Super Nice

When I saw a writer-friend in a café the other day, I told him I was reviewing Glimmer Train. "Oh," he said. "You mean ‘Money Train'?"

Indeed, Glimmer Train has a reputation. It is one of the few literary magazines that pays for its content--$700 per story. It also runs contests year-round. A prestigious journal with a wide circulation, GT is a literary magazine that even non-writers read.

Yet, everything about the journal remains friendly and accessible. On their website you will see warm letters and clear explanations from Founding Editors, sisters Susan Burmeister-Brown and Linda B. Swanson-Davies. You can get tips about writing in their "Writers Ask" segment. In the journal itself, each author's story is accompanied by a childhood photograph, and the back of the journal is devoted to more author photos and drawings by their kids. "We're a very successful journal," GT seems eager to tell you. "But don't worry. We're also super nice!"

Such warmth and accessibility is reflected in the writing. E.A. Durden leads with her prize-winning "Mr. Dabydeen." This is a simple story which could be summarized: An Indian man gets dressed, struggles with his shoelaces, has an irritating altercation with his teenage daughter, flirts with the neighbor, pets her cat, then goes to buy some goat meat for dinner. But of course, that is not the story at all. The power of Durden's story is the way she so skillfully blends thought and action, seamlessly gliding between characters' internal and external lives. The shoelaces that slip out of Dabydeen's fingers is drama, as he tries to get a grip on a life that seems to be increasingly slipping out of his hands. This is a masterful story and new writers should take heart--it is Durden's first-ever publication.

Further in, Frederick Reiken's blandly titled story "Shadow" proves to be, in fact, anything but bland. Beginning, "In a secret part of my life I have served, unofficially, as the archivist for everything that Beverly Rabinowitz has ever given to me..." the story traces the life-long friendship of two women, Miriam and Beverly. Reiken does a terrific job of capturing the spirit of these women, their hopes for themselves and transcendent love for one another. He also is adept at weaving in bits of knowledge about Yiddish, Jungian Psychology, Judaism, and Freudian analysis.

Every story in this issue is of high quality and almost all of them deal with family. This is no coincidence. The journal hosts a monthly contest entitled "Family Matters," which seeks the best stories on the subject of family. This topic is clearly of interest to the editor-sisters.

In "You Say Tomato," Xhenet Aliu tells of Slatora, a troubled adolescent who takes refuge in the home and family of her friend. Somewhere along the lines, someone gets chopped up and murdered, his body parts stuffed into a cereal box. But believe it or not, this isn't so important. It only seems to serve the story as further evidence of Slatora's difficult home life. What matters is how she survives this time period, how kindness from our friends is what helps us get through our darkest times.

Ron Savage's "Baby Mine" is a surreal inquiry into the mind of a Russian immigrant who is forced to marry an old man in order to live in America. Katya's unusual tallness has made it hard to find a mate otherwise. Yet she is haunted by the death of her child, and insists that she hears a baby crying out in the desert. The story glides dexterously over the terrain of the real and the imaginary, making the figments of Katya's imagination manifestly, painfully real.

The other stories in this issue include Johanna Skibsrud's "This Will be Difficult to Explain, and Other Stories," about a young boy making sense of his German father's experience during World War II, "Coincidence" by David Borofka, about a young man disenchanted with his missionary work, struggling to find his faith, and taking heart in the story of his neighbor who once performed miracles, and David Koon's "Four Sisters: Josephine & Dora Laura, Nancy & Mary," a thrilling story about two sets of sisters with parallel dramas, who unite in a shocking turn of events.

In Will Boast's "Diplomats," Tim, a young musician, is forced to confront mortality, that of his girlfriend's mother. The unlikable older woman is dying of a brain tumor. The story reads more like memoir than fiction, with the narrator inserting the feelings of a future self into the story--"I should have held her." But is no less powerful or memorable for that.