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Lagan Love by Peter Murphy

Lagan Love by Peter Murphy is a dense novel steeped in Irish lore and angst.  Janice, a Canadian, is a young student at the famed Trinity in Dublin, and she is easily swept up in the tumult that clings to the brooding poet Aiden.  She’s a student who dreams of painting and traveling the world, and at one point dreams of her life with Aiden as the famous poet and painter duo.  Is Aiden a struggling poet who has sold his soul for a few hundred dollars and a published collection, or is he the next Seamus Heaney?

His first collection of poems is published with the help of Gwen/Bridey, with whom he’s sleeping and who is married.  Aiden thinks that by introducing Gwen and Janice, he can ensure Janice’s paintings get noticed and that his affair with Gwen remains a secret because publicly Janice will be seen as his muse/girlfriend.  It’s not just Gwen, Aiden, and Janice, but Sinead as well who are searching.  Searching for love or the darknesss within the light and vice versa.

“The dawn sprinkled the suburbs with golden promise that paled in the older parts of town, down streets broad and narrow to the docklands where everything was just plain and ordinary.  Another brave new world beckoned, but Dublin was dubious — too often hope had been trampled down by foreign armies or strangled in dark alleys by the shadows of avarice and graft.”  (page 9)

There are a number of references to ghosts, love, revolution, and even a succubus, which readers will have to wade through, discern the meaning of, and tackle before they can care about these characters with any real depth.  Some cliched images and language are used throughout the novel, but those should not detract from the picture Murphy creates with his words.  However, the density of the narration and metaphors does become too heavy, distancing the reader from the characters and possibly even causing them to step away from the book for a while.  Beyond the density of the narration, there are several moments in the novel where the reader will be distracted by transitions between scenes and characters that are muddied, making it a puzzle readers must solve before they can delve back into the story (i.e. like the aftermath of one fight between Sinead and Janice — where readers may have a difficult time determining which character is in the next scene).

“His mind was a mess of disorganized verses piled on top of each other.  Some were orphans and would wither, but others lingered defiantly, like stones in his shoes.  They were the ones he found the time to polish.  But even some of them were destined to irrelevance.” (page 20)

Like the love song, “My Lagan Love,” the novel is a bumpy ride but with an undercurrent of devotion to love and country.  Murphy explores not only love and inspiration, but what it means to be an artist, especially an artist hungry for their voice to be heard.  What is an artist willing to give up or what kind of compromises are they willing to make?  He answers these questions, but also leaves a bit of mystery behind for the reader to examine and unravel.  Lagan Love is a complex as love itself, particularly when artists and simply men and women are competing for the affections of the same person — even if only to be in control.  Murphy’s style is as complex as his characters, but readers will be absorbed in the forlorn myths and legends created and expounded upon.

About the Author:

Peter Murphy was raised in Dublin, in a house full of books.  After a few years studying life in Grogan’s, he wandered through the cities of Europe before setting out for Canada, for a while, and has been there ever since, raising a family.  Lagan Love is his first novel.

 

This is my 1st book for the Ireland Reading Challenge.

 

 

This is my 29th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

Everyone Is Beautiful by Katherine Center

Anna (her review) handed me Everyone Is Beautiful by Katherine Center after a conversation we had about marriage and child rearing. She told me that I would enjoy it, and she was right . . . for the most part.

Everyone is Beautiful by Katherine Center begins when Lanie Coates and her family move from Houston to Cambridge, Mass., into a smaller home with their rambunctious boys who clearly need more space to run.  From daily visits to the park and the struggle to make friends, Lanie is losing her grip on herself and what’s important.

Even before her family makes the move, she feels adrift from the painter and person she was when she met her husband Peter in college, and even more so, when she learns that her parents have sold the family home to move overseas.

“Now I’d been on the couch for almost three hours, flipping channels with delight, my eyes wide and glazed in a way that made our moving across the country and setting up an entirely new life seem uninteresting and unimportant.  I felt a crazy kind of elation.  I’d forgotten how much TV could pull you out of your own world.  I’d forgotten how great it was.  Books were a good distraction, but TV was like not even being there at all.”  (page 16 of ARC)

The novel is told from Lanie’s point of view, which helps readers experience her struggles with parenting, fitting in with other mothers, and finding herself first hand, but there is a distance between readers and the narrator that is created when she refers to things she learns in the future that she didn’t know at the time.  Narration that slips into this pattern can be distracting to readers who want to be absorbed in the experiences of the characters, making it hard to remain “there” with Lanie and become emotionally connected to her and her situation.

Center, however, does drop anecdotes that all parents, even first time parents, learn very quickly, like telling kids that things are fun just so they won’t complain or give you a hard time or the perverse pleasure some parents have in criticizing others about their parenting skills or kids behavior as a way to reassure themselves that they are doing well.  Some readers may find the antics of Lanie’s children amusing or outrageously funny, but newer mothers may not feel anything but wide-eyed horror.  The novel takes a few twists and turns, which for the most part can be seen miles away, but the end is pure satisfaction.  Everyone is Beautiful is not only about rectifying wrongs or finding oneself, but also is a rekindling of passions and marriage.

