Sierra Bravo Reviews Sister Golden Calf by Colleen Burner

Colleen Burner (they/them) is a graduate of the MFA writing program at Portland State University and an Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship recipient. Their short fiction has appeared in Fecund, Old Pal, Black Candies: Gross and Unlikeable, Permafrost, and Quaint. They are a coeditor of surely magazine. They live in Portland, Oregon. Sister Golden Calf is their first book.

Sister Golden Calf (Split/Lip Press) is available for purchase here.

Colleen Burner’s debut novel Sister Golden Calf is a stunningly honest and intimate exploration of sisterhood, desire, and grief. Composed as a compact series of vignettes, the novel invites readers to sit in the discomfort of loss, whilst also appreciating the magic of the ineffable. The story’s protagonists are sisters Gloria and Kit, who spent their childhood collecting “invisible things for feeling and knowing” alongside their mother, Bonnie. In the wake of their mother’s death, the sisters travel the highways of New Mexico selling jars of “BEGINNER’S LUCK,” “SHAME OF TENDERNESS,” “BREATH OF MEMORY,” and many other unseeable goods. Along their journey, the girls undergo transformative experiences, helping them to strengthen their familial bond and work through their grief. 

Among its more mystical elements, the novel finds its emotional tether through Gloria and Kit’s relationship. From laughing over burritos to grooming each other, the sisters’ dynamic is rich with fondness and familiarity, as well as a closeness that borders on codependency. To this point, Gloria says having a sister is “Just immediate presence and proximity from the Time Before Memory. There-ness. An actual ingredient of your reality. Good luck knowing the world without them.” In moments of profound intimacy and vulnerability, Burner creates a relationship that is as tangible as the jars that hold invisible treasures. Although they spend a great deal of the story apart, the significance of the sisters’ bond is palpable even as they separate to pursue their individual ambitions.

If sisterhood is at the heart of the novel, desire–both the before, during, and after–is what pushes the story forward. For Gloria, desire takes the form of an eight-legged, taxidermy Siamese Hereford Calf from the Billy the Kid Museum. Mesmerized by the odd creature and drowning within the “emotional claustrophobia” of both her grief over Bonnie and her proximity to Kit, Gloria sets off on her own to rescue the calf from her display. Along this journey, Burner expertly captures the initial hope and anticipation of working towards a goal, the self-doubt that comes with roadblocks, as well as the hollowness that ensues when success is reached and there is nothing left to strive for. It’s this post-victory that Burner manages to describe most eloquently saying, “climactic achievement, hard-wrought satisfaction, the looming ‘now what,’ the other side of desire. Does anyone know what to do with Having? After so much energy pouring into Wanting?” Sister Golden Calf is riddled with these types of contemplations, ones that make you pause in recognition and marvel at the description of an indescribable feeling. 

It’s Burner’s rhythmic, thoughtful prose that makes these meditations stick the landing. Their writing flows like spiraling thoughts, feelings, and sensations, each occurring in rapid succession before a breath–or in this case, a period–can occur. This is most evident when Gloria describes her grief over Bonnie and her longing for Kit’s company: 

Loss and loneliness. How did we get here? confusion, life swept away; the melodrama has me picturing the words “bereft” and “unmoored” which feel true, and
they’re big—the whole feeling seems bigger than me and something of me shakes out from under it—a vision of myself repeatedly undulating out from under
a vast, floppy cloud until I feel funneling in my fingers, a pull of gravity down into this shallow hole and my left hand sweeps the loose dirt over my right
fingers, and then I pull my right hand free, push more dirt over the void and I wonder if it worked.

In this passage, Burner provides a specific visual for the emptiness Gloria feels in Bonnie and Kit’s absence. This description borders on overwhelming, the words building on top of each other before the previous can be digested. And yet, this quality is exactly what the moment calls for, as it mirrors the internal struggle Gloria’s experiencing.

This usage of style to expand upon characters’ emotions is also reflected in the novel’s form and structure. The vignettes comprising the story are episodic in nature, each focusing on a particular moment or feeling. This allows Burner to capture the fleeting internal thoughts of their protagonist that would otherwise be foregone in favor of flashier plot developments. A single paragraph dedicated to Gloria’s rumination on the meaning of miracles is an example of this. Containing lines such as, “from the heavens or from the hands of man. A god’s grand gesture. But also something that depends upon the recipient—the more desperate you are, the smaller the gesture can be (economy of scarcity)—it can be a measure of grace or kindness rather than an ark in a flood,” Burner’s vignettes provide contemplative insights into Gloria’s inner world. This structural choice invites readers to walk beside Gloria on her path to healing, heightening the impact of her experiences. 

In a novel that assigns meaning to both the extraordinary and the seemingly mundane, Colleen Burner creates narratives and relationships that ache with humanity. Meditative, experimental, and engaging, Sister Golden Calf is a story that will leave readers mesmerized by the dualities of life.

Sierra Bravo is an undergraduate student at Arizona State University. An English and Film Studies major, she worked as an Editorial Assistant for Hayden’s Ferry Review during the Spring 2024 semester. In her free time, she enjoys reading, writing, and watching movies. Upon earning her degree, Sierra plans to pursue career opportunities in copy editing and publishing.