Hot Chicken Wings by Jyl Lynn Felman

Hot Chicken Wings

Jyl Lynn Felman

Bold, funny and on the cutting edge Hot Chicken Wings is Jewish and lesbian to the core. These highly crafted stories break new ground. Jyl Lynn Felman writes fearlessly about family secrets, anti-Semitism, and sacred lesbian myths.

‘…I developed an insatiable appetite whose manifestation occurs today in the form of a Jewish lesbian vegetarian chicken writer. What makes me a Jewish lesbian writer is the fact that my beloved parents kept kosher and longed for their progeny to do the same. Keeping kosher means eating only that food which is permitted according to Jewish law and avoiding all else –that which is forbidden is treyf. So, it is the very act of eating that makes my stories Jewish. Lurking in the background of every scene I write is a sense of the forbidden.’

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From Publishers Weekly

These 11 short stories, plus an introduction about the double-edged identity problem of their Jewish lesbian author, are diverting but never add up to a collection. Although they share a theme–being on the ‘outside’–each wanders off in its own direction, and most stop just short of making their points. One of the stories is narrated by both the mother of a lesbian and the woman who was her high school tennis coach and lover, but never by the subject herself. Another tells of a woman going on vacation with her parents; although it hints at the daughter’s feelings of entrapment, the story never fully acknowledges them. A third describes a girl’s ambivalent feelings towards her grandfather, poking at emotions that lurk just beneath the surface but never revealing their roots. This failure to complete ideas is all the more frustrating because Felman displays a fine grasp of language and a quick sense of humor. She never shies from strong words or images; in the introduction, for example, she states that ‘eating pussy for me is just like eating treyf .’ An occasionally inaccurate glossary of Yiddish and Hebrew words is a friendly but unnecessary gesture. This is a debut collection.

Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In this collection of stories, which swirl around eating more often than sex, Felman’s powerful writing delivers punch after punch directly to the reader’s stomach. The title story dishes up spicy chicken wings cooked by a bisexual Jamaican hotel maid who invites home a vacationing Jewish lesbian to eat and talk. The longest of the 11 stories, ‘A Handsome Man,’ takes place over a number of years and yet is acted out almost entirely at the dinner table. In ‘Voices,’ told in monolog, a mother defends herself when her grown daughter charges that she did nothing to protect her from becoming involved in a lesbian affair as a teenager. But in this case the particulars don’t matter. Felman serves up a rich stew of excuses and explanations that could be made by any mother in any situation. There is one regret only: that the author seeks to explain herself in an introduction (‘The Forbidden, or What Makes Me a Jewish Lesbian Writer’). These nourishing and satisfying stories don’t require explanation. Recommended for most fiction collections.

– Regan Robinson, ‘Librarians Collection Letter,’ Keller, Wash.

Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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