This is my 28th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

Vlad: The Last Confession by C.C. Humphreys & Giveaway

Dracula was made famous by Bram Stoker, and the man behind the infamous vampire, Vlad the Impaler, was etched into history as a purely evil man.  However, was the man that inspired Dracula and whom history has called the impaler the devil incarnate?

Vlad:  The Last Confession by C.C. Humphreys seeks to answer these questions through three confessions from those who knew him best — Ion, his childhood friend; Ilona, his mistress; and the hermit — as the powers that be try to resurrect Vlad’s reputation as a means of conquering the Turks and spreading Christianity.  The confessions begin and take readers back to when Vlad was a mere teenager and hostage of the Turks as a means of keeping his father, the ruler of Wallachia, in line.  Unlike typical hostages, Vlad and Ion are taught philosophy and other subjects, and Vlad excels at them.  Unfortunately, the Sultan takes notice much to the chagrin of his nephew, Mehmet, who once ruled the Turkish kingdom and is itching to get it back.  Vlad is then sent to Tokat to learn a different set of subjects at the hands of the Turks in a way that damages his innocence and fuels the fire for revenge.

“In the crook of a copper beech sat a man.  His arms were crossed, gloved hands folded into his lap, the right beneath to support the weight of the goshawk on his left.  They had been there for a long time, as long as the blizzard lasted.  Man and bird — part of the stillness, part of the silence.  Both had their eyes closed.  Neither were asleep.”  (page 3)

Humphreys ensures that readers live in these pages, traveling with Vlad and the other characters through the harsh countryside in the 1400s and breathless with anticipation as the next confession begins in the present (1481).  There are moments in the early part of the book in which events are told that could not have been told by the confessor because Dracula was not with him or her, particularly when Dracula is taken from Tokat by his former teacher Hamza.  However, this is a minor quibble given the story weaved by Humphreys; it will capture readers and suck them into the story, anxious to see if Dracula’s reputation is salvaged.

“All had seen the twin-tailed comet that had torn through Wallachian skies the year the Dragon’s son took back his father’s throne.  It was said then that Vlad had ridden it to his triumph.  To those who followed now, it looked as if that comet flew again, their prince once more astride it.”  (page 249)

Vlad is a character who is driven by a force beyond himself to right a series of wrongs against his people, but this force consumes him to the point of obsession, leaving him little room to deviate from the path he’s chosen.  Humphreys crafts a story that demonstrates this catch-22 so thoroughly that readers see how Vlad is unable to choose and must merely follow the path laid out before him.  Despite the carnage in these pages, readers will hope that Vlad sees the light, finds solace, and achieves the victory he seeks.

The only drawback is that the secondary character of Ion is flat.  When he is torn between revenge and the love of his friend, it is hard to feel the tension of his indecision and applaud him when he warns his friend of impending doom.  On the other hand, Ilona is seen less often in the narrative and is more fleshed out, with her love and dedication to Vlad pulsating in each of her scenes.

What makes a man commit acts of evil? Should this man be forgiven if his motivations were just?  All of these questions are posed in the novel, but the answers are left up to the reader.  Vlad:  The Last Confession by C.C. Humphreys is part history, part epic adventure — an engrossing novel that will surely have you reconsidering other “villains” of the past.

Please check out this podcast with author C.C. Humphreys at What’s Old is New, a site from Devourer of Books and Linus’s Blanket.

For this international giveaway for 1 copy of Vlad:  The Last Confession by C.C. Humphreys, you must do the following:

1.  Tell me which “villain” from history you would like to see reassessed in a novel and why?

2.  Blog, Tweet, or Facebook this giveaway and leave a link in the comments for a second entry.

Deadline is July 1, 2011, at 11:59PM EST

 

 

This is my 27th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

Somewhere Over the Pachyderm Rainbow: Living in an Elephant-Controlled 2010 Election Diorama by Jennifer C. Wolfe

Somewhere Over the Pachyderm Rainbow:  Living in an Elephant-Controlled 2010 Election Diorama by Jennifer C. Wolfe, published by BlazeVOX, is a satiric look at the government today following the Republican take over of the U.S. House of Representatives.  However, readers with staunch Republican beliefs who do not have a sense of humor about politics are NOT going to enjoy this volume and may even be angered by it.  On the other hand, Democrats will nod their heads in agreement, while Independents will nod, smirk, and disagree with certain aspects of these poems, which read more like prosaic diatribes.  More than anything, Wolfe has written a collection of poems to get the nation energized and talking politics, just in time for the upcoming 2012 elections (because you know that elections are now tackled at least 12 months in advance, if not more).

The Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas Pledge of Allegiance (page 42)

I pledge allegiance to the flag
Of the United States of our America,
And to the corporations, for which it stands,
One nation, under our thumb,
Poor invisible,
With liberty and justice, as dictated by the 5-4
Conservative majority of our Supreme Court.

As in the above poem, Wolfe twists well known moments and sayings from history and creates a new narrative to illustrate the “horrors” she sees happening in today’s government and society.  Vitriol drips from each line as she slices through the Republican rhetoric and policy to uncover the intentions of their decisions and desires.  Wolfe is clearly angered by the prominence of Fox News and Sarah Palin, but those are not her only targets.  George W. Bush, John Boehner, Tim Pawlenty, terrorism, and the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords garner equal attention from Wolfe’s sharp pen strokes.

She uses clear language, current events, rhyme, and repeating refrains to maintain the attention of the reader, especially as she nears the point in which she’s ready to slice political platforms to shreds.  There are no puzzles to unwind and the approach to politics is as aggressive as commentary from Bill O’Reilly.  From flip-flopping on Second Amendment issues to hidden agendas in policies, Wolfe calls attention to the rhetoric that covers up the truth.  For instance, why is China our ally if they continue to ship toxic toys, food, and other items to the United States?  Is it related to the fact that they own most of the national debt?

Overall Somewhere Over the Pachyderm Rainbow:  Living in an Elephant-Controlled 2010 Election Diorama by Jennifer C. Wolfe is a jumping off point for further conversation, but it will leave some readers wondering what the references refer to as they lose their immediate meaning and newer events replace those within these pages.  Luckily, the Internet will enable everyone to look up some of these references, though many will wonder if this is merely a collection by a leftist angered by the victory of the right in a political election and what it, if any, significance, it will have on the political arena.  Only time will tell how this collection impacts thinking and action into the future or if it will simply fade into the background like the many scandals among today’s political figureheads.  Taken in small chunks, readers will digest the barbs in these poems and hunger for the next course.

About the Poet:

Jennifer C. Wolfe grew up in Maplewood, Minn., and studied fiction writing and poetry at Century College in White Bear Lake. Mississippi. Wolfe has five previous publishing credentials: a poem “If” included within the Century College (White Bear Lake, MN) Spring 2008 Student Lounge literary magazine along with three poetry manuscripts, Kick the Stones: Everyday Hegemony, Empire, and Disillusionment published as an eBook by BlazeVOX Books, New York, October 2008, Yukon Rumination: Great Fun for All in the Land of Sarah Palin’s Joe Sixpack Alaska, published as an eBook by BlazeVOX Books, New York, June 2009, and Healing Optimism, and Polarization, published as an eBook by BlazeVOX Books, New York, February 2010, and two poems “St. Patrick’s Day” and “Roller Coaster,” published within the online edition of Scrambler Magazine, Issue 39, June 2010.

 

This is my 17th book for the Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

 

This is my 26th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

Ordinary Miracles by Erica Jong

Ordinary Miracles by Erica Jong begins with an introduction by the poet herself in which she talks about how poems have become “the stepchild of American letters,” especially since the novel has become so popular.  She further goes on to discuss the duality of being a poet and a novelist and how it is often considered “promiscuous.”  She has thrown those adjectives aside to embrace her duality and to make the most of both genres, with the themes of one informing and flourishing in the other.  “I am always hoping that someone will recognize the poet and novelist as two aspects of the same soul — but alas, the genres are reviewed by two different groups of people, so no one ever seems to notice this in print,” she says.  (page xvi)  It’s funny that she would have this concern in the 1980s, and I wonder what she would think about blogs today that review both novels and poetry.

Erica Jong’s collection is broken into four parts: Fetal Heartbeat; The Breath Inside the Breath; The Heart, The Child, The World; Straw in the Fire.  From these section titles alone, readers can tell that the poems are likely to generate an arc from birth to death.

Jong’s narrator examines what it means to be a mother, the trepidation that comes with, and the joys that are discovered as the child enters the world and grows up questioning the world around them.  More than that, there is a circle of birth-life-death that Jong refers to and wonders about, working back from her advanced years to her childhood.  From “Poem for Molly’s Fortieth Birthday” (page 23-6), “Now,/I begin/unraveling/the sleeves/of care/that have/stitched up/this brow,/unraveling/the threads/that have kept/me scared,/as I pranced/over the world,/seemingly fearless,/working/without a net,/”

The second section tackles the trials of living, embarking on new aspects of our lives and the moment in which we straddle the past and future.  The indecision, the drawing back, the confusion, and the final moment the decision is made.  The narrator is on the precipice of decisions and movements through life.  From “This Element” (page 39), “Looking for a place/where we might turn off/the inner dialogue,/the monologue/of futures & regrets,/of pasts not past enough/& futures that may never come/to pass,/”

