The first one was arresting – I had to stop and read it over twice – but in the end their shameless narcissistic self-promotion left a bad taste in my mouth. They all feature characters named Trish Kelly, or characters who are vixens with a thing for older men and a history of illness. The hazy hypnotic oscillation between fiction and autobiography is nice, though. If you flip the zine open to the middle, the first thing you see is the following promising passage: “‘I am mostly gay’, he reminds himself. He clears his throat and pulls the pant leg down over the mother’s atrophied leg.” You’ve got to like that. But the uneasy balance struck between starfucking and contempt for stardom left me a little cold. (If you hate it so much, why do you bother?) In the end, good writing about being a semi-celebrity vixen on the literary scene is a lot like good writing about stock car racing or gardening: by no means a total waste of time, but of real interest only to hobbyists. (Wendy Banks)
litzine, make out club #11, 44 pages, $2 or a mixed tape, Trish Kelly, 33-345 E. Broadway, Vancouver, BC, V5T 1W5, [email protected]