Vanishing Act

Many things vanish in Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half, including an entire town in Louisiana. However, the plot revolves around twin sisters, Desiree and Stella Vignes, and how one of them (Stella) vanishes. Not through foul play but simply because she can. Actually they both vanish at first. One comes back after 14 years, but the other doesn’t. This is getting confusing. I better start over.

In Mallard, Louisiana, no one marries “dark”. The town’s founder was a freed slave who had a white father. He built a town for people like him – people “who would never be accepted as white but refused to be treated like Negroes.” After several generations the Mallard folks are light skinned. “But even here, where nobody married dark, you were still colored and that meant white men could kill you for refusing to die.” That’s what happened to the twins’ father. He was lynched when they were young children. They saw him dragged out of the house.

The story opens in 1968. The twins have been gone 14 years when Desiree walks into town pulling a 7 or 8 year old girl. The town is shocked because the child is not light skinned. She’s “midnight”. The twins had run away to New Orleans and found jobs, but then Stella realized how easy it was for her to pass as white. Soon after, she vanishes. Desiree eventually moves to Washington, D.C. and marries a physically-abusive man. They have a daughter, Jude. When Desiree concludes her husband is likely to kill her, she vanishes again – returning to Mallard with Jude.

Vanishing is not the same as escaping. “You can escape a town, but you cannot escape blood. Somehow, the Vignes twins believed themselves capable of both.” They were wrong.

Similarly, passing is not the same as being. “At first, passing seemed so simple . . . But she was young then. She hadn’t realized how long it takes to become somebody else, or how lonely it can be living in a world not meant for you.” The story spans several decades – from the 1950s to 1988, and eventually Stella does turn up. When she does, her past is waiting.

The story is an intriguing examination of what a person gives up when she decides to become someone else. Given the time’s overt racism, Stella’s highwire act has real risks. Which leaves the reader asking: considering everything she sacrifices, was “vanishing” worth it? It’s to Bennett’s credit that the reader struggles for an answer.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

On Reading Dylan Thomas Ad Infinitum and Reciting His Poem Ad Nauseam

When I was 22 (mere metaphorical minutes ago)
I thought Dylan Thomas was a social scientist
and I read his poem as a political manifesto.
I embraced it like Baptists do the Bible
and, like them, committed it to memory -
sharing my scholarship with, well, everyone -
never realizing that memorizing a poem
impressed no one but myself.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

Kissing Cousins

Despite what Prius driving, pious posing
virtue vigilantes may tell you
heritage and hate are not kissing cousins.

They do not share a liver 
like those conjoined twins -
unfair housing and workplace discrimination.

The truth is heritage detests hate
just as wasps despise Jews.

Heritage and hate are shackles
on entirely different whipping posts.

They are lynching trees located 
in separate parts of the park.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

Dead Lions: Worst Children’s Game Ever

Dead Lions is the second spy novel in Mick Herron’s Slough House series. The first one, Slow Horses, was a great romp about a small group of disgraced MI5 spies who get sent to Slough House. They’re given nothing to do, and the hope is they will simply quit. I thoroughly enjoyed Slow Horses, so I was prepared to be disappointed. You know, that sophomore slump thing. If you’ve seen the Indiana Jones movies, you understand. I didn’t need to worry. Dead Lions delivers though the ending is anti-climatic. The enemy’s ultimate goal doesn’t seem to justify the effort required. But it’s still a fun ride.

A middling spy from the Cold War era turns up dead on a bus near Oxford. Jackson Lamb, the head of Slough House, knew him from his Berlin days. He decides to investigate and finds the dead man’s cell phone hidden on the bus. An unsent message reads Cicadas, which refers to a myth about the Soviets planting undercover spies in England. These spies would fully assimilate and do nothing untoward for years or even decades until Moscow would finally give them an assignment that would devastate the country. Here’s the catch. MI5 long ago determined the Cicada program was a false flag. It only existed as a myth. But now there is this dead old spy on a bus. Slough House has a new assignment. And, remember, “When lions yawn, it doesn’t mean they’re tired. It means they’re waking up.”

Slow Horses and Dead Lions succeed because Jackson Lamb is a guilty pleasure. He’s a misanthrope who delights in denigrating . . . well, everyone. Lamb’s an HR nightmare. But he knows what he’s doing. “Lamb had done both field and desk, and he knew which had you gasping awake at the slightest noise in the dark. But he’d yet to meet a suit who didn’t think themselves a samurai.”

