The image on the cover page of this issue looks like a drawing, right? It is actually a photograph, with the exception of what you see on the easel—a small digital manipulation you can ignore. Or excuse. Enter the Charles B. Wang Center at Stony Brook University on Long Island, New York, and see for yourself. The work (room?) is uncredited.
Things seem to have simmered down here after a flood of all things literary was experienced in January. Our inbox of unsolicited work (the only work we review) received ninety-eight submissions in less than a forty-eight-hour period. That broke a Summerset Review record. Not that we keep track or anything. Someone, somewhere, must have posting something positive about our humble journal. Though, of course, this presents much more review work for us, we are nonetheless grateful for the attention.
Drive Me
It was an advertisement in The New Yorker, 2001, that hooked me on buying a new car, the Mini Cooper. It looked retro, sleek, cool. I had to have it. At the time, there were three dealers on Long Island selling them. I went to Huntington.
"There's a waiting list. What's your name and number?" they said.
"How long do I have to wait?"
Their response: "About eight months."
It was on to Freeport. Perched on the showroom platform, I saw one in British Racing Green. I had to have it.
"It's not for sale," they said.
"Can I order one?"
"Only if you want to wait one year."
On to Southampton. They said they weren't taking orders in-person, but you can buy one online "using our Mini Assembly Plant app. You pick the model, color, style. It's all there."
Whoever designed the website for the Mini Cooper knew what they were doing. I was able to fashion my vehicle using eye-catching images that flashed and rotated and said use me, hover over this, drag me here, double-click the door handle. During the construction process of building my online Mini, I was given a virtual tour of the factory in England. They said the assembly of the car is entirely automated; the only things for which humans were needed involved replenishing consumable materials in the machines and driving the completed car out of the factory.
It took eight months to get my British Racing Green Mini Cooper. 9-11 occurred that year and the import of products into the country was slowed. My Mini did not arrive in New York but Philadelphia. I didn't even know a ship capable of carrying a payload of cars across the Atlantic could sail into Philadelphia. Apparently so.
A few years ago, during the pandemic, it frequently called out to me from the garage, saying "What the fuck, man? Why are you not driving me?"
I told it to quiet down, that there's a virus going around. We're quarantined.
"Drive me," said my Mini.
(Sadly, the manual transmission failed in February, 2025, warranting only the second costly repair in the car's twenty-three-year history. I had named her Sydney, and she was with me since the opening days of The Summerset Review in 2002. Succeeded by her younger brother, Lars, a 2025 model boasting more digital amenities than I could ever fathom and fully realize, she will be remembered always.)
Those of us in the northeast of the United States might say that this winter has proven to be a bit nastier that most we have recently seen. In New York City and its surrounding areas, although there has not been a lot of snow, we've had to crank up the small, indoor portable heating units more often than usual, and have grumbled under our breath every time we needed to venture out into the strong winds. We are ready for spring, and so, enjoy our Spring 2025 issue!
— J Levens
