| Dressed for Every Occasion |
December 23, 2010
Summer Brenner's new collection of short stories, My Life in Clothes, is a breath of fresh air, a lively mix of imagination and memoir with no angst, lots of love, and enough humor to clear away whatever tears may fall. Her stories about a Jewish family from Atlanta, told from the point of view of a rebellious but affectionate daughter named Sue, cover history spanning generations, including family lore (the ancestor who sang so beautifully no Cossack would touch him), trials (the lifelong rivalry between sisters Marguerite and Edith), touchstones (the varied familial responses to integration, music, desire), work (Sue's experiences are hilarious), and adventures (wanderlust and thirst for experience leads Sue and others of her clan north, west, and even further south). Clothes do play a part in the family history but the manner in which Brenner weaves and sews the clothes into the stories is original, integral, and beautiful. All qualities, by the way, shared by the schmatte -- and the people -- we love.
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November 16, 2009
Summer Brenner's I-5 is a grim and gripping noir novel about the sex slave trade: its victims, its perpetrators, and its ability to flourish in the shadowy outcrops of civilized life. Under the guise of business, Anya and other girls from Eastern Europe are plucked from the streets and brought to the U.S. by promises of work and help for their families. Kupkin, manager of the evil empire, holds them indentured and enslaved without hope of escape until all debts are paid off. He ruminates on the care he takes of his girls and his business: "forty girls have passed through orientation. Nine have worked their way out of the system after a production period of five years. Two have died...This latest enterprise has transformed Kupkin from rich to extremely wealthy."
The book begins with a slow but steady introduction to Anya, a young girl from Moldova. We meet her during a breather; she's been given a few days off from the constant hours of prostitution to rest up, to regain her appetite and plump up for another round of endless sex dates, horrible incarnations of twisted desires and pathetic release. She's been in the trade for four years and she is desperate now for the end to come, for her freedom to be granted. But a seemingly simple trip from Los Angeles to Oakland turns into a nightmare of accidents, encounters, and glimpses of freedom offered, then ripped away under Kupnik's ensnaring power.
Brenner writes boldly and with seething clarity. She hooks us first with characterization, including the girl/woman Anya who dreams of her dead babushka; a trader in bodies who quotes Pushkin; a multi-religious "Number Three Son of the First Man" who deals in body parts; and a petite prostitute whose name was changed to Cerise from Mary because few men want reminders of the Virgin when cheating on their wives (and for those who specifically do want to sleep with the Holy Mother, that and any other request can be accommodated). Brenner reels us in with a plot fluid with movement, heady with suspense, and heavy with portents, light on hope. Against all the odds of oppression, powerlessness, and vulnerability, I found myself hoping for Anya's safety and her escape. And when Brenner exacts her own harsh revenge on the abductors, traffickers, and abusers who make money in dealing in human flesh, I took grim satisfaction in seeing them suffer the awful flip of fate that they so easily conjured up for others.
Final comment: I-5 would make a GREAT movie, thrilling and moving, suspenseful and satisfying.
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