Rainbow Reviews

BOOK BLURB:
Dreams, desire, darkened streets and the sudden miracles that appear there, the deep places of the mind. Two groups made these the heart of a radical project of liberation: queers and surrealism.

Better than many others, queers understand the power of these dark areas. The rich, complicated culture we’ve created for ourselves is constantly ready to allow us to follow our dreams and fantasies, carried by the surging waves of sexuality into some pretty and magical places. It’s just as clear that the surrealists were chasing similar adventures as far back as the ‘Twenties and ‘Thirties. Given the similarity of their motivations, why have the two so often been in violent opposition to each other?

Madder Love is an anthology of cutting-edge writing that wants to look at that a little closer. It opens up the surreal possibilities of queer literature while simultaneously displacing the historic homophobia of Surrealism.

From dream states to erotic obsessions, from the muttering of the unconscious to parallel worlds (and the weirder cracks in this one) Madder Love tackles why surrealism can be so queer, and why being queer can be so surreal.

BOOK REVIEW:
Peter Dube's introductory essay makes a powerful case for bringing together historically homophobic surrealism and contemporary queer writing, a case championed by the stories in this collection. I must confess that there was more than one piece in the anthology that left me with flashbacks to drama student performance art, but having said that, the overall quality is very high.

As with any anthology, there are bound to be some stories that appeal more than others to any single reader, and I think this particular collection is ideally suited to the 'hit and run' method. You may need to give yourself permission to skip the odd story that does nothing for you. But, more than that, I found that I needed breathing space between the stories that I enjoyed the most, to give the ideas room to breath, to settle into your brain.

For me, some stories, like Rome Adventures, were a bit like a shot of lemoncello home brew ~ a single strong taste, and not really to my taste ~ whereas the ones I really enjoyed were more like a snifter of a really good brandy ~ worth taking the time to swirl around in the glass to let all the different layers and notes unfold.

Some of the stories that stood out for me as responding to that treatment? Epidemic, which threads together narrative fragments with the lyrical certainty of a dream. Dim Star Described which is a beautiful pitch-perfect literary urban fantasy. Five Views of Mt. Fuji, a series of layered sketches that draws the reader in. Yolk, which is short, and rich, and physical, and glowing, like the rich gold of a Renaissance egg tempera painting. The Magus Club, which I almost didn't want to let settle into my mind, because it's genuinely creepy.

Overall, this is a well balanced collection, showcasing some vivid and unusual writing; a collection I recommend dipping into.

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