In the Shade of Time
By Qween Wicks (’99, ’03)
[PublishAmerica, 2004. 177 pages, $19.95 paperback]
reviewed by Kristin Scott (’04)
 
Shortly after the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Charlie Wilson leaves Meaningful, Mississippi with his pregnant wife, Sarah, and their two boys, Daniel and Joseph. They head to Chicago, seeking prosperity in a new world full of old traditions—one that will deny their recently acquired freedom and forbid their shared future. Shortly into the trip, along an obscure dirt road, “the haunting sound of voices” portends the first of many harrowing scenes of cruelty at the hands of overseers out on a kidnapping spree:

“Please, mister, don’t hurt him,” Daniel moaned.
                        
Sarah and her boys huddled near the overturned wagon watching in utter disbelief . . . [the overseer] beat Charlie repeatedly . . . until the skin tore away from his bones.

Those not killed on the spot are delivered to John Rucker, owner of Cedar Hills Estate, where recently captured Negroes are “crops” to be slaughtered “like dogs” in private hunting games and children are target practice. In the meantime, they all become slaves (again), rape victims, and the weak and dying are thrown into the pens as “hog slop.”
 
If you found that hard to read, this book is not for you. Wicks’s prose is beautifully crafted, rich in its invocation of common speech and the folkloric tradition of storytelling, but it is not sentimental. Indeed, the author delivers such scenes with piercing intensity, echoing how the whip itself must have descended upon the bodies of those she represents.
 
Wicks’s “fiction” actually reflects the sociopolitical realities of late nineteenth-century America, when the freeing of slaves bred fear, and fear gave rise to the Jim Crow era, the Ku Klux Klan, and, some would say, the most brutal period of African American history. And yet, in the midst of such horrendous events, her characters nevertheless navigate the challenges of their lives with a resilience and grace that is both intimate and compelling.
 
The novel, like most, has its flaws. Primarily, it provides a reminder for self-publishers: minor grammatical errors are mere bumps in the road and easily forgettable; but beware of potholes, like characters killed off who then resurrect briefly in a missed cut-and-paste. Despite these few self-editorial faux pas, and later sections of the novel that hasten us too quickly toward the end and feel a tad breathless, Wicks creates a memorable and authentic tale that is both informative and engaging.  

Qween Wicks (’99, ’03) earned a B.A., M.F.A., and M.A. in creative writing from Columbia, where she is part-time faculty in the English department. She is also artist in residence at Jenner Academy through Columbia’s Project AIM. Kristin Scott (’04) teaches creative non-fiction and literature in the English department. She holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from Columbia and an A.M. in interdisciplinary studies from the University of Chicago. Her work has been published in the University of Chicago Magazine, South Loop Review, NewCity, and Loop Hole.

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The Crazy Colored Sky and Other Tales
By Kevin James Miller (’82)
[Silver Lake, 2005. 128 pages, $11.95 paperback]
reviewed by Elizabeth Burke-Dain

Kevin James Miller’s The Crazy Colored Sky and Other Tales is more than crazy, it’s downright kooky. The most compelling story, “Sex Killer for God,” beguiles us with its title and leads us through a short maze where we quickly find the cheese. It seems that Michael, the protagonist, gets a bit of pleasure “down between his legs” when he kills in the service of the Lord.

Michael is a hired gun employed by “the organization,” a group formed by “a U.S. Senator, a Baptists minister, and a publishing millionaire” to eliminate “unholy scum.” But after admitting to himself how much he wanted “to lie with Diana,” his former girlfriend, “despite her not being devoted enough to the Lord,” Michael realizes that the only way for him to get satisfaction with a woman is to kill her. He finds killing women who remind him of Diana particularly satisfying. It feels “like lying with a woman who he had married in the Lord’s name.” He begins to kill “without the blessing of the organization.”

Miller’s metaphorical flourishes are especially striking. In one instance, Michael is in a Mexican border town where he contemplates “crossing over to another country to continue his good work there.” The TV news is covering the heinous crimes he himself has committed, quoting a doctor who describes the killer’s murderous efficiency as that of “a cherished employee in an office environment who has everything in his ‘in’ basket done by 5 p.m.”

