cover image Memory Wax

Memory Wax

Alan Singer. F2c, $11.95 (142pp) ISBN 978-1-57366-013-6

The newest novel from Singer, literary critic and author of The Ox-Breadth and The Charnel Imp, is full of well-turned phrases and strikingly subtle sentences that make it a beautiful exercise in description. Unfortunately, that is all it is. In it, Singer details the story of Delta Tells, gypsy-esque midwife and spouse of Brainard Tells, wayward husband extraordinaire. The opening lines, perhaps the only straightforward prose in the book, recount how Delta, in a calculated act of revenge, serves a carefully prepared meal, then tells her husband he has eaten his own newborn child. After this incident, entire pages are devoted to defecation, regurgitation, and all the other biological functions that inevitably follow. If the writing is gruesomely exquisite, the book is nonetheless disappointing. It epitomizes ""prosaic,"" and all its metaphors and highly descriptive passages serve no purpose except to mask a shallow tale. The unrelenting broidery that sacrifices everything to the belle phrase will make one appreciate the simplicity of the blunt. Readers will come away thinking that Singer's name is worth remembering, even if Memory Wax is not.(May)