In No Better Voice #30 Jami has opted to stand back and showcase her friends' work. She has pulled together a disparate collection of contributions; some are fictional, some are factual, and there is no apparent overarching theme.
The strongest piece is from Christina LaRose. It is the story of a young girl progressing through a ballet school, and it is a love-hate story. It is the story of an abusive relationship, of a culture that inflicts physical and mental pain but promises happiness: "a world of pain—a world of pain ensconsed in a smile".
I was drawn in by the first-person perspective (perhaps it is autobiographical?) and despite having no experience of ballet lessons I could nonetheless feel the horrible conformist pressure being put on the protagonist. Her body is the wrong shape, and she must be bound to eliminate unsightly curves:
When I get home, I pull the First Aid kit out of the medicine cabinet and roll ace bandages over my breasts, my waist, my hips. I am a shrinking creature, a mummy. I jokingly wrap a bandage over my face. Dad walks by and laughts.
"You've bandaged yourself out of existence!" he says.
I smile yes, yes, yes beneath the medicinal smell of the cloth covering my eyes.
While No Better Voice #30 is worth reading just for this story, there is plenty more to read. I also enjoyed Jenny Bloomer's "Shark attack!", a story about how wearing a dress turns her into prey at the bar, a target for sexual predators. It is evocatively illustrated by LB.
For something a little different, Shaun Allen has contributed a fascinating short history of the Revolutionary Union Movement in the US auto industry in the late 1960s and the 1970s. The movement was made up of several small union locals that challenged not only employers but also the tame-cat United Autoworkers, which had a poor record on including black workers in its leadership positions. Inspirational stuff, though the movement was short-lived. It's nice to see some history in a zine like this.
Jami Thompson (ed), No Better Voice #30, 1/4 size, 32 pages.
Split with Marked for Life #2. Available from Eye Candy, Stranger Danger and Paper Trail.
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