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No Call Too Small
by Oscar Martens
ISBN: 9781771681957

Oscar Martens’ No Call Too Small is a collection of short stories about moments: a flash, if you will, into pivotal moments of a life. In the title story the reader witnesses the moment a police officer must choose between loyalty to another officer who has committed a serious crime and honouring the badge he wears. This officer is no bad cop, but he is human, and this moment where “[n]obody’s a criminal yet. Nobody’s a liar. Maybe if we stand still we can maintain this pure state, three cops holding ridged against the future,” (7) is the final moment before his career changes, at best, or, he changes, at worst. It’s a tense first tale in the book and it sets the stage for what is to come.

From here we go on to meet Farah, whose boyfriend once made her laugh, but now “makes her face sag. Close to him she feels extreme gravity, a black hole that breaks her down” (15); Little Dana, forced to help her father with his ill-judged business plan, sitting on a Ferris wheel, “[h]er smile . . . on maximum voltage, her teeth hurting from the pressure, her cheeks beginning to ache”(52) in an attempt to convince others she is having fun; Carl, the janitor mistaken for the new high school principal, who fires himself for not showing up to work; and others standing at their crossroads.

Martens’ storytelling gets into the crux of these critical moments. He shows the reader what desperation and loneliness feels like without ever telling us his characters are alone or desperate. He sneaks the reader up to the windows of their lives, a little voyeurism in the prose, where we witness the ugly side of family, the desperation of men, and the difficult decisions of a life, once on a slow, planned out course, now drifting closer to a cliff. The stories breathe, leaving the reader room to contemplate their own feelings or parallels to the characters and situations.  These expertly crafted stories are the perfect read for either a cold night sitting by the fire where one can devour them all at once, or, read over a longer period of time, enjoying one, then reflecting on it before beginning the next.

Crystal Mackenzie is a writer and editor from Calgary, Alberta. She is the Editor in Chief of FreeFall Magazine.

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by Skylar Kay

Corridor Nine
by Sophie Stocking
Thistledown Press (2019)
ISBN 9781771871815

Sophie Stocking’s Corridor Nine is a story of life, death, family, and rebirth. To begin, the novel places a reader in a disorienting space. Questions I asked myself included: where am I? What are these people? Why does this three-year old’s body (Fabian) have a large penis, and why do I have to imagine this? The structure of the novel does not immediately alleviate the confusion, as two storylines weave and intersect throughout. The story of Bernie is grounded in reality—recognizable to any Calgarian especially—while the other plotline follows the afterlife of her father, Fabian. These two storylines twirl around one another to slowly reveal more and more about the past, and the characters themselves in a well-orchestrated manner. However, due to the jumps from scene to scene and place to place, dialogue can be confusing, as exemplified on page 173 where there are several lines of dialogue before it becomes clear that Bernie is talking to her husband.

I was wary at first of the narrator introducing all four of Bernie’s children, but the four of them are all well-developed and serve a purpose in the story, especially the seemingly moody and distant teenager, Eben, and the too-eager-to-be-an-adult, Lola. One character that left me wanting more development was Bernie’s husband, Peter. Although he is a fairly major part of several scenes and the novel as a whole, his main function seems to be a voice of exposition for Bernie, often talking about her past with her father and children. However, I felt Peter as a character himself was distilled to someone who is bad at making food for the kids and worked a lot—nothing more and nothing less. I also would have liked to see more of Bernie’s artistry. The novel mentions her studio and some artistic endeavors throughout the novel, but it is not until the very end that we see Bernie produce art in detail. Even mentioning art she did that the family had around the house would have satisfied, but the lack just left me wanting more. Other than that, Bernie is a fun character to follow, and I was always rooting for her.

The storyline that follows Bernie is very much grounded in Calgary. Road names such as Crowchild and Shaganappi helped me imagine the scenes vividly. Even the weather was very Calgarian, as the narrator describes how the weather would “feel like summer” by midday on one page, only to have the year’s first snowfall come nine pages later. As someone who has lived in Calgary their whole life, this was not too distracting for me, but even I have a note or two in a couple margins where I ask: “what season is it?” The weather and place names would be familiar for people in Calgary, and it would help draw in that readership. I am unsure how these factors of setting would affect someone who is not familiar with the city and its rhythms, however, and I fear they may be alienating.

Overall, the book was quite an enjoyable read. The seriousness of Fabian’s relationship with Bernie, as well as his death, is paired nicely with some well-timed humour to ground the reader in something less grim. Bernie’s life as a wife and mother are also engaging, and while she gets a tad manic and stressed at times (perhaps ‘a tad’ is an understatement), she is always relatable, and the humour of certain scenes helped me to stay interested, involved, and invested in her story.

Skylar Kay is a recent Mount Royal graduate with a degree in English. She is interested in haiku and plans to pursue an M.A in Japanese Literature. She is a prose editor for FreeFall Magazine.

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