Reviews
The Damsel Fly and other stories
Reviewed by Catherine Spangler
The Damsel Fly and other stories
by Barbara Kremen
Ravenna Press, ISBN 0-9776162-0-7
P.O. Box 127, Edmonds, WA 98020
www.ravennapress.com
2005, paperback, 95 pages, $14.95
It is wonderful and rare to find a book that confounds you. The Damsel Fly and other stories, Barbara Kremen’s collection of short fiction published by Ravenna Press in 2005, is such a book. Her text makes you wonder at how an arrangement of words, an assemblage of pages, could appear to exist so ideally in the world. Reading her stories is like appreciating an effortless beauty such as a flower or beloved one. She does not seem ambitious, but utterly capable.
The book itself embodies an impeccable aesthetic that matches the craft between its covers. The cover and title pages are adorned with elegant collages done by the author’s husband, Irwin Kremen. The Damsel Fly is white, vivid, the font tenacious against sturdy pages, the words willing their existence by appearance alone.
From the beginning of each story, it is apparent that their author possesses a vast intellect that demands rigor of those it encounters. Good writing challenges its readers with the expectation that it will be discerned, engaged with, experienced in its complexity. Stories in The Damsel Fly must be pieced together through disorienting narratives and an impressive authorial knowledge of mythical, literary and scientific reference. Among Kremen’s stylish, story-telling repertoire: Shakespearean debates, Rijksmuseum notables, the order of the Odonata along with its sub-orders, Roman destinations and dialects, the quality of light as it reflects off glacial surfaces.
The plot of the title story initially disguises itself as a paperback crime thriller: Henry is a recent widower who moves to a secluded cabin where he finds the abandoned journals of a man, Pfaff, who had lived there until his sudden and inexplicable disappearance. A nearby pond provides for Pfaff’s, and later Henry’s, voyeuristic fascination with the dragonflies that live there.
Other authors might stoop to sensationalism, but Kremen’s story redefines hackneyed notions of suspense. The Damsel Fly is insightful in its examination of Henry’s appropriation of Pfaff’s identity, compulsions and meticulous habits. Kremen’s authorial gaze follows “creatures of enormous, absorbing eyes,” who see and are seen with unwavering intensity. It is a seductive portrait of Nabokovian obsession, designating captor and captive in mutable, chilling categories.
Kremen’s keen notion of relevance makes it impossible to read her collection dismissively. With an authoritative but considerate mind for the audience, she posts us in ideal positions to observe. Her vantages force us to bear witness to what she finds most compelling: minds absorbed in their personal daily madness.
"Deceit of Snow" and "Ponte Vecchio" cultivate this experience of perspective so well as to create a sensation of vertigo. Kremen moves her characters through their bliss and peril with an intensity that feels dangerous, tilting the stable ground on which the reader stands. Tracking the desperation of the confused mind of the aging Arthur Brown in "Ponte Vecchio" as he attempts to negotiate unknown, tumultuous streets homeward, the reader gets a sense of standing on a balcony looking down on a person in need who struggles below, each detail played out with ardent immediacy. The progress of newlyweds in "Deceit of Snow" as they foolishly but sincerely climb to their doom is pursued with a similar heartbreaking yet captivating proximity.
Barbara Kremen’s writing exposes arresting moments to be encountered. But beyond the urgent promises of a narrative so intense that it
will truly ensnare you, lies the prospect of feeling envious of the extraordinary skill with which she constructs her literary realms.
The Damsel Fly and other stories will, by their own striking example, remind those who write why they love to do it:
to say something.
lives in Seattle, Washington, and works various odd jobs. One of them is providing editorial assistance at Raven Chronicles. In her spare time she enjoys reading and biking, and is currently working on several pieces of short fiction.