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Beginning With The Mirror
Jean Genet "Anyone who knows a strange fact shares in its singularity." A few strange facts within this book, the latest collection by Shirley Jackson award finalist, Peter Dubé, the heat within a boy or a man can be muscular, be with purpose, be all consuming; mobs become consuming entities, shifting and hungry and with no humane intention despite being once composed of humanity; poets and actresses and students are words and words have power and resonance and walk on two legs and sometimes soar but more often haunt; and we can never forget that memories batter and wound, their shape defined like a blade or reflective like a silver-backed mirror. Dubé's short stories are eerie and fantastical and chip away at the known world until there are wide cracks that reveal many a strange fact to all of us at once.
- GenresQueer
176 pages, Paperback
First published October 7, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 26, 2016
I read this for Week 1 of the #readproud challenge in the Gay Contemporary category.
Disclosure: I got a print reviewer copy from Lethe Press.
This is a collection of dark, sensitive gay stories with sometimes more than a dash of magical realism. I don't know how I'd missed Peter Dubé's work previously (I am thinking I might have read a short story by him in Wilde Stories...?) but it was clearly a mistake.
The more of the magical, the better the stories worked for me; my favorite was "Blazon", where sexual desire is sublimated into pyrokinesis... or is it? I have read several stories by different authors along these lines, but this one is my current favorite.
There is often a kind of distancing from magical elements, the sort of "but are we SURE that's what happened" that is somewhat of a non-genre literary trope. One can read this book as contemporary or as speculative, and in both cases it will be rewarding.
Sometimes the stories had elements I generally dislike and they still worked well for me; the hallmark of a good author. "Needle" had discussion of dubious consent, nonconsent and also featured a very messy breakup, but I still thought it was a standout story not just in this collection, but in general in my reading.
Where the stories were weaker was when they started to meander; I felt the tighter-plotted ones were more memorable and powerful. I did appreciate the very wide dynamic range from brooding, dreamy contemplation ("Tides") to people beating the heck out of each other on a political demonstration turned violent ("Egress").
I will definitely need to pick up more of Dubé's work; I have a gay anthology edited by him in my TBR pile that I'm also looking forward to reading.
Note that not all of the stories end well: sometimes people separate, sometimes they die. Sometimes there is anti-gay violence. But as I've said many times before and I continue to say over and over again, I think queer people should write whatever they want, including tragic stories. The issue is with straight people writing and marketing an overwhelming amount of tragic queer stories, not with queer people writing many stories of all kinds, some of them tragic (and, for example when the topic is anti-gay violence, absolutely justifiably so). But I also understand that people want to be warned about those stories, so consider this a warning!
Disclosure: I got a print reviewer copy from Lethe Press.
This is a collection of dark, sensitive gay stories with sometimes more than a dash of magical realism. I don't know how I'd missed Peter Dubé's work previously (I am thinking I might have read a short story by him in Wilde Stories...?) but it was clearly a mistake.
The more of the magical, the better the stories worked for me; my favorite was "Blazon", where sexual desire is sublimated into pyrokinesis... or is it? I have read several stories by different authors along these lines, but this one is my current favorite.
There is often a kind of distancing from magical elements, the sort of "but are we SURE that's what happened" that is somewhat of a non-genre literary trope. One can read this book as contemporary or as speculative, and in both cases it will be rewarding.
Sometimes the stories had elements I generally dislike and they still worked well for me; the hallmark of a good author. "Needle" had discussion of dubious consent, nonconsent and also featured a very messy breakup, but I still thought it was a standout story not just in this collection, but in general in my reading.
Where the stories were weaker was when they started to meander; I felt the tighter-plotted ones were more memorable and powerful. I did appreciate the very wide dynamic range from brooding, dreamy contemplation ("Tides") to people beating the heck out of each other on a political demonstration turned violent ("Egress").
I will definitely need to pick up more of Dubé's work; I have a gay anthology edited by him in my TBR pile that I'm also looking forward to reading.
Note that not all of the stories end well: sometimes people separate, sometimes they die. Sometimes there is anti-gay violence. But as I've said many times before and I continue to say over and over again, I think queer people should write whatever they want, including tragic stories. The issue is with straight people writing and marketing an overwhelming amount of tragic queer stories, not with queer people writing many stories of all kinds, some of them tragic (and, for example when the topic is anti-gay violence, absolutely justifiably so). But I also understand that people want to be warned about those stories, so consider this a warning!
September 15, 2017
Peter Dube’s work always provides a literary perspective that carries weight and importance, dazzling his readers with his facility with language and his ability to straddle the line between reality and dream state. The ten stories comprising Beginning With the Mirror mine much the same territory to marvelous effect… Everything here has something to recommend it, be it the style, the metaphor, the thought, or an admiration of the rhythm of the language. Plot? Yes, but always secondary to character and voice. Bones to carry their flesh… As with Dube’s other work, a close reading will be a rewarding one. I have always enjoyed his palette of language and the way he polishes his extended metaphors until they glisten. These ten stories leave you with much to think about as well as admire.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews