Archive - May 2, 2012

Lullaby for the Rain Girl by Christopher Conlon (Botswana 1988–90) Dark Regions Press, 2012 $45.00 341 pages Reviewed by Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993–96) A GHOSTLY GIRL STANDS IN THE DRIVING RAIN without getting wet, facing a mist-shrouded clock tower whose hands are stuck at 4:20. Her mother jumped from that tower long ago, when she, the girl, was a mere blastocyst in her mother’s womb. Many years later she appears as a zombie-like being to her father, who’s ironically named Benjamin Fall. She tries to explain her presence. People like me are not people . . . but whatever we are we’re not ghosts. We’re not spirits. We’re fragments. Partials. Incompletions. If you can love me . . . really love me . . . I might be able to become complete. Ben had somehow conjured her through his own despair and need. He is a high school teacher . . .