| As noted here, I’m commenting daily on the WMG Holiday Spectacular—which is a great project that releases a story every day. These might be reviews. Or not. They might be interesting. Or … um … not. They will be fun, though. For me, at least. Here’s the next story. |
“Five Days of Chickenmas”
Brenda Carre
A few years back my daughter and I edited an anthology titled Face the Strange. Originally it was to be a part of the WMG Fiction River project, but that connection went away due to the pandemic so we did it as a separate project. I love that anthology. You should read it because it has some fantastic stories from some fantastic writers. But the biggest disappointment I’ve got with it is that the lull in the process cost us “Birdie” written by Brenda Carre. The problem, you see, is that she got a quicker offer from Pulp Literature. You should read it.
Bottom line: I fully admit that I’m biased here. I absolutely adore everything about Brenda Carre. She is a beautiful person, and her work is just like her.
Anyway.
The example at hand is “Five Days of Chickenmas.”
It’s kind of a joy, you know?
Joey is four years old. He sounds like a four-year-old, but he sounds like a four-year-old in just the way you’d want him to sound. He’s almost certainly a whirling dervish of a kid, but one you’d probably have to love anyway. The introduction reminds me that the first “Joey” story appeared in an earlier Spectacular. That was a fun piece. “Five Days of Chickenmas” is similar, but more sneaky. There is a lot going on here—a lot more than Joey knows, but maybe in the end maybe less than he understands. To say more might ruin it. The world is big, though. Bigger than me, bigger than you, bigger than Joey. And life is to be appreciated and honored and…well…lived.
This one, as they said in the Anthology Workshop where Brenda and I first met, is a strong buy for me.
Highly recommended.
You can keep up with Brenda here.