Death, Desire, and Other Destinations

DEATH, DESIRE, AND OTHER DESTINATIONS, Tara Isabel Zambrano’s debut short story collection, explores the rocky terrain of relationships and their fault lines, and unearths the boundaries between love, longing, and loss. Both real and surreal, lyrical and magical, sci-fi and speculative, these small stories shine a light in the darkness of seeking a human connection across space and time.

Title: Death, Desire, and Other Destinations

Author: Tara Isabel Zambrano

Genre: Short Stories / Flash Fiction

Paperback:  200 pages

Publication Date: 09/15/2020

Publisher: Okay Donkey Press

Language: English

ISBN 13: 9781733244145

My Review

Death, Desire, and other Destinations is an eclectic collection of flash fiction and short stories both abstract and intimately familiar. A striking combination of elemental needs and nurture clashing with the sometimes incomprehensible tragedies in life, like longing and loss.

In "Milk," a mother's love symbolizes our need and staying attachment to her for we have no teeth to master life while she innately nurtures to a fault: "We latch on to our mother's breasts even after we're grownups. Her nipples look like worn hooks attached to a swollen wall. There isn't much inside, but we like the closeness, and the clicking sound, her topless body attached to our hungry mouths. Her breasts blossom in summer, her body bounces like a stuffed toy. In winter she is vacuous and frumpy."

"Scooped-Out Chest," is the story of a heart that has had enough and leaves behind its owner, but not without first making clear the loss to follow: "When I slice a knife down my chest, my heart crawls out. It looks healthy and full. Cherry red inside out. I watch it drag itself on the floor, onto my desk overlooking the yard and the rees. Blood drips from its sides. Outside the moon floats on the cloudy horizon, fuzzy on the perimeter."

One of the most beautiful stories to me was "We're waiting to Hear Our Names". A young couple in a Chevy kissing on the back seat, "locked in each other's mouths like lightning and thunder" proceeds to tell in turn of each paragraph their entire life together and how it moves through the stages from honeymoon, having children, life after children and death: "We're lying in our graves separated by five years. The dirt is full of answers. Sometimes, we're whispering each other's name, and the dry flowers above us stir. And we're dreaming and waiting. We're waiting to hear our names."

The collection of these 50 stories is a striking melting pot of cultures, life's moments, and their mechanics. From my research of the author, I understand that Tara Isabel Zambrano is of Indian descent, an engineer, and has volunteered for Hospice. What I find unmistakable about this combination of attributes is that they reflect in the stories themselves. There are cultural aspects found that are innate to the Indian culture, while there are in contrast moments of pure Americana. Ultimately, it is hovering between a universal message about life's desires and anguishes.

What was surprising to me in many of the passages was the stripped versions of raw desire. They were reflected openly and often in many of the stories. A lot of lust and taboos within the pages, yet fundamentally true and borderless. There were stories of affairs, LGBTQ, relationships and dwarfism, deep desires of unrequited love, and lots of loving amongst.

Another focal point in many of the stories was parenthood and the desire to have children. In "Piecing," the unrequited desire to become pregnant reads: “I dream my baby is born in pieces, head, torso, limbs—all separate. I stitch him with a black thread so I can see the seams…Once while changing him, I accidentally pull the string, and he comes undone.” Each month she does not conceive feels like another death: “Cells building up on top of each other—a circus tent, taut, blistering. A few weeks later it collapses as if the stakes are pulled from the ground.”

Stories like these were the most visceral to me. Most of us are familiar with the emotions evoked in Death, Desire, and other Destinations but it is the deliverance and application that invites us to ponder the deeper meaning and speculate about the narrator's choices.

With that said, if you enjoy venturing to the depths of human emotions and desires while encountering the obscure and abstract along the way, this collection might be for you!

Happy Reading!

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for a voluntary review.

All opinions are my own. Thank you!