In the smallest of the sections — three — presents the grittiness of life — the love and loss and the pain and joy — but much of this is written bitterly or ironically.  Jong uses simple language and images to demonstrate these emotions without clearly carving out each situation that gave way to those emotions.  Her lines are short and clipped, drawing from that additional emotional power.  On page 55 from “Letter to my Lover After Seven Years,” “Now we have died/into the limbo of lost loves,/that wreckage of memories/tarnishing with time,/that litany of losses/which grows longer with the years,/as more of our friends/descend underground/& the list of our loved dead/outstrips the list of the living.//”

In the final part of the book, the anger, bitterness, and frankness are all that is left as the scars have bored into the narrator and the fluttery, flowery ideas of birth have been completely worn away, leaving only a bristly exterior and nearly empty interior.  In this way, the final section is not a closing of the circle, but it could be if the opening of the circle was ill-perceived.

Ordinary Miracles by Erica Jong takes a look at life from a female point of view — a poet who is derailed and tainted by love and childbirth, who thinks she may have been better off remaining untainted as a way to create the best work.  Whether this interpretation is correct is up to each reader, especially given that many of the poems also illustrate the hidden joys of childbirth and life — the hope that comes with each, a hope that things will be different.  However, readers may cringe at some of the word choices and language used in some of the poems to describe the anatomy of men and the act of sex.  The poet may have chosen the words to provide shock value, and make a point about perspective once relationships fail.  The collection examines the ordinary in an attempt to show readers how miraculous those moments are, but the effort falls short on some occasions.  Overall, the collection will have you talking with book clubs and friends for a long time as it raises issues about relationships and motherhood.

About the Poet (from her Website):

Erica Jong—novelist, poet, and essayist—has consistently used her craft to help provide women with a powerful and rational voice in forging a feminist consciousness. She has published 20 books, including eight novels, six volumes of poetry, six books of non-fiction and numerous articles in magazines and newspapers such as the New York Times, the Sunday Times of London, Elle, Vogue and the New York Times Book Review.

Erica Jong lives in New York City and Weston, CT with her husband, attorney Ken Burrows, and standard poodle, Belinda Barkowitz.  Her daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, is also a writer.

 

 

This is my 25th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

 

 

 

This is my 16th book for the Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

War & Watermelon by Rich Wallace

War & Watermelon by Rich Wallace, a Junior Library Guide selection, is set in 1969 in New Jersey just as the Vietnam War is beginning to rage and Woodstock is ready to rock suburban New York.  New Jersey brothers Brody and Ryan take a road trip to the concert of their generation as Ryan continues to avoid questions from his parents about his future, particularly college, and the draft.  Brody is just about to start junior high school and is eager to join the football team, but his world is insular in that his main focus is football, girls, the Mets, and the Top 40 hits.

“I grab the ball, make a juke to the right, and send a line drive over the clothesline and directly into the basket.  The bell rings.  Ryan puts his hands on his hips and stares at the ceiling.  I raise my fists and say, ‘Yes!’

I carefully move past the shirt — it looks more like polka dots than tie-dye — and smack hands with him.  ‘Champion,’ I say, patting myself on the chest.

‘Mr. Clutch,’ he says.  ‘ Best in the basement, for sure.'” (page 23)

Told in Brody’s point of view, the novel thrusts readers into the life of a teenage boy who only thinks about sports and girls.  But it’s more than that for Brody.  He’s worried about fitting in at junior high and whether his brother will be drafted into the Vietnam War in September when he turns 18.  The prose is clipped and focused, with breaks between scenes as Brody’s mind shifts from football worries to family concerns and between girls and the start of school.

Wallace’s style is no-nonsense, and he has a football announcer/coach’s way of describing football plays so that even a layman can picture the players’ moves.  He had a firm grasp of what kids in junior high are thinking and feeling, particularly during this time period in the late 1960s.  What’s interesting is that there are poems sporadically thrown in written by Brody, usually about his family, football, and the like.  They are not masterpieces, but they’re also written by a young boy entering the seventh grade.

Woodstock Flock
by Brody Winslow (page 50)

Marching
Not to battle
Marching
All night long
Marching
Past barns and cattle
Marching
To hear a song

Marching
With my brother
Marching
With thousands more
Marching
To hear another
Marching
Against the war

Wallace creates a childlike innocence in Brody that becomes marred by his brother Ryan’s unwillingness to take action — to decide between college and the draft. Their father continues to insult Ryan’s indecision, pushing him to apply to college, and while Brody may agree with his father that Ryan needs to act to avoid going to war, he also agrees with his brother that he should not be forced into making a decision he’s not ready to make.