When Michael is propositioned by a “sodomite” at a late-night coffee shop, it turns out to be God—in the guise of a red-haired, pony-tailed stranger. “Could you use a little loving, right about now? You know, nobody knows how to love a man like another man,” says God.

Michael, unaware that he’s in the presence of the Lord, decides to play along, then kill the sodomite with a drapery cord. However, when they get to the man’s motel room, God asks some penetrating questions. “Do you remember when you prayed as a little boy?” He reminds Michael of his prayers for his “little dog, Tippy, and Uncle Phil . . . and Miss Jenkins from the second grade who always looked so lonely.”

Flabbergasted, Michael pulls his pistol, ready to kill the loving bejesus out of this guy. The red-haired man (God) reveals smooth palms that suddenly flicker with bloody stigmata wounds. It’s a shocker. It’s so shocking to Michael that he pumps some lead into God, but does God die? No, he just sits there smiling, and tells Michael that he’s “become a problem I have to take care of.”

And boom! Michael feels “his soul ripped out of his mortal body, and then borne gently to Hell.”

This would-be cult classic deserves to be part of your library. While I have focused on “Sex Killer for God,” Miller’s other stories are equally engaging. With titles like “A Castle Grows in a Convenience Store Parking Lot,” “The Family Demon,” and “A Fate Worse than Beauty,” and an inscription that reads, “To Joyce, from all three of me,” how could you go wrong?

Kevin James Miller (’82) has published more than 70 stories and poems in the horror, science fiction, fantasy, and crime genres. Elizabeth Burke-Dain is an artist and writer who works in the Media Relations department at Columbia.

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Technophobia: Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology
By Dan Dinello
[University of Texas Press, 2006. 275 pages, $24.95 paperback]
reviewed by Stuart Luman

In the twenty-first century, the implications of cloning, nanotechnology, and virtual reality are hotly debated topics. Yet modern humans can learn much about their current world from the fantasies of science fiction, writes Columbia College film professor Dan Dinello in his first book, Technophobia: Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology.

This ambitious critique, which came out of Dinello’s research for a class he taught on science fiction in 2000, goes after specific technologies chapter by chapter, from robotics to artificial intelligence, virtual reality, biotechnology, nanotech, and genetic engineering. Dinello, who besides being a professor is a filmmaker, television director, and writer, explores groups such as the Extropians, self-proclaimed posthumanists who dream of defeating death through technology.

The Extropians are awaiting a techno-apocalypse they call the Singularity, when the pace of technological and scientific innovation accelerates to a speed that simple biological humans can no longer understand, allowing intelligent machines to inherit the earth.

Dinello’s investigation goes beyond pie-in-the-sky dreamers, however, delving into the military-industrial complex that gave rise to the now-ubiquitous technologies of our modern world, including the Internet and personal computers. Technology is not a simple tool for good or for evil, he writes; it’s got its own agenda:

“Like a virus, technology autonomously insinuates itself into human life and, to ensure its survival and dominance, malignantly manipulates the minds and behavior of humans.” Sounds fantastic, but there’s nothing new about these seemingly trendy ideas, and Dinello is the first to admit it. Western philosophy and religion have been devaluing the body and the natural world for millennia, but only now has technology advanced to the point where it could finally, conceivably, usurp its human creators. Yet Dinello has not resigned himself to serving the machine overlords of the future. As he sees it, the first step in fighting back is to make people aware that technology is not neutral, that it has the potential to dominate humans for its own purposes. At the same time, he’s not hoping to return to a natural utopia, which is neither preferable nor possible. Instead, Dinello says it’s only through the self-conscious understanding of the threat that humans can truly be the masters, and not the slaves, of technology.

Dan Dinello is professor of film and video at Columbia and an award-winning independent filmmaker. He has written about pop culture, technology, and science fiction for the Chicago Tribune, Salon.com, and the Manchester Guardian, among others. Stuart Luman is a freelance journalist in Chicago. He writes for Crain's Chicago Business, Chicago magazine, and Wired Magazine.

