Review by Bonnie ZoBell
Our Lady of Flash Fiction, Meg Pokrass, around since the beginning of flash time, possesses a tremendously unique voice. Her beautiful language rounds out her magical stories. Damn Sure Right, her short-story collection with Press 53, brims with gems.
In the title story, a woman is accosted by a man, and to protect herself, “watches from somewhere else (sort of interested, sort of not.)” It is with these small details of intimate and utter humanness that her work takes on importance. She gets at who we really are in this big, world with such tiny observations. In “Mates,” Jenny and her boyfriend use each other’s credit cards—how much more intimate can you get? He is surprised by “her wheat colored hair and the tip of her nose, angular and imperfect.” When his penis stops working and they split up, they judge each other’s well-being by their Facebook pictures. They breathe on the phone together with nothing to say but are glad to know each other is alive. In “Air Quality,” the daughter of a woman in the hospital for a bi-pulmonary embolism seeks comfort from the doctor protagonist, who notes the daughter’s teeth are “white as gurney covers. Clearly they were bleached, though I’d come to expect that. Tea-stained smiles were a thing of the past.” As the days “shove” past each other, he wishes he could have connected with her more. “I would have asked her to step outside for a breath with me, regardless of air quality. I would have let her know how a blue-pen exploded in my pocket moments after she left.”
Damn Sure Right, a must-read by the editor for BLIP (formerly Mississippi Review) and director of the Fictionaut Five author interview series, has so many wonderful stories in these 184 pages it should be at the top of your stack. Meg Pokrass is definitely a writer to watch.
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