The Summer 2003 issue of The Gettysburg Review is a treasure, featuring the amazingly realistic nature paintings of Brad Marshall, along with very memorable fiction, poetry and essays.
Christopher Coake's haunting short story "All through the House" is worth the price of this issue in and of itself. I can't shake the gripping voices of Coake's characters, and the tale of one man's desperate attempts to live the life of his childhood dreams, and his chilling emotional volatility that eventually brought his world crashing down.
The predominantly narrative poetry of this issue is captivating. William Olsen's theorizing on an alien space landing is innovative and well done without lapsing into genre, and G.C. Waldrop provides introspection with his well-crafted "Weather Report: 30 December":
The snow begins to blow a little,
a fine powder at this temperature; the body
keeps its appointments. I do no particular thing. And the snow
drifts down as the eye goes on filling up, only with shadows
as the day moves further into and then out of
itself. The words follow, they are obedient, they recede
into the fovea like relics into night's dark socket.
Rebecca McClanahan's effective essay "Our Towns" reflects on the importance of theater, even to small towns. Yiyum Li's essay "What Has That to Do with Me?" honors the strength of some individuals under Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution (read an excerpt here).
At $6.00, The Gettysburg Review is quite a bargain, considering all the enjoyment you will get out of the wide variety of talents presented within its pages.
