C'est la Guerre.

This One's Going to Last Forever: Short Stories

by Nairne Holtz

Insomniac Press. 224 pages, $15.95 (paper)

NAIRNE HOLTZ WRITES like an old soul in a Generation-X body. Her tales of gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender/genderqueer/label-free characters in various Canadian cities are both timeless and in touch with the Zeitgeist. The wit in her writing is so dry that the reader is likely to notice its pessimism before recognizing its sparkle. People who have been in "open" or complicated sexual relationships may recognize in these stories both the trendy analysis that's often used to defend such relationships and the emotional reality just below the surface.

Here, the narrator of "No Parking" (first published in an anthology, Lust for Life: Tales of Sex and Love, in 2006) explains the flirtation between herself and Nathalie, who is rumored to "like chicks:": "I acted real cool, but I could not believe my luck. It was like getting a date with the prom queen, except she had more of an edge: more high-school slut than cheerleader. She had to know I was a dyke. Since I had shaved my head and started dressing in black Levis and plaid shirts with the sleeves cut off, straight people assumed I was a man, fags hit on me like I was a twink until their eyes hit my crotch, but queer women recognized me as one of their own." Does Nathalie belong to the same school of "queerness" as the narrator? The irony of the title is highlighted when the narrator decides that not everyone has the right to "park" anywhere in a city in which parking space is limited and must usually be paid for.

"Are You Committed?" is a novella in four chapters, set in Montreal at the end of the 1980's. The major characters are all English-speaking university students in a city whose official language is French. The political divide between "dykes" and "bisexuals" on campus appears as deep as the divide between different schools of socialism and between the "two solitudes" of French and English Canada. Clara, a relatively innocent newcomer from the west, finds that she must choose among the identities that are offered, and she has to decide how a dark secret from her childhood fits into her adult life--or not. The murder of fourteen female engineering students by a male gunmen in December 1989--an actual event--affects Clara more viscerally than it does her male colleagues on the student newspaper, who want only to be the first to report the news. Commitment to a cause, to an identity, or to another person is terribly important to these young adults in a transition phase of their lives--but impossible to maintain.

The theme of transition and shifting loyalties continues in "Crows," in which four heroin addicts in dope-friendly Vancouver share a barely tolerable "friendship" because of their shared addiction. "Knives and Forks" is all the more heartbreaking because the two lesbian cooks at the center of the plot are genuinely good for each other, at least temporarily. "Phantoms" tackles several edgy issues--the effects of disability on a relationship, class differences in a lesbian community, amputation as a sexual fetish, bisexuality, transvestism, BDSM--with sensitivity as well as irony. The woman who's adjusting to the loss of a leg in a car accident is not the only character forced to cope with twinges from a phantom limb or from memories of the past. "Different but Equal," as the title suggests, deals with social inequality based on race as well as that based on class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and parental status. But it is effortlessly poignant because the characters are so believable.

Jean Roberta, author of Obsession (Eternal Press, 2009), a collection of fourteen erotic short stories, teaches English at a Canadian prairie university.