Present Past

Schieber’s Present Past, like her previous Soundless Roar, is a multi-genre collection.  Made up of drawings, poems, and stories, this manuscript confronts the reader with radically different responses to and representations of her rich life.  These materials—most obviously the stories—cover decades, starting with her childhood in 1930s Novi Sad and ending in 1980s Chicago.  In terms of pure space, Schieber’s stories dominate the collection.  At the same time, their content—along with Schieber’s approach to prose narrative—is productively complicated by appearing interspersed between the other forms.  This is, in short, a fascinating collection, one containing many virtues.