cover image Thirteen Fugues

Thirteen Fugues

Jennifer Natalya Fink. Dark Coast (IPS, dist.), $13.95 trade paper (121p) ISBN 978-0-9844288-1-6

The 13 darkly comic pieces enclosed in Fink's fragmented tale represent a movement in narrator Tanya's life. Tanya begins by describing, with vivid, poetic language, the incestuous and sadomasochistic games she played with her sister Jane in their youth: "She imagines herself skinned and tanned and stretched around Jane like a shawl." A section called "Camp" recalls the repeated vandalism of the Jewish summer camp run by Tanya's grandparents. The supporting cast of characters includes Mike Silverstein, a young Jewish Studies instructor who frequently asks his student inappropriate questions about rape, and Mr. Kornblatt, a Holocaust survivor who obsessively photographs teenaged Tanya's musical performances. Jewish identity, and Jewish guilt emerge as major themes, the latter made explicit when Tanya recalls a tour of Germany in which she lusts after a man and realizes "my fantasies always land me in the concentration camps." Reading Fink (Burn) is like having access to the subconscious mind of a stranger who may well be mad. Part of you may not want to listen, but the desire to know what comes next is too strong. (May)