Thursday, May 30, 2013

Zine Review: Piltdown Lad #7 - The Murky Realm


Piltdown Lad #7: The Murky Realm
by Kelly Dessaint
5.5 X 7 /44 pages / $3 + postage
PO Box 86714 Los Angeles CA 90086

I’ve never described a zine as a “pageturner” - until now. I read The Murky Realm in one sitting, literally unable (as the cliché goes) to put the zine down. Why? I love writing that explores the mysteries of family origins through the distance of time & a personal lens. Kelly Dessaint is an agile storyteller who relates the circumstances of his parents meeting and their tumultuous relationship. Dessaint’s unfolding of his mother and father’s early life and courtship & his father’s experiences as a veteran and life with his friends is meticulously crafted and thoroughly fascinating. His parents’ emotional landscapes are vividly explored through letters written between them and Dessaint’s  “creative engineering”. Nuanced and honest, The Murky Realm is on my must read again list. 

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