November 6, 2023 Car Crushes Citroën Cactus By Holly Connolly The French Cactus. Photograph by Holly Connolly. “I want to wrap / my face tight with a silk scarf and spiral down / a Cinque Terre highway in an Alfa Romeo,” writes Olivia Sokolowski in her poem “Lover of Cars,” which appears in the new Fall issue of the Review. And who doesn’t, when you put it like that? In celebration of Sokolowski’s poem, we’ve commissioned writers to reflect briefly on cars they’ve loved, struggled with, coveted, and crushed on. “Okay, fine,” I said, when we saw the price of train tickets from Paris to the wedding we were attending deep in the South of France. “I’ll drive. But we’re getting a Citroën Cactus.” I had not driven in Continental Europe before, and had, by quirk more than anything else, only ever driven a succession of Cactuses; first my mum’s, then a different rental, then, finally, my own. The Cactus is essentially a four-door, five-seat car, but one of deeply muscular proportions—when I sent a photo of my gray model to a friend who could barely believe that I drive, let alone own, a car, he replied, “It’s, like, a 4×4?” Then there is my favorite feature—unique, as far as I know, to the Cactus—a strip of “Airbumps” lining each side. Said to act as a buffer on collision-prone Parisian streets, they make the car look a little like it’s kitted out in a North Face jacket. Cactuses are not flashy, nor are they known for their reliability. Say the word Citroën to any man who is invested in cars and he will shake his head and start talking about “those French cars and their electrics.” But I have never loved anything because it is functional. Read More
January 23, 2023 Home Improvements His Ex-Wife’s Plates By Holly Connolly In our Winter issue, we published Mieko Kanai’s “Tap Water,” a story whose remarkable first sentence spills across more than two pages and describes the interior of the narrator’s new apartment as if it were the architecture of her emotional landscape. Who among us has not resolved to stop obsessing over some small piece of our home, only to fail? Inspired by Kanai’s story, we’re launching a series called Home Improvements, in which writers consider the aspects of their homes, gardens, and interior design that have driven them to distraction. The second time I met my boyfriend, S., he told me he was getting divorced. I thought, Great. I liked the way it sounded. We were in our late twenties and so it made him and by extension me seem original, and I like people who have made mistakes. To me the marriage sounded unserious, and therefore unthreatening: it was a visa marriage, granted one that came out of a relationship. They met at work, were married after about a year, and divorced bitterly after fewer than three. I have never met his ex-wife but initially I pictured someone stylish and ethereal, and he had said she was a bit older so she was perhaps intimidating in that sense but, ultimately, good company. The problems started with her stuff. For a brief period before they broke up, they both lived together in the house where he, and now sometimes I, live. Meaning that, as a result of the divorce happening long-distance in a kind of pandemic limbo period, and us meeting very soon after it, for the early stretch of our relationship many of her things were still in the house just outside of Belfast. Read More