Bremen

by Claire Dean

Genres: Short Stories

14 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2017

Reviews

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never been to Bremen, but Claire Dean's short story made me feel like a) I really want to and b) I can picture it so vividly that it's almost as though I already have. It starts with a very intriguing vignette: a tourist is enticed to a stall by an old woman making marzipan figurines; a man watches, and steps forward with a warning, but is unable to form words. From here, the narrative steps back to explain who this character is and what he is searching for. It's a bittersweet, lonely fantasy, a sad modern fairytale, filled with evocative sentences that bring the setting to life: 'rain needled down through the early dusk'; 'bitter chocolate laced the air'; 'a small crowd was gathered in the dim drizzle staring up into the night'.

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[Des Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

“He returned to the Findling again and again.”

But I have been to Bremen only once, on a single day a number of years ago. And took this photo. Enough of a visit to be able now to imagine the market stall and its old woman who creates the Foundlings (or do they create her?), Foundlings who need to find each other before they are lost, it seems, some whose heads we enter. Amazingly this Bremen (breed-men?) piece also has many references to crows (ends with them, too), and only this same afternoon I have just finished reviewing here today’s episode of the novel KA by John Crowley whose characters are crows and have heads we can enter, too. Amazing coincidental resonance in my day’s gestalt, thanks to this Dean. Haunting, its style precise yet ornate, rich yet stark, obvious yet oblique. Was there a miracle working here?

[Jeanette Greaves · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful, heartbreaking story.