War & Watermelon is a coming of age story in which a young man realizes that there are events and issues larger than his concerns about school, football, and girls.  The war, protests, and his brother’s indecision prompt Brody to make some choices of his own and gain the confidence he needs to remedy his own issues at school.  Wallace has a way of teaching lessons without lecturing, and young boys should easily relate to the story.  However, young girls in this similar age group (9-12) may have a tougher time relating to a young football player unless they have older brothers or are interested in what boys their age are thinking about.

Stay tuned tomorrow, June 14, for my guest post from Rich Wallace about his writing space and another chance to win War & Watermelon.

About the Author (From TLC’s Website):

Rich Wallace is the author of many award-winning books for children and teenagers, including Wrestling Sturbridge, Sports Camp, Perpetual Check, and the “Kickers” and “Winning Season” series. He lives with his wife, novelist Sandra Neil Wallace, in Keene, NH. (As an aside, my cousin when to college in Keene.)

A note from Rich : ”Bloggers might like to know that, like Brody in War & Watermelon, I was 12 years old in 1969 and living in suburban New Jersey, just becoming aware of the war and the music and the other world-changing events of that summer. I also had an older brother who was eligible for the draft, which caused considerable concern in our household and informed the events of this novel.” Please visit his Website.

Please check out the rest of the stops on the TLC Book Tour.

To win 1 copy of War & Watermelon by Rich Wallace (US/Canada Only),

1.  Leave a comment on this post about what other middle-grade books you recommend.

2.  Spread the word on Facebook, Twitter, and the Blog about the giveaway for a second entry.

3.  For a third entry, read and comment on tomorrow’s (June 14) guest post from Rich Wallace.

Deadline is June 22, 2011, at 11:59 PM EST.

 

This is my 24th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

The Decadent Lovely by Amy Pence

The Decadent Lovely by Amy Pence, published by Main Street Rag, is a collection lush in mystery as it is in setting and pulsating with dramatic domesticity.  Broken into seven parts, Pence begins the collection with the “ugly and the ordinary” and moves to the end of the collection with the infinitesimal.  Her images call attention to the darkness of the narrator’s family as they witness the drunken stupors, like in “Landing Space, 1970” (page 5-6), “Cutting too:/the eyes of the sunflowers/the swell of them, pulpy,/like my stepfather’s,/roused too soon//from an alcoholic stupor/for the graveyard shift.  Was it too much/what they saw or not enough? . . . ”

Like the pleasant and the darker aspects of the family, Pence juxtaposes the landscape of New Orleans to that of Las Vegas, with the darker elements of family life up in neon lights.  But there is darkness in New Orleans, a past that cannot be escaped and a past that can be touched only through the voodoo of memory and self-assessment.  In “The Waiting Room” (page 40), “Maybe/she’ll talk of a version of her self/decades before the cancer:  the Rose Bowl court in the 50s/or her years in New Orleans, to relate, she’d say/to the woman waiting.  In that/hazy B&W film, my mother/was one of the Golddust Twins,/the flashier one, running headlong out of Ohio, constantly/misunderstood by husbands, children, lovers./Maybe the black woman would begin/to resent my mother as most did, would/see her as merely another shipwreck in Vegas,/unmade by her own addictions.  . . . ”  Readers will find the new perspective on these mundane scenes fresh and captivating, as the narrator reveals the truth behind the surface interactions of women in a waiting room.  Pence has a number of these moments in her poems.  However, there are poems that will require more time, reading them several times and greater reflection for each image and line — a process that could bog down some new readers of poetry.  That being said, the collection is worth the effort.

Put Muse Here (page 22)

Dalí renders Dante’s Beatrice with
his beloved’s form, face obscured. Uses

grisaille, a netting & rivulet to dress her
ginger-crisp: a locust shell split. Then

there’s me: putting another face where the Dark
should be, like dreaming (an Emma Bovary),

of punctuation. The colon: two face one-upon-
one, the lock in the door, a figment well-oiled.

In the slash / my avarice: cut (an Emily Brontë)
window across which I rub my wrist.

Then there’s the period — the body’s
rush to an ending. The Thee (an Emily Dickinson)

through which the self moves —
finds the mouth, fills the face, enters in.

Sometimes cryptic, sometimes plain spoken, Pence crafts an inside look at family (those are her parents on the cover) and the happy dysfunction that can occur and often does.  Beyond that, she draws parallels between that dysfunction and the human condition, which we often attempt to control and fail to control.  The Decadent Lovely is a self indulgence worth wallowing in, if not to examine one’s own life but to understand that humans tend to be self-indulgent even though they espouse the shedding of ego.

 

This is my 15th book for the Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

 

This is my 23rd book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

The Bedtime Book for Dogs by Bruce Littlefield

The Bedtime Book for Dogs by Bruce Littlefield, published by Hachette Book Group in June 2011, is chock full of large, colorful illustrations that even catches the eyes of infants.  My daughter is only 3 months old and she was drawn into the book by the illustrations of the dog and the park with its bright greens and browns.  The story is short and sweet, which would make it easy to read for those learning and those wanting to read on their own.  Littlefield’s story is one about friendship — a companionship that dogs even have with their owners — and sharing.

