Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter is a novel in verse about a father and two sons dealing with the death of their mother. Quickly after the mother’s death from a fall, the family is visited by a magical crow, which acts as a physical manifestation of their grief. Sometimes it plays tricks on the boys or saves them from a demon, always looking after the family while the mother’s death looms large. Eventually, the father calls the boys out sick from school and they go to a beach to scatter the mother’s ashes.
 
Porter notes Feathers is a novel, though it is formatted closer to a poetry collection. Voices from the boys, the father, and the crow are woven through each other in verse-like stanzas. Though, the attention to line breaks doesn’t feel as attentive as some of the language which is piercing. For example, on one of the excerpts of the boys’ perspective, they question why there isn’t more commotion when their father reveals their mother is dead, “Where are the fire engines? Where is the/noise and clamour of an event like this?/Where are the strangers going out of their/way to help…”. In this way, what the boys are led to believe about death is false. It is not a cataclysm. It’s not an apocalypse. It’s a silence. Which is what this piece does so well: showing the emptiness, the holes of grief which fill with mythical creatures. Though I’m not particularly convinced it’s a novel through its formatting, which reads more like pseudo-poetry. However, all that being said, for its brevity it conveys the father’s grief well.
 
Final Rating: 3.5/5​

​Almost Like Being in Love by Steve Kluger is a novel told through journal entries, letters, narratives, and other found documents about the budding love of Travis and Craig. They’d met in 1978 as seniors in high school when Craig was a baseball player and Travis had pined for him. They fall for each other so by the time school ends, they find an apartment in New York City together before both departing for college on different sides of the US. Travis goes to USC to study history, while Craig goes to Harvard for law. The narrative fast-forwards to twenty years in the future where Travis is teaching how baseball and US history intertwine while failing at finding the one. Craig at this point has been dating a hardware store owner, Clayton, for 13 years while also being an attorney. Travis begins to think about their magical summer together so decides to look for Craig, eventually turning up at Craig’s mother’s practice as a gynecologist. As Travis hitchhikes, he meets a woman named AJ in St Louis who falls in love with Gordo, Travis’s straight roommate, while driving Travis to Craig. Travis finally meets up with Clayton when the couple is on the rocks because Craig is debating whether to run for Assembly or not. Travis convinces Clayton to let Craig do what he wants, though Travis is heartbroken that his true love isn’t single and is holding onto a ring Clayton gave him. All the while, Craig is representing a custody case which eventually turns in his favor. Travis meets Craig at a restaurant and while they don’t get together then, the narrative fast-forwards another six years. By that time, Craig is a congressman, Travis is a famous author, AJ and Gordo are together, and Clayton has found someone else. So in the end, Travis and Craig are back together and happy.
 
Kluger, in addition to the unique way he presents the narrative, is funny in this novel. He has a lot of zingers, fun little fights between Travis and Craig, and makes a love story in which I wanted all three of them to be together. The one little gripe I had was that it felt like Clayton’s departure was glossed over. And while it was apparent Craig and Clayton had a rocky relationship when Craig wanted to run for Assembly, I would’ve expected a little more discussion on the matter. Though, in the end Travis and Craig are what matter. A delightful read.
 
Final Rating: 4.5/5

​Story Issue 21 is a collection of stories which feature characters in weird, sometimes titillating parts of their lives. In ‘Family Travel’ by Grace Chao, a father’s fear of flying forces a family travel onto a train which kills another family. In ‘Neon Genesis’ by Robert Ren, a man begins to receive emails from his old college roommate about a current life, thus becoming so obsessed the man arrives at his old roommate’s doorstep. And my favorite story of the collection is ‘Naked Man’ by Max Kruger-Dull which is about a stage actor who sends videos of himself naked to a man on the internet named TT while also having a role in a play where he becomes naked.
 
Final Rating: 3.5/5