So is Lamb chasing a ghost or is the threat real? Well, here’s another animal reference for you. A black swan is a “totally unexpected event with a big impact. But one that seems predictable afterwards, with the benefit of hindsight.” Does that answer your question?

It was a “yes” or “no” question, so not really. But I have one more. Why call the novel Dead Lions? Several reasons, I suspect. The most explicit one is “Dead Lions” purports to be an English party game for children. “You have to pretend to be dead. Lie still. Do nothing.” At the game’s end, all hell breaks loose. Goodness, those English folks sure know how to have fun.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

Jelly in a Jar

Look at old Alabaster 
in all his power and glory
grasping his silver spoon 
in a palsied grip.

He knows the spoon holds power
and power is jelly in a jar.
If someone somehow gets a spoonful
it must have been taken from him

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

White Noise: Always There, Just Like Death and Commercials

In White Noise Don DeLillo notes “All plots tend to move deathward.” I’m not sure if he is surprised by this, but he shouldn’t be. All life moves deathward. So how can plots do otherwise?

Let’s put that question aside and simply agree that DeLillo in White Noise is obsessed with death. But Gladiola, white noise is my favorite noise. How can it be linked to death? Sorry, my friend, white noise is always there in the background. Just like death. And Jack (the narrator) can’t stop thinking about death. Even when he’s thinking with his penis, his penis is thinking about death. He chairs the Hitler Studies Department at a small college on the hill. Why Hitler? “Some people are larger than life. Hitler is larger than death.”

Jack is married to Babette, and they have a blended family with a child from their own marriage but also children from several prior marriages. Babette is taking some kind of medication that she refuses to admit she’s taking. Like Jack, she is terrified by death. Even when she’s thinking with her vagina . . . well, you get it. “We (humans) are the highest form of life on earth and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.” When a train accident happens on the edge of town, a deadly toxic cloud gets released. Jack is exposed to the poison, and his fear of death becomes all-consuming. The novel explores the reckless ways Jack and Babette try and fail to manage this intense fear.

Published in 1984, the novel also skewers consumerism and our culture’s reliance on television – a precursor of the internet and social media. “When TV didn’t fill them with rage, it scared them half to death.” And it touches on inequality and inequity. During the toxic event, Jack thinks “These things happen to poor people who live in exposed areas. Society is set up in such a way that it’s the poor and uneducated who suffer the main impact of natural and man-made disasters.” The novel succeeds best when it is focused on these themes. But back to death.

The lengths Babette and Jack go to calm their fear are hard to relate to. When they wonder why no one else is overwhelmed by the fear as they are, Jack acknowledges that “Some people are better at repressing it than others.” He’s wrong. Everyone is better at repressing it. They become the poster children for repression and denial being the correct strategy. And that’s good news for me because I repress and deny everything. So I must be healthy as hell.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

Grab Some Afternoon Delight

There’s a new trend affecting today’s children – especially teens. It’s an anti-social attitude and behavior that’s rather shocking. I am not the first to notice it, but I am probably the wisest to comment on it. This belligerent attitude is reflected in the music young people listen to. Bands like The Rolling Stones (I can’t get no satisfaction”), The Clash (“Let fury have the hour, anger can be power/Do you know that you can use it?”), and The Cure (“Let’s go to bed”). This music is beginning to change how young people interact with their superiors. But the music is a symptom of the real issue. These children and teens have too much free time.

Having elegantly explained the problem, I will now artfully bring you the solution. Repeal child labor laws. Instead of allowing these children to watch MTV all day on their personal handheld devices, let’s put them to work. Then they would be too tired to be anti-social. Who knows? Our youth may start listening to wholesome music again. Musicians like Starland Vocal Band (“Gonna find my baby, gonna hold her tight/Gonna grab some afternoon delight”), Sheena Easton (“My baby takes the morning train”), and whoever sang “God save the Queen/we mean it, man”).

While we’re at it. We should repeal minimum wage laws as well. We could hire a lot more children without those pesky laws. Plus, the government has no expertise in this arena. No one knows better than me and my business clients what your children are for and how much they’re worth.

Treacherous Gulp, Esquire – Counsel for Pungent Sound Technical College of Technology

The Power of Prayer

Sheer frustration and desperation
drove me to my knees, naked before the Lord -
certain I heard snickering somewhere.

But I persisted and prayed
for you to turn up on time,
not make simple mistakes,
or embarrass me before clients.

And you, who glued bumper stickers 
to your Prius proclaiming 
miracles happen every day -
you have made me an atheist
through the power of prayer.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief