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73rd out of 115 books
—
29 voters
Mixing Tracks
by
Jan Steckel (Goodreads Author)
Winner of the 2008 Gertrude Press Fiction Chapbook Award.
A darkly comic and oddly touching story of sex, drugs, rock and roll, and a plane crash that crushes human bodies while leaving the mandolins unharmed. In “Mixing Tracks,” Jan Steckel strikes an unsettling balance between the consolations of memory, the thrilling ephemerality of youthful ambition, and our shared nee...more
A darkly comic and oddly touching story of sex, drugs, rock and roll, and a plane crash that crushes human bodies while leaving the mandolins unharmed. In “Mixing Tracks,” Jan Steckel strikes an unsettling balance between the consolations of memory, the thrilling ephemerality of youthful ambition, and our shared nee...more
Paperback, 22 pages
Published
2009
by Gertrude Press
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This Gertrude Press 2009 Fiction Award winner is a small chapbook, 22 pages, first published in 2007 in another journal. It opens with the main character, "Cam" for Cameron Gray, remembering his band buddies after a plane crash. Turns out there is one other survivor, Michael. It is the story of their meeting.
The author layers music into the story, which acts as metaphor; one paragraph both symbolizes their relationship and foreshadows the ending, " Michael lifted the harmonica to his mouth again...more
The author layers music into the story, which acts as metaphor; one paragraph both symbolizes their relationship and foreshadows the ending, " Michael lifted the harmonica to his mouth again...more
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I'm totally biased. I wrote this 5,000-word story for an undergraduate fiction writing class taught by Jonathan Strong. While Jonathan seemed to like it, my colleagues told me that the story was "bizarre" or "over the top," and that I had no business writing a first-person story from a male point of view that was really pretty gay. I think what actually made everyone uncomfortable, though, was the shadow of ephebephila.
A quarter of a century later, guest editor Peggy Munson chose "Mixing Tracks"...more
A quarter of a century later, guest editor Peggy Munson chose "Mixing Tracks"...more
A dreamy post-plane-wreck tale of perfect pitch and forbidden love that ends with one of the more interesting renunciations of society that I've read. The seamless stitching that links present with past reminds me a bit of Murakami. The story moves like an Edgar Rice Burroughs joint--a desperate wilderness situation requiring practical steps, odd flashes of the past lighting up the present. The music is mostly in the past yet is made quite present in the flashbacks where the intimacy of the band...more
What Jan Steckel does with her writing is genius. In Mixing Tracks, the reader instantly can see why Jan's work is so celebrated. She expertly creates complex characters, and weaves them into a layered plot that's a quick read, and impossible to put down.
Not only is Jan a masterful writer, and adept at creating characters with subtlety and passion, but she also demonstrates a wide knowledge of music in this well researched story.
Mixing tracks may be a story about people who are gay, but because...more
Not only is Jan a masterful writer, and adept at creating characters with subtlety and passion, but she also demonstrates a wide knowledge of music in this well researched story.
Mixing tracks may be a story about people who are gay, but because...more
1 like · like · see review
Apr 14, 2011
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Jan Steckel is an Oakland, California writer, a Harvard- and Yale-trained former pediatrician (now retired due to an acquired physical disability), and an activist for bisexual and disability rights. Her first full-length poetry book, The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011), won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award. Her first poetry chapbook, The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006), garnered c...more
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