Bellevue Literary Review, the “journal of humanity and human experience” is published twice a year by the Department of Medicine at New York University. The editors invite submissions “of previously unpublished works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that touch upon relationships to the human body, illness, health and healing. We encourage creative interpretation of these themes.” The fall 2006 issue is themed: Landscapes of the Mind, Writers Explore Mental Illness. From this issue, I recommend the following:

Fiction:

“In Lieu of a Better Plan” by Elizabeth Downs

Downs’ easy voice puts you into the head of a patient trying to escape from a mental hospital. Her attempt leads you on a zany adventure through a third story window, across a two-by-four, and onto the rooftop of a neighboring building, where the character inevitably forgets what she’s doing. Or why she has a pocket full of birdseed. Quirky and humorous. Check it out here.

“World’s Fair” by Kathleen Donahoo

As Donahoo’s first published story, “World’s Fair” is well executed and riveting. Written from the perspective of a woman suffering an unnamed mental disorder, it takes you to the 1964 World’s Fair held at Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, New York. What I like about it is the narrator seems in complete control of her insanity, and uses it to manipulate the situation at hand. Unusual and smart. Buy the print mag to read this one.

“Lake Charles” by Jim Tomlinson

Winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award for Things Kept, Things Left Behind, his debut short story collection, in which “Lake Charles” will appear, Tomlinson’s story is accessible with a tight plot and cool metaphors about rabbits.

Non-Fiction:

“Iambic Pentameter and the Meter of War” by Diane Cameron

This piece rightly earned Cameron a Pushcart nomination. It’s an intense look into the minds of Marines who served in China during World War II. What I find most compelling about this piece, however, is her comparison of maintaining sanity with the structure literary forms

“Perhaps this is the key—how well a person can contain the chaos of life, the chaos of heartbreak or war or murder or mental illness. If there is a form—linguistic, emotional, spiritual—they survive. Maybe some marines like Frenchy possess a form, an iambic pentameter that courses through their lives, keeping their chaos in check. But for others, like Donald, their meter is more fragile, more unmanageable, and the chaos spills over in unruly and violent waves.”

“By My Own Hand” by Anita Darcel Taylor

This first person account of a woman suffering from manic depression is brutally honest and heavy. I applaud the author for sharing her story, and for being brave enough to write these lines:

“I do not view suicide as a desire to end life or a dramatic way to go down in flames. Rather, it is a tool in my possession—the only one, really—that offers a permanent end to my pain. When I have lost enough of myself to this disease as to become unrecognizable even to me, I will stop. I will go no further. That, I tell myself, is my earned choice.”

Poetry:

“After Electro-Convulsive Therapy” by Elizabeth Hazen

This poem’s tone is amazing—melancholy and alone.

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