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Review: The Wanting Life

1/1/2020

The Complexities of Human Desire
Review: The Wanting Life

Megan Kiger

Mark Rader
Fiction
Unnamed Press, pp. 315
Cost: $18.00 (paperback)

Imagine the sun setting in a not-so bustling Rome—a glass of Limóncello and fresh risotto in front of you. Your table is small with intricate iron wrought detail, and the world is quiet. There’s a slight summer breeze and a whispering guitar, maybe two, in the background. You can almost hear each wish as it meets the surface of the Trevi Fountain.

Mark Rader transports us, sans jetlag, to a past world of desire and love lost in his unconventional romance novel The Wanting Life. We travel from Cape Code to Italy to a generationally familiar town in Wisconsin, navigating the hearts and minds of Rader’s characters and the threads that pull so heavily on their spirits.

Review: The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish

12/1/2019

A Deep Dive Into Familial Relationships
Review: The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish

Elizabeth Mecca

Katya Apekina
Fiction
Two Dollar Radio, pp. 353
Cost: $16.99 (paperback)

In Katya Apekina’s novel The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish, relationships are used to emphasize characterization and create drama within the story. In particular, the novel examines father-daughter relationships, mother-daughter relationships, husband-wife relationships, and artist-muse relationships. Told through numerous first person accounts in the form of narratives, letters, phone conversations, and interviews, Apekina provides the reader with an in depth, up-close look at the intimate intricacies of these relationships and their meanings. The unique structure of this novel allows the reader to see each character’s internal and external struggles and conflicts. These accounts in various forms help create strong characterization and drama within the story.

Review: Penultimate Human Constellation

11/1/2019

A Journey Not Across the Universe But Across The Generation Gap
Review: Penultimate Human Constellation

Leo Kirschner

Steven Ostrowski and Benjamin Ostrowski
Poetry Chapbook
Tolsun Books, pp.136
Cost: $12.00

Humanity has long searched for meaning and truth by looking toward the stars. Poets Steven and Benjamin Ostrowski believe we only need to look within ourselves. This father and son team present what they’ve learned and what they seek to know in their new book Penultimate Human Constellation: A Father and Son Converse in Poems (2018, Tolsun Books). Less an epistolary narrative and more like a private conversation over a long sleepless night, the Ostrowskis embark on their unique quest. We become privy to their efforts.

Review: Driving Together

8/1/2019

Seemingly Simple Reflections of Life
Review: Driving Together

Julie Darpino

Robert Tyler Sheldon
Poetry
Meadow-Lark Books, pp. 84
Cost: $15.00

In his poetry collection, Driving Together, Tyler Robert Sheldon shares personal observations of seemingly simple moments in his life: observations on a hummingbird, a physical scar, yard work, and graduate school. Spanning all of these subjects, Sheldon’s poems use crisp imagery and storytelling. Through his prevalent themes of childhood experiences, the nature of Kansas, and the relationship to his wife, Sheldon reveals to his readers an unexpected depth to life’s simplicity by use of imagery.

Review: True Ash

7/1/2019

Genre, Sexuality, and Mystery: How True Ash Bends All the Rules
Review: True Ash

Jenna Pauline Burke

Elizabeth J. Colen and Carol Guess
Fiction
Black Lawrence Press, pp. 140
Paperback, $17.95 US

As an avid reader, it has been a long time since I was so heavily engaged in a novel that my physical grip tightened by suspense and bent the pages. This was my experience reading True Ash, full of such vivid imagery that the reader is taken into a different world. Colen and Guess's writing not only plays mental mind games with readers, but questions the terms of genre as well. This novel is a combination of short stories, flash fiction, and prose poetry that all coincide with each other creating a luring uncanniness that hooks readers.

Review: Pretend We Live Here

6/1/2019

The Art of the Uncomfortable
Review: Pretend We Live Here

Laura Kincaid

Genevieve Hudson
Fiction
Future Tense Books, pp. 168
Paperback, $13 US

Genevieve Hudson captures the comfortable in the uncomfortable. Her collection of short stories, Pretend We Live Here, centers on characters looking for home in places, in people, in their own bodies. No matter where her characters roam, readers are confronted with the violence inherent to existence through her sharp-edged but haunting, sometimes even joyful, prose.

Review: The Shape of A Hundred HIps

5/1/2019

Review: The Shape of A Hundred Hips

Ann Caputo

Patricia Cumbie
Memoir
Bink Books: pp. 226
Cost: $14.95 (paperback)

In this current climate of the #MeToo movement, women across the globe are fighting back against sexual harassment and assault by pulling back the curtain of shame, stepping out of the shadows, and sharing their personal stories. Author Patricia “Pat” Cumbie bravely adds her voice to this critical discourse with her memoir, The Shape of a Hundred Hips.

Review: Permanent for Now

3/1/2019

Chasing Permanent, Chasing Change
Review: Permanent for Now

Myriah Stubee

Jeffrey S. Markovitz
Fiction
Unsolicited Press, pp. 129
Cost: $20.99 (paperback)

The first chapter of Jeffery S. Markovitz’s new novel contains just two words: He died.

This short statement is startling, but not altogether surprising for a story that centers around the events of World War II-era Germany, when death came for millions. In two short words, Markovitz not only sets the tone for the rest of the novel, but also lays the groundwork for a well-crafted twist at the end. The words reverberate as we are introduced to each new character, wondering, Is it him? Is he the one who died?

Review: The Fevers of Reason

1/1/2019

Community: In Sickness and In Health
Review: The Fevers of Reason

by Rachel Barton

Gerald Weissmann
Nonfiction essays
Belleview Literary Press, pp. 272
Cost: $19.99

As I approached The Fevers of Reason, I did so with a foot in each river of influence—or rather, a leg in one and a toe in the other. Weissmann’s essays discuss the intersection of various issues within medicine and popular culture. As a student of literature, I have often written extensive essays and participated in lengthy discussions of multiple works, like Arrowsmith and Sherlock Holmes,that Weissmann includes. Until recently, my knowledge of science and medicine has been rather superficial—me as a nervous patient in the waiting room. As my study of literature, guided by Elaine Scarry and Rita Charon, has begun to dip into the interaction between literature and medicine I’ve become more confident about the relationship between the two. Wearing my budding knowledge of the relatively young field like swimmies, I jumped right in to Weissmann’s collection and found a rich layering of past, present, science, and literature to present diverse takes on the issue at hand.

Review: SPINE

11/1/2018

The Pain of Living
Review: SPINE

Juliana Crescenzo

Sarah Caulfield
Poetry
Headmistress Press, pp. 30
Cost: $10.00

Sarah Caulfield's words dig beneath our flesh and go straight to the bone in her collection of poetry, SPINE (2017). Caulfield’s first book beautifully weaves together powerful images of blood and bone, plus themes of religion, chronic illness, and guilt, pulling on the reader's heartstrings and commanding empathy. The repeated themes make it clear that these topics are very important to Caulfield, and are ones often swept under the rug instead of spoken about in society.

The collection was titled after it was pointed out to Caulfield that “spine” is the most used word throughout the entire work. The spine is the center of the body, and when it hurts, it becomes hard to operate under the expectations of society. Similarly, the spine plays a focal role in the collection, as Caulfield reinforces within her poem “To the Girl I Was” when she writes, “My spine is made of beach glass. It will withstand.” Caulfield’s spine is strong, readers will agree, after reading through her collection and understanding the narrator’s struggles.