Dogs will even love the story as well, with their ears perking up at familiar terms like “out” and “treat,” but be careful because readers may find that they’ll have to give them an actual treat or actually take them out!

The only drawback is that some of the text gets lost in the images, particularly the busy image of the inside of the house with its dog bone wallpaper.  But even that does not occur most often — it’s just on a few pages.  What’s great about the narration is that many of the words are written in large type, making them easy to recognize.

Readers will love how the story speaks to the listener — whether its a dog or a child — telling them to “sit” and “lie down” to listen to the story.  Its a good way to get them ready for bed.  The story is short, however, which means it could take several readings before a child will actually fall asleep, but that’s typical with any bedtime story.  The Bedtime Book for Dogs by Bruce Littlefield and illustrated by Paul S. Heath is a cute book that readers won’t mind reading again and again, as some of the lines rhyme like poetry, making the flow easy to remember.  It’s a colorful, happy story that should be added to any child’s shelf.

This is my 22nd book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

Still Missing by Chevy Stevens

Broken down into sessions with a therapist and told in first person point of view, Still Missing by Chevy Stevens provides just the right amount of mystery and tension as Annie’s ordeal is revealed.  Readers should be prepared for a severely broken character from page one, which becomes apparent from the first word she utters to her therapist.  Annie is angry and still scared, and she struggles to tell her story.  The only comfort she has with her therapist is that she’s set the ground rules, and in this way, she has become similar to her abductor.

The jarring narrative style is perfect for the mystery and terror of this story, and Stevens has deftly created an angry and disillusioned character who feels abandonment down to her core.  Cracking her tough exterior is a slow process for the therapy sessions, and there are moments where readers will want the pace to pick up, but Stevens has set the pace appropriately to lead up to the twist at the end.

“Worse, I’ve become one of them–the whiny, depressing people who have no problem telling you exactly how shitty their end of the stick is.  All delivered in a tone of voice that makes it clear they not only got the wrong end, you got the one that was supposed to be theirs.” (page 29 of ARC)

During a couple of moments in the novel, Annie contends she’s watched enough crime dramas and read enough books to know about the criminal mind — at least in part — but then proceeds to “appease” her abductor as he tries to force himself upon her to protect her friend from him, even though from the beginning it has been obvious that he prefers her to express fear because it arouses him.  This may be a bit nit-picky, but given the set up, readers may find it inconsistent with Annie’s earlier characterization of herself.

Stevens successfully creates a character who is tough to love or even sympathize with as she pushes away everyone in her life, including her devoted boyfriend, especially when all readers see of her relationships are from her point of view.  Why does Luke remain devoted while she’s gone, why does her mother take her in if she’s so callous and drunk all the time, etc.?  The mystery of her kidnapping is revealed slowly throughout the therapy sessions, which move through “present” events more rapidly near the end of the book.  Readers may see the ending coming before it gets there if they’re intuitive and looking for clues along the way, and the final line of the book is very trite.  However, the action and suspense created by Stevens’ narrative style make the journey worthwhile.

Annie in many ways is still missing even after she’s returned home, and she was even partially missing before she was abducted.  Still Missing will provide readers and book clubs with a great deal to discuss about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), abduction, rape, and other horrifying events.

About the Today’s Exclusive Online Event:

The paperback release of Still Missing hits stores today, and in honor of that event, BookTrib is holding an online chat and giveaway with the author Chevy Stevens at 3 PM.  In addition to the online chat, the event will include exclusive video from the author and 10 gift bags for the giveaway.  Don’t miss out!

About the Author:

Chevy Stevens grew up on a ranch on Vancouver Island and still calls the island home. For most of her adult life she worked in sales, first as a rep for a giftware company and then as a Realtor. At open houses, waiting between potential buyers, she spent hours scaring herself with thoughts of horrible things that could happen to her. Her most terrifying scenario, which began with being abducted, was the inspiration for STILL MISSING. After six months Chevy sold her house and left real estate so she could finish the book.

Chevy enjoys writing thrillers that allow her to blend her interest in family dynamics with her love of the west coast lifestyle. When she’s not working on her next book, she’s hiking with her husband and dog in the local mountains.  Please also check out her blog, follow her on Twitter, and on Facebook.

 

This is my 21st book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

 

 

This is my 12th book for the 2011 Wish I’d Read That Challenge.  I’ve wanted to read this since I received a copy from Shelf Awareness.

Monster by David Livingstone Clink

Monster by David Livingstone Clink, published by small publisher Tightrope Books, is a collection broken into five parts and is dedicated to those who “dreamed of monsters under the bed.”  What an appropriate dedication, as there is an undercurrent of menace to some of these poems.  Beyond the shapeshifters, the aliens, and the other monsters that go bump in the night, Clink is drawing out the mischief and the darkness within each of us.  While we are human, there is a baser nature beneath the civility that he calls attention to, warning us to remain wary and yet accepting of that nature.

