The Ballad of Falling Rock is a stunning book that follows at least four generations of a family in the Appalachian region near Virginia and in tiny towns and forests. If you are a Hemingway fan, this one’s not for you. Or, if you are a Hemingway fan but maintain an open mind, you can read it and set yourself on a path thick with adjectives.
Category: Book Reviews
Book Reviews
The Rhymes and Reasons of James Sale: A Review of DoorWay, Vol. 3 of the English Cantos
James Sale is not using “lazy rhyme;” he is deliberately, carefully stretching the boundaries of what is acceptable rhyming convention in English formal poetry. He uses his slant rhymes, half rhymes, near rhymes, assonant rhymes, consonant rhymes, light rhymes, and syllabic rhymes with abandon. With joy. With freedom. Lavishly. He is demonstrating that our language is a language that by default doesn’t always perfectly rhyme— but when you get close, it can be as beautiful, and powerful, and in many instances, more effective than a perfect rhyme can ever be.
A review of The Bayrose Files by Diane Wald
Diane Wald crafts a richly atmospheric and emotionally layered narrative, exploring themes of identity, guilt, and redemption through Violet’s journey of painful self-discovery. Vividly capturing both the familial eccentricities of an artistic community and the complexities of human relationships, this tender, unflinching story follows Violet’s struggle for self-forgiveness, becoming a moving testament to the resilience of the human spirit.
A review of Everything Must Go by Dan Flore III
In the flash fiction of Dan Flore the conflict could go either way, and often, to his readers’ benefit, it does. Everything Must Go does indeed entertains, and often his protagonist’s pain is his reader’s pleasure. The poet and memoirist John Yamrus’s introduction gives readers a good perspective on Flore’s work.
A review of Habitats: Poems by Katharine Whitcomb
In Habitats, it is with an accessibility and elegance that Whitcomb transports readers onto the highway, staring back in the airplane, switchbacking on the trail and across the harbor ferry. Habitats opens the aperture, disclosing intriguing moments in a rich atmosphere of spaces crafted with wonderfully strange detail.
An Uneasy Utopia, Bright yet Bloody: Jordan Rothacker’s The Shrieking of Nothing
The story connects in many ways to its predecessor, 2020’s The Death of the Cyborg Oracle, but stands on its own as a wild, conceptual, playfully written ride. And though hints of Philip K. Dick, J.G. Ballard, and Aldous Huxley abound, it is utterly original—principally because its world is neither utopian, nor dystopian, but somewhere uniquely in between.
A review of Jenny, 52 by Susan Montag
Jenny, 52 is a kind of meta fiction about the nature of storytelling, fiction versus reality, in a manner reminiscent of Philip Roth (My Life as a Man, in particular, and all of the Nathan Zuckerman novels generally). Jenny, 52 is made up of seventeen one- to three-page “chapters,” most of which are narrated in the voice of the writer Jenny.
A review of The Flowering Dark by Sue Lockwood
There is a lightness of touch here coupled with an assuredly quiet voice that has an expansive quality, equating the intellectual and the botanical, the flowering of ranunculus with human flowering, and the sensual nature of the earth with the rest of the universe. The poems deftly change their perspective through space and time so that all times feel concurrent and all things seem equal, continually in the state of transformation and yet always available.
A review of Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
At once informative and poetic, Hong’s