Spell Heaven

January 31, 2022
Poet and essayist Mirosevich (Pink Harvest, an essay collection) makes her fiction debut with a stilted story collection. Many entries are narrated by an unnamed university professor who has recently relocated to a Northern California beach town with her wife, Stevie. Though the narrator’s father was a fisherman, she worries in “The Devil Wind” that she’ll be seen as an outsider because of her white-collar status and her queerness. Here and elsewhere, Mirosevich’s prose can be repetitive, indulging in multiple turns of phrase where one might be more effective (“Each wave rhymes with the next, there’s no off note, no tuneless voice”). In “Our Lady at the Derby,” the narrator and Stevie stay at a Motel 6 for a New Year’s Eve getaway, and a man knocks on their door, demanding to be let in. The narrator assumes he’s “hopped up on something,” only to have all of her assumptions reversed by the morning. Throughout, the narrator finds that the people she’s inclined to avoid are not who she thought they were, as in “Murderer’s Bread,” in which Stevie’s dogged friendliness in the aftermath of a violent crime shift the narrator’s understanding of her neighbors for the better. It’s a lesson that would resonate more if the formula weren’t so frequently repeated. This is an easy one to pass on.

April 1, 2022
A Bay Area writing professor narrates these interconnected stories, emphasizing the importance of memory and shared experience. "Is it possible you might need to carry something from the past, from what has happened to what will be?" the narrator asks, and this question weaves itself throughout the stories. In nonchronological yet seamless order, the narrator recalls moments of her life, often weaving flashbacks and thoughtful, sometimes humorous or horrifying anecdotes into the main narrative. In "Murderer's Bread," she and her partner, Stevie, leave the city for a quieter, more conservative coastal town, where they worry about fitting in. Their concerns about homophobia are palpable, yet the couple embraces the neighborhood's other outsiders, forming an unlikely community despite their doubts. In "As If You and I Agree," a contemporary pandemic story, the narrator's anger at two men not wearing masks builds until she surreptitiously curses them with her middle finger while pushing up her sunglasses. The interaction--which occurs as she's taking her morning walk on a path next to the beach--is familiar, latching on to the heightened emotions about public health circa 2020, but what happens next is unique and aptly illustrated. In silence, she unites with her PPE-defying enemies at the rare sight of a humpback whale, breaching "like a huge middle digit," just like the finger she insulted the men with moments before. Though the narrator's nostalgic tone can sometimes feel forlorn, there's an overarching sense of optimism in her recollections, with beads of wisdom scattered throughout the book. "You can have a life where whatever you catch brings you joy," she says on a pier near her adopted home, reminiscing about the time she saw a man laugh as sea gulls plucked a comma-shaped pink shrimp, perhaps bait, from his fingers--a simple memory that she distills to its moral essence. A seamlessly written book full of beautiful connections.

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