In “Pantoum for a Recent Kill” (page 36), the narrator highlights the need of humanity to categorize even dead bodies, to shape them within a context, providing them meaning even if no meaning exists.  While we want to examine these corpses (whether they are literal or figurative) in great detail and pose them as we see fit, we also shy away from the pleasure of it and of acknowledging this darker desire to get involved on our basest level.  “In putting an end to something braver than us/cut the corpse into small pieces.  Bury it deep/and turn away with relief that this isn’t you.//”  Additionally, readers may notice a slight disdain in the lines chosen by Clink; the narrator seems to be sarcastic about the actions of the denier who “buries it deep.”  Perhaps Clink is discussing the corpses of our past selves or the past selves mentioned throughout history and lore, but no matter which corpses he is referring to, it is clear that he wants to break through the fear of self-examination.

Above Us (page 50)
-after Julia Hartwig’s ‘Above Us’

Running until they are tired, out of space,
boys cast shadows in the dwindling light

of a vast square, the soccer ball bouncing,
ending this day with awe and consolation.

This completes another cycle in dying–
the boys turn home, talk excitedly,

the soccer ball having its own language
that had to be kicked out of it to be heard.

Moving through the parts of the collection, readers will note a progression in the narration from the fantastical to the more concrete, but even in these different poems the undercurrent of menace and darkness continues.  However, the narration changes from a questioning of its existence to a denial of its existence to an acceptance.  From “The Airships Take Us, Even as We Blow Out the Last Candle” (page 27), “The darkness did not come on like a tarantula./It was always here./It is penetrated by man-made machines/muscling into the night,/by two young women on a downtown bus/with blue streaks in their hair, whispering,/Calvary, and, Hosanna.//”

Through playful language and use of creative poetic forms (from pantoum to cross-reading — “Weathered Remains” on page 24 being one of the best cross-reading poems in the collection), Clink will make readers take pause to rethink each line and their own preconceptions about their humanity, while at the same time celebrating what makes us human in the darkness.  Overall, Clink’s use of language and poetic form in Monster creates a surreal malaise that readers will swim in, searching for an exit but enticed to stay to uncover the dark truth about themselves.  A dark truth that is worth knowing so that they can move beyond it to a more mindful life.  Another winner in poetry for the year.

David Clink; Copyright Geoff George

About the Poet:

His first book of poetry was released from Tightrope Books in the Spring of 2008. It is called “Eating Fruit Out of Season.”

David is a member of The League of Canadian Poets.  Check out his Website, Poetry Machine.

 

 

 

This is my 20th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

 


This is my 13th book for the Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

Midnight Voices by Deborah Ager

Midnight Voices by Deborah Ager, published by small press Cherry Grove Collections, is a collection that gives voice to the thoughts, the events, and the split seconds before tragedy or fateful decisions are made that are only heard in silence.  The silence is a voice, quick to speak and die out without stalking across the stage and declaring itself.  Secrets are revealed in these poems, like the undiscovered joy “Deborah Sampson” (page 11) — a woman who enlisted as a man in the Army during the Revolutionary War — felt posing as a man and disappearing from her real self.  Or in “The Moment Before the Moment” (page 19), where the narrator comes across the hidden beauty of a sunrise before the actual sun rises above the horizon.  Each poem illuminates the in-between, the edge, the precipice before the collision of events or moments in time.

The Space Coast (page 14; click the poem title and scroll the page to see this poem and others in the collection)

An Airedale rolling through green frost,
cabbage palms pointing their accusing leaves
at whom, petulant waves breaking at my feet.
I ran from them. Nights, yellow lights
scoured sand. What was ever found
but women in skirts folded around the men
they loved that Friday? No one found me.
And how could that have been, here, where
even botanical names were recorded
and small roads mapped in red?
Night, the sky is black paper pecked with pinholes.
Tortoises push eggs into warm sand.
Was it too late to have come here?
Everything’s discovered. Everything’s spoken for.
The air smells of salt. My lover’s body.
Perhaps it is too late. I want to run
the beach’s length, because it never ends.
The barren beach. Airedales grow
fins on their hard heads, drowned surfers
resurface, and those little girls
who would not be called back to safety are found.

At times, the images seem thrown together haphazardly, but readers must let themselves go, meditate on the words in the context of the moment presented, before the “truth” is revealed.  What is not said explicitly about certain moments can be as violent as the moment that remains unspoken — what happens between walking through a park after dark following a mother’s rejection and when the narrator wakes up with his pants around his ankles in “Rohypnol” (page 34).  What this style shows is that there are numerous ways to tell a story and to uncover “truth,” and it does not always have to be explicit or harrowing, though there are moments of violence on the surface of some poems.

