Author Archives: singmane

Review: The Urg

Constance Renfrow’s The Urg was worthy of the 2019 Best of the Net prize because of its raw realism—“We were nine, and Carrie and I had sworn to be best friends forever, an oath we marked by spending most afternoons at her house, […] The Burkes had the more exciting property, the better snacks, and also a pool. […] The refrain I would mishear for years: Kiss me baby one more time. […] Jenn looking like she’d merged with the doorframe, her long pink towel the same shade as the paint and her cheeks. […] I thought of Jenn, then and now, as the prettiest real[-]life person I’d ever seen; she knew how to French braid hair and glide down the precariously steep driveway on rollerblades. And, when we were really little, she’d give me and Carrie piggyback rides all over the house, bouncing us from wall to distant wall. […] I was always ravenous by the time Carrie and I, our best friendship discarded, nodded goodbye at the cul-de-sac bus stop. […] He’d started Weight Watchers over the summer […] Three little red numbers, which, when spoken aloud, I thought [my parents would] find admirable. ‘If you could be any age for all time, what would it be?’ […] boulders on the hill arranged like a stage and seating. […] Jenn slapped her hand against the side of the pool, gasping, ‘Forty.’” (Renfrow, Porter House Review), brilliant verbiage—“forming two pigtails as impermanent as the girls dancing across the screen. […] Jenn monopolizing the bathroom, […] the warm damp of the terrycloth brushing my cheek as I passed. […] noodles coiled around my fork, thin and waterlogged. […] kicked off his shoes, and padded to the fridge. The seal gasped open, […] muscles contorted at grotesque angles. […] When I stood and threw the arrow[,] the skeleton did seem lighter, almost satin-like, as though some great weight had suddenly risen”, and calling attention to the timely topic of body image—”sliding his hand down the slight curve of his stomach […] He’d started Weight Watchers over the summer […] Three little red numbers, which, when spoken aloud, I thought [my parents would] find admirable. […] ‘Yeah, well, we can’t all be stick figures like you.’ […] My mom at twenty-four weighed less than me at fourteen. […] ‘Just light-headed,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m fine, Mom. I’ll be okay.’ There would be other collapses, other spells that wouldn’t be blamed on hot water, low iron. […] ‘Please don’t let what happened to Jenn Burke happen to you’” (Renfrow, Porter House Review), and the ever-present Urg, cleverly intertwined with the plot—“The Urg took over Carrie’s basement that same summer Britney Spears took over the airwaves. […] New and fresh and no place for monsters to hide. […] the Urg starved and wheezed, shuddered and heave.” (Renfrow, Porter House Review) Perhaps the Urg referred the grumbling of an undernourished alimentary canal. The amount of nuance that Renfrow takes the time to include is beautiful, because it lets the reader close her/his eyes while reading and have a scene set for her/him to puzzle together in the mind’s eye.

Reference List:

Renfrow, C. (February 25). The Urg. Porter House Review. Retrieved September 10, 2020, from https://porterhousereview.org/articles/the-urg-by-constance-renfrow/

Purple Swamp Hen

Penelope Lively’s The Purple Swamp Hen introduces the reader to, as the title implies, a purple swamp hen sets the Pompeiian stage by introducing himself to the reader using “taxonomy and Latin binomials” before launching into a proud description of how Porphyrio porphyrio porphyrio is “the nominate subspecies” (p. 1). Akin to a proud tour guide who deeply loves his vocation, Purple Swamp Hen guides the reader to his proud spot on a Pompeiian fresco; his image so often overlooked, precisely because he does not receive the recognition he knows he deserves. Mr. Purple Swamp Hen proceeds to slip his wing into the reader’s hand and guide her/him into the fresco, where Purple Swamp Hen guides the reader on a tour of the Pompeiian garden and what that garden has seen of Pompeiians, especially “Quintus Pompeius, his household and his associates” (p. 2). Oh, to be a fly on the wall (read: Oh, to be a Purple Swamp Hen in the garden)…After a narration of what Purple Swamp Hen heard and saw of Pompeiian humans–immorality, slave girl Servilia’s degrading work, Quintus’s volatile temper, Purple Swamp Hen is honest about his overall confusion regarding the sect of humanity witnessed in Pompeii; not necessarily fascinated confusion, and more often “raised-eyebrow” confusion. Purple Swamp Hen shows interest in Servilia, because, while the Pompeius children played roughly with Purple Swamp Hen, Servilia berated them for their choice of toy and freed Purple Swamp Hen. Servilia’s human heart and Purple Swamp Hen’s avian heart understood without dialogue. Servilia did not face charges for her deed, and Purple Swamp Hen explains why he is worth protecting; Purple Swamp Hens “[do not] breed easily”, so in order to continue on Planet Earth, Purple Swamp Hens need any protection they can get (p. 6). Purple Swamp Hen describes a sumptuous, opulent feast, culminating in Quintus put out of humor, to put it mildly. Purple Swamp Hen describes an earthquake heralding the Vesuvian eruption, everybody’s distaste for earthquakes, and the steps he takes to ensure his human ally, Servilia, would hopefully be delivered from the volcano’s blistering grip. Purple Swamp Hen and his mate culminate the tour by taking the reader on a flight to their new home, “a good marshy place, […] the kind of habitat appropriate to Porphyrio porphyrio” (p. 9).

Reference List:

Lively, P. (2016). The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories. New York, NY: Viking