The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Real to Reel, by Lidia Yuknavitch
reviewed by Michael Hemmingson

Lidia Yuknavitch. Real to Reel. FC2, 2003. 175 pp. Paper: $13.95.

Yuknavitch’s third collection continues her exploration, in the grand spirit of Acker and Atwood, of feminist and postfeminist issues—with the delight of language, the sensuality of the sentence and various body parts, and a fascination with the movies; how film and the narrative tropes of popular cinema affect, infect, and become important, if not intrepid, pieces of our lives. Each story is a gem that could not have been written by anybody but Lidia Yuknavitch; i.e., there is a powerful, singular voice at work. The first, “Scripted,” is broken into three columns composed in the first, second, and third person—the same person, but variations of the theme, the life, and the resolution, telling us “don’t bother thinking or being. . . . get real.” Yuknavitch gets reel in the second piece, “Male Lead,” in the speech patterns of Keanu Reeves as he’s being interviewed on Inside the Actors Studio—possibly the version that was hosted by the ever-pompous and long-winded James Lipton. Then comes a short screenplay, or a work of fiction in screenplay format, “Outtakes.” We’re shown streetwise, smart-mouthed kids who hang out in a 7-Eleven, reminiscent of Kevin Smith’s Clerks or Eric Bogosian’s Suburbia, as well as a prison drug-smuggling plot worthy of a Law & Order episode. Yuknavitch could have a novel in that plot alone, and it’s obvious that in the longest text herein, “Siberia: Still Life of the Moving Image,” the author is ready to take on the full-volume form. “Siberia” is the perfect companion-piece to Mary Wollstonecraft’s banned and nearly forgotten short novel of Gothic incest, Matilda. At the core of the pieces in Real to Reel is the timeless exploration of the father, or father-figure, and how these men shape the lives and art of women—hell, the end of Yuknavitch’s “Chair” says it all.