Ager spends a great deal of time exploring the hidden spaces in our minds, our secret desires and thoughts, and even the thoughts we didn’t know we had.  Like a mother who has no husband or children to take care of for the evening in “Alone” (page 38), and all she can think of is the next task on the list or when the next task will come for her.  But beyond that, her personification of inanimate object, such as a telephone, can convey those unspoken desires in a way that a mere narrative involving a man and a woman cannot.

Midnight Voices by Deborah Ager is a personification of silent whispers in dark corners, where the secrets and mysteries of ourselves lie in wait — wanting to be revealed and not.  Readers will take a journey into these recesses and uncover their own hidden secrets, smile at the camaraderie these poems produce, and search for more.  One of the best collections I’ve read this year.

About the Poet:

Deborah Ager’s poems appear in New England Review, The Georgia Review, Quarterly West, New South and in the anthologies No Tell Motel and Best New Poets. She’s received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and she received a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.

She is founding editor and publisher of 32 Poems Magazine. Many poems first appearing in 32 Poems have been honored in the Best American Poetry and Best New Poets anthologies and on Verse Daily and Poetry Daily. Ager codirects the Joaquin Miller Cabin Poetry Reading Series in Washington, DC and teaches at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD.

 

This is my 12th book for the Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

 

This is my 19th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

 

 

 

This is my 11th book for the 2011 Wish I’d Read That Challenge.  I’ve wanted to read this since the poet sent it to me for review, but life got in the way.

Lit Windowpane by Suzanne Frischkorn

Suzanne Frischkorn’s Lit Windowpane is a slim collection of poems, published by small press Main Street Rag, that examines what humanity has done to the environment and yet at the same time praises the unfettered beauty of nature.  Like the men in the tavern of “The Mermaid Takes Issue With the Fable” (page 3), humans have “blackened” the Earth and “laughed” along the way as we’ve entertained ourselves without a single moment’s pause about what our actions have caused — and in some cases irreparably damaged.

Many of these poems are like gazing through a lit windowpane at the wildness of nature, watching it from afar and not interacting or obstructing it — enabling it to just be.  Frischkorn’s lines are short, yet powerful in that readers immediately picture the scene and the action.  Upon further reflection, they come to see the message beneath the lines — from preserving nature to decrying the harm that has come to nature at the hands of humanity.

Youth Drowns in Housatonic River (page 4)

He swam across
+++ the inlet near Beard’s Island,

and I was lying in my river bed
+++ watching light ripple the surface.

I saw him swim a straight line
+++ through the sun. I had no choice

but to eat fish from the river,
+++ and the soil, it finds its way into

my skin. I am the river and the river
+++ is contaminated. The river is dying

and I am dying. His body was lean
+++ and strong, yet the cold shut down

his circulation. His arms. His legs.
+++ Please tell his mother I brushed

the hair from his forehead and sang
+++ sweet songs until the divers came

a day later. Tell her, he swam a straight line.

In “Youth Drowns in Housatonic River,” the narrator not only becomes the river, but also tells the tale of a drowning youth and the interconnectedness of humans and their environment. “The river is dying/and I am dying,” shows this connection, as do the lines in which the narrator is eating fish from the contaminated river.  Frischkorn’s images grown up and out, twisting around the reader, weaving a scene that gets under the skin and causes readers to rethink their own actions toward the environment.  A perfect example of this is her poem “‘A Stone, A Leaf, An Unfound Door,’ T. Wolfe.”  The narrator talks about being reincarnated as a stone, a leaf, and unfound door, and through each scene readers see how easily a stone or a leaf can be treasured one moment and either discarded or forgotten in the next moment.

Overall, Lit Windowpane by Suzanne Frischkorn is a collection that seeks to quietly raise awareness among its readers, while cultivating a new appreciation for the beauty and mystery of the natural world.

About the Poet:

Suzanne Frischkorn is the author of Girl on a Bridge (2010), and Lit Windowpane (2008) both from Main Street Rag Publishing. In addition she is the author of five chapbooks, most recently American Flamingo (2008).

Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Ecotone, Indiana Review, Margie, Verse Daily, and other publications. She has new poems forthcoming, or in the current issues of Barn Owl Review, Copper Nickel, North American Review, PALABRA, Printer’s Devil Review, and Puerto del Sol.

From 2001 to 2005 she served as an editor for Samsära Quarterly and is currently an Assistant Editor for Anti-.

A 2009 Emerging Writers Fellow of The Writer’s Center, her honors also include the Aldrich Poetry Award for her chapbook, Spring Tide, selected by Mary Oliver, and an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism.

 

This is my 11th book for the Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

 

 

This is my 18th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

 

 

 

This is my 10th book for the 2011 Wish I’d Read That Challenge.  I’ve wanted to read this since the poet sent it to me for review, but life got in the way.