Sonny

by Mary Burger

Fiction. In the space of relation, Mary Burger offers a new kind of writing--a testimony that cannot be defended or deflected. SONNY, a series of speech acts, a hypnotic set of patterned particulars, constructs with the awareness that language "demands that we should see what's there and what is possible." Moving between the individual and the collective, attaching a kind of present-making to the space of dissolution found there, SONNY shows us a way to make new resemblances and new subjectivities out of what we've lost. This work of innovative prose forms and reforms itself into a history that remembers, that recalls and that echoes the desire of the narrator to "replace the story with itself."

95 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Brendan Ho · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is all atmosphere. It reminds me of Ordesa in the way that you can get lost in a line of thinking that you could not describe to someone.

It is stunning in the way that it frames the Manhattan Project, the development of the nuclear bomb in the 1940s. As Burger puts so solemnly and wondorously and devestatingly—"We made a sun." In the backdrop of this, we are let in on fragments of a family in turmoil. Or maybe just in motion. Again, there's so much I missed roaming for these pages, but no shortage of arresting lines.

"What is nostalgia when the past is always fiction?"

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sonny is a novella that presents itself in a prose poetic progression of snapshot-like meditations.

The characters, mostly family members/brother and sister are intentionally sketchy. The details of their lives are interwoven with the early history of the atomic bomb and of rabbit-keeping (which was the brother's? or neighbors? hobby). In some ways the point of the story appears to be to enact the destruction of the family/society as if the concept had been vaporized or blown apart by the atom bomb.

My favorite part, and one of the most physically descriptive passages is when Burger describes how to skin a rabbit. It is brutal, sensual and beautiful--and the violence seems so much more natural and tied to life when compared to the atomic annihilation.

There's a lot of good ideas and some good poetic writing in Sonny. I think I'd have liked it better if I'd read it in one sitting--the fact that the characters are sketchy and mostly never named meant putting-down/picking-up wasn't so easy.

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really short read but with so much going on that if you don't catch, you'll miss. I'd read this again and pay more attention to the author's intention here. I have many favorite lines in the book so it's written in such a pretty way. Definitely not a typical narratively driven book though.

[Laura]

i am completely enamored with the idea of a novel in fragments/pieces, and i think sonny is such a wonderful example of it—and i love its movement—small eddies within a longer arc...