The Rialto Books Review Vol.029--AVAILABLE NOW
The Rialto Books Review Vol.029 is now available for purchase. This Autumn, we have four pieces to offer for your enjoyment.
“Killer Instinct” by L. A. Browning starts off this issue, a fascinating look at the cutthroat ethics of a postdoctoral program at an elite university.
“Runners and Daughters” by Stephanie Cristello follows, a personal essay which entwines the breakdown of a friendship with the surprisingly sinister growth habits of the humble strawberry.
“Knowledge for Sale” by Adam Kozak is a poignant tale, which follows an orphan on his quest to sell a hard copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica in the small towns surrounding Madison, Wisconsin.
Lastly, we offer the second book of “Beauty and the Beast”, a new narrative poem by Alexandra Block.
We hope you enjoy these excerpts from Vol.029 of The Rialto Books Review.
Killer Instinct
by L. A. Browning
We were halfway through lab meeting when Jenny stopped speaking. Her hands still rested on the sides of the podium, and her mouth was almost open, as if she were about to answer the question. But she remained still; and we, in the creaking seats of the auditorium, watching her, were silent as well. …
Runners and Daughters
by Stephanie Cristello
Once the ground defrosts, the strawberry spreads relentlessly.
If left untamed after the thaw, the tendrils of a strawberry plant grow red and long, like an intricate vascular system. They crawl across the earth, entrapping whatever else grows low to the ground near its net. When the roots of a new crown are established from its parent, the connecting valves dry out and fall away. The strawberry has cloned itself in a new place. The stolons, known as ‘runners,’ are programmed to occupy as much territory as they can. The new plants, ‘daughters,’ are genetically identical, capable of killing perennials that had previously outlived even the harshest winters.
Northern climates are cruel—to flora, to people. …
Knowledge for Sale
by Adam Kozak
It was a perfect summer afternoon in Benetton, Wisconsin for anyone with the good fortune to be holding a cool drink or to be dipping a delighted toe in the lake. Cadbury Mills was doing neither.
Cadbury struggled down tree-lined Archer Avenue, passing through sun and shade on the worn, uneven sidewalk. He lugged behind him a complete thirty-two-volume set of Encyclopedia Britannica, the crates bumping and jostling ponderously on the rickety four-wheeled dolly at every crack of the sidewalk, every bit of uneven pavement where the huge trees heaved up the concrete. …
Beauty and the Beast, Book II
by Alexandra Block
I.
Now doth the owl wake to his day’s sun,
That shines no gentler than the day that’s done:
But cold for heat, dark rays blaze down for light
That lend night’s creatures full as clear a sight
As the lark knows by dawn. There he beholds
The sleeping jay, whose pie-bright wing enfolds
A careless dream: here, rustling neath leaves
The dormouse thinks by her own sleight she thieves
An hour more of life: the owl proud
Untroubled yet by hunger’s clamor loud
Observes her clumsy lumbering with contempt;
For here, he knows, no living thing’s exempt
From his most watchful eye. But now—a sound
Scarce ever heard there, shakes his forest’s ground
And rents its stifling air—a human gait
Translates this hunter into hunted straight
And he with wary look doth crouch, to see
How fearsome this most feared mortal might be. …
You can read this journal with others on Papertrail.
