
by JASON PECK “My suggestion was quite simple: Put that needed code in a little capsule, and then implant that capsule next to the heart of a volunteer … if ever the President wanted to fire nuclear...
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The Yellow House: A Review
by KATHARINE COLDIRON credit: Grove Atlantic Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House (Grove Atlantic, 2019), pp. 384 This review originally appeared in the Fall 2019 print issue of Carolina Quarterly. The...
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The Low Harm Art: A Review of As One Fire Consumes Another
credit: Orison Books John Sibley Williams, As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Books, 2019), pp. 86 Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher who thought that the world begins and ends in fire, also...
View ArticleYOLO
by BRANDON CLIPPINGER Evie shifted her feet in the scorched grass, then switched her pocketbook from the crook of one elbow to the other. The complex was so quiet. But then again, who would want to...
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The Errancy of Keeping Time: Review of Stefania Heim’s Hour Book
by JESSICA Q. STARK credit: Ahsahta Press Stefania Heim, Hour Book (Ahsahta Press, 2019), pp. 80 This review originally appeared in the Fall 2019 print issue of Carolina Quarterly. Someone funny once...
View ArticleSweetblood
by Bridget Apfeld It was summer, the ugly stretch of August. White days of heat. Every night banks of thunderheads gathered on the Atlantic, and heat lightning split the Carolina pines straight down...
View ArticleWishing on Tunnels
by Emry Trantham I still hold my breath going through the dark of a tunnel, through a mountain somebody’s granddaddy blasted hollow so as to make space for this black and yellow asphalt trail. The dark...
View ArticleDeirdre
by ANNE HOSANSKY “My father jumped out of a window.” Those were the first words I heard from her. We were standing in the schoolyard when she said that. She was a new girl in my class, kind of...
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Though I Get Home: A Review
by QUENTIN BOUVIER credit: Feminist Press YZ Chin, Though I Get Home (Feminist Press, 2018), pp. 224 “‘Do you miss home?’ Americans would sometimes ask Howie Ho. After years of the same question he...
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When the Going Gets Tough, Dead Men’s Trousers Gets Going: A Review
by JOSH HEAPS credit: Vintage Books Irvine Welsh, Dead Men’s Trousers, (Vintage, 2019), pp. 432 This review originally appeared in the Winter 2020 print issue of Carolina Quarterly. For twenty-five...
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