Stories

Alphabet of Love Serial by Lou Rowan and Alphabetique by Molly Peacock are collections of stories based on the alphabet . But their takes on the adult ABC book are widely divergent. Lou’s J, for instance, spent his years from 20-36 in a druggy daze, whereupon he became a runner and attempted to feign an interest in sports to become a more typical American. Molly’s J is a woman who makes orange jam to forget about being jilted, while her daughter, Jiggle, juggles. Lou uses the letters in the manner of a roman a clé, to mask the identities of real people. Molly embraces the shapes and timbre of the letters to mold an alliterative narrative. A book club would have a wonderful time comparing and contrasting these two works.

Alphabet of Love Serial by Lou Rowan ff. Most letters in this collection of short fiction have their own story. A and B, however, appear together as human algebraic unknowns and X and Y are Cartesian coordinates in a graph of failure and accomplishment. In between we encounter the other letters-characters, their relationships and families, their thoughts and feelings. Some characters reoccur. B comes back as the friend of I’s sister and as the partner of M (I think) , and I, himself, changes from a third person I to a first person I. The human comedy is on display from a cultish religion to tentative attempts to pursue attraction to jealousy to betrayal to utter vulnerability. The story of O depicts what the slide to an alcoholic bottom feels like. Fastidious I disapproves of so much – that one would have a dog (ruining the planet) that…

Alphabetique. 26 Characteristic Fictions, by Molly Peacock ff. These 26 stories are crammed with playful whimsey like “A is the genuine article” or R’s play on words with regret and egret. Q has a fairy tale feel as he evolves from foundling to favorite of the Queen. O’s father is Daddy-O.

I’m reminded of Ortega y Gasset’s thesis that viewing a work of art is like looking out a window to a garden. One can either focus on the pane or on the garden itself. The over-the -top use of alliteration forces us to look at the pane, to the writing itself. How will Molly mold this muddle of E words into a cohesive story? But then we focus on the garden. At first we are directed to notice, for instance, that D is both curved and straight. But as the story unfolds we find that this tale i…