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The Enchanters vs. Sprawlburg Springs
By Brian Costello (’04)
[Featherproof Books, 2005. 191 pages, $12.95 paperback]
reviewed by Brenda Erin Berman

Brian Costello’s debut novel, ten years in the making, is a rollicking and ribald account of a young man’s experience as drummer for The Enchanters, a band that stirs up a frenzy in the conventional, anywhere-U.S.A. community of Sprawlburg Springs. At once a coming-of-age story, an ode to rock-and-roll, and a satiric stab at the mind-numbing sameness of middle America, the novel represents a youthful search for authenticity and self-expression, liberation and validation.

It’s sometime in the late ’80s or early ’90s, when vinyl is still respectable and eight-tracks are within memory. Twenty-something Shaquille Callahan works as a squid cutter at Cleveland Steamerz Good Time Bar and Grille World, where his boss thinks he has potential. But Shaquille’s mind is on The Enchanters—a band known for their category-defying “Protomersh” music and no-holds-barred house performances—and more particularly on Renee, the band’s charismatic singer/enchantress. The Enchanters are living a wine- and cough-syrup-intoxicated dream. They inspire their fans, who emulate the band’s quirky fashion sense (wearing six-pack rings as jewelry and coloring their skin orange), get naked during performances, and even find the courage to pursue their own musical ambitions. But to the mainstream media and civic leaders, The Enchanters are a subversive force.

Costello’s familiarity with his territory, both geographical and musical, is enhanced by a sharp wit: Sprawlburg Springs is dotted with places such as Perimeter Square Circle Center Mall, French Café Oui! Oui! World, Bitchin’ Car Stereo World, Li’l Scamp Gimme Now Convenience Store, and Latent Republican Hipster Music Club. Against this deadening landscape, Costello delivers a satisfying tale of searchers trying to create something wholly original and transcendent. As his protagonist says, “It’s just music, but it’s way more than that—it’s what puts us in the mood to love, to hate, to feel something, anything, in a world rapidly losing its ability to do just that.”

Brian Costello (’04) earned an M.F.A. in creative writing at Columbia, where he is now an adjunct faculty member, and he drums for the Functional Blackouts. His writing has appeared in Bridge, THE2NDHAND, Sleepwalk, and other publications. Brenda Erin Berman is director of marketing at Columbia.

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At Home
By William Frederking (afterward by Brandy Savarese)
[Center for American Places/Columbia College Chicago, 2006. 72 pages, $30.00 hardcover]
reviewed by Ann Wiens

“There is love in this house.” 

Photographer William Frederking recalls this statement, made by an old woman sitting in a rocking chair as Frederking, his children, and a real-estate agent stood in her living room, scrutinizing her home of more than 30 years. It was an incredibly gracious thing to say to a group of strangers who were more likely interested in square footage and plumbing efficiency than family memories.

The photographer bought the Oak Park, Illinois house, and from the series of quiet, sun-flecked images that make up this book, it appears that love still abides in that house. Frederking, who is acting chair of Columbia’s Photography department, initially took color pictures of the 85-year-old house as pre-renovation documentation. Beguiled by the play of light on crumbling plaster, he soon pulled out his Deardorff four-by-five view camera and began shooting in black-and-white, producing these honest, intimate images of the mundane details of a lived-in home. 

A million miles away from the expertly styled, artfully arranged, and improbably perfect homes that form the alternate residential reality of shelter magazines, these pictures prod us to consider the ordinary objects that blur into the unseen background of our day-to-day lives in a new light. A drop of water on a crumb-dusted countertop, the peeling paint of rusty porch railing, the persistent clutter of hastily unloaded keys, shoes, and mail that defiantly occupy our real-life homes—these are Frederking’s beautiful, yet unglamorous subjects. These photographs make us see our surroundings differently—a fine accomplishment for any image.

William Frederking is acting chair of the photography department at Columbia. His photographs are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Photography and the State of Illinois Museum, and have appeared in The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and Chicago magazine. Ann Wiens is an artist and writer, editor of Demo, and former editor of the New Art Examiner.

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