Issue 12. May 2011
Interview
downloadJael McHenry met with Drum editor Henriette Lazaridis Power on May 25, 2011 to record an interview for The Drum. Taking her novel The Kitchen Daughter as a starting point, Jael answered questions about cooking culture and history, the meaning of recipes and the ways they bind us together, and the narrative challenges and opportunities of writing from the point of view of a character with Asperger's Syndrome. She also described her favorite Manhattan street food, and gave tips on that invaluable skill of supreme-ing an orange. (36:33)
David
downloadIn Nina Badzin's short story "David," a post-delivery hospital room is the setting for a skirmish between husband and wife as they debate their new son's name. The decision is rife with social, cultural, and religious implications, seeming to set husband and wife apart even as it brings mother and child together. (8:54)
excerpts from Hiroshima in the Morning
downloadRahna Reiko Rizzuto's memoir Hiroshima in the Morning weaves together her personal experience during a research sojourn in that city with her growing understanding of the complex political, social, and cultural issues that surround the nuclear bombing and its aftermath. She reads here from three sections of the book, examining the stresses on her marriage as she undergoes this months-long separation from her family, her relationship with her aging mother, and her own changing sense of self. Her writing examines the challenge of memory--what happens when it fails us, and when we fail it by choosing to forget. (21:09)
Square Root
downloadRural Greece is the backdrop for Sandra Jensen's "Square Root," a story propelled by the complex relationships between a mother and her children, the mother and the men she captivates, and a group of village Greeks and the foreign family living among them. Told from the point of view of the little girl, "Square Root" turns a trip to buy a pet goat into a study of social and sexual power. (19:48)
excerpt from Deep Down True
downloadJuliette Fay's novel Deep Down True follows Dana Stellgarten as she finds her feet after a divorce. In this excerpt, Dana encounters an unusual--and unusually-colored--addition to her usual array of daily parenting challenges. (7:48)
