Kitty Crider

Kimmie Rhodes
The Amazing Afterlife of Zimmerman Fees
Sunbird Press

As if she didn't already have enough on her plate (so to speak) as one of Austin,
Texas and country music's most outstanding singer/songwriters (not to mention as a
burgeoning playwright and actress), Kimmie Rhodes decided to add fiction writer to
her resume with the publication of The Amazing Afterlife of Zimmerman Fees. Or
rather, more precisely, the titles of fiction and culinary writer, for not only is
the locally distributed (available from Sunbird Press, PO Box 90183, Austin TX
78709, or www.kimmierhodes.com), novella-sized book a dandy piece of southern-fried
supernatural fantasia, but it is also a tome that could be added to any kitchen
bookshelf worth its salt. The book contains the subheading "a metaphysical story
and cookbook," but prospective readers, music fans, and food aficionados should not
allow that lofty conceit to dissuade them, as the story acts primarily as a framing
device and divertissement that holds together and connects the real, um, meat of
the book. That is, the collection of recipes, many of them straight out of the
Gracey-Rhodes family kitchen. The general premise of the story involves "one
Zimmerman Ellsworth Fees," a struggling songwriter from Nashville who is killed in
a freak accident in the first couple pages of the book. He then proceeds to make
his way through a very idiosyncratic afterlife of indeterminate space and time,
during which he falls for a saucy French girl and travels around the world sampling
various dishes, before an assembly of gods (among them Jesus, Zoroaster, Shiva, and
Isis) debate over what should be his eternal fate. This segment of the presumably
ongoing story (the "To Be Continued" at the end suggests as much) closes with
Zimmerman bronco-bucking a dragon through the universe. The writing is delicious
and accomplished, frequently breathless and funny, a mixture of lovely florid
passages and saltier, down-home-Southern colloquialisms, and the story provides an
ingenious way to navigate through the various regional cuisine (Southwest, Italian,
French, Swiss-German) and not only say a little something unique about the cooking
experience but also delve into some lovely observations about displacement and
spirituality. This is speculative fiction that should be served with the finest red
wine, a tasty morsel for the palette and the brain.