The Suburban Review: Umami at its finest
A review.
Holding the newly minted Volume 7 of the Melbourne-based literary journal, The Suburban Review is like unwrapping a present. Put together by a literary collective of like-minded people, the journal design is pristine, with a clean, modern aesthetic. The desktop publishing is flawless and it would sit well next to similar journal, the Lifted Brow. But what the Lifted Brow doesn’t do is fit into your satchel or your bag ready for surreptitious reading on the train home.
Dedicated to writers of colour, the first thing that strikes the reader about this issue is the cover. With wrap-around artwork by Rachel Ang, entitled Concrete Constellations, we find an intriguing embodiment of the contents.
For centuries, the identities of people of colour living in predominantly white countries have acted as templates for the political projections of others. Rachel’s work gives us a conglomeration of two dimensional figures, each one containing the shifting shadows and colour pallettes of whole worlds and constellations, against an urban concrete backdrop. The back cover brings out the blue mood even more, with a melancholic child in the foreground. Watercolour drips could be tears, or bullet wounds. It’s a subtly evocative work, framing the galaxies contained in the pieces.
In a day and age where minority voices are being silenced, this volume is an important mouthpiece for those who often sit in the margins, purely through the lottery of being born in skin of a darker shade. Stories and art are the sharpest tool available in the war against othering, oppression and subjugation. It becomes harder to treat someone with contempt when you have looked them in the eye by way of their intimate stories and artistic expressions. This volume is a celebration of our shared humanity, with its many foibles, tales and secrets.
A relatively young selection of contributors, here are award-winning writers, such as Ellen van Neerven, alongside those who are no less talented, but just waiting for savvy editors to nurture. Case in point is the centrepiece by Gemma Mahadeo, the hilarious, heartbreaking and self-deprecating, Umami. It’s a hugely inventive piece: a libretto for eight ramen bowls in fact. Gemma brings her classical music background into her inventive piece, framing her dating experiences and the grief of a relationship through the shared ramen bowls. Readers in Melbourne are treated to mini reviews of each ramen bar.
Chilled to the ash, crave
warmth. Sliced beef, bean sprout crunch, I
sight the sun: slow boiled
egg half, maniacal grin.
As the reader journeys through the pages, we find the threads of confession and the daily grit of human existence. At times the works are painfully personal, such as the cartoon, Day/Day by Mengo Lee. The visceral work by the Taiwanese artist details the realities of a loved one in intensive care without romanticising or glossing over the experiences.
Indigenous poet, Allison Whittaker bares her guts in a slightly different rendering, exploring the everyday realities of life in a black body:
Fresh black work; industrial complexes
hands with
smooth and flat palm callouses.
It is rhythmic work that pulses with a restless, anarchic energy. Anyone who reads this journal will come away full, as if they have eaten a rich and complex Christmas pudding; one that stays in your taste memory for days afterwards with its gentle humour offsetting its bitter truths. To sum it up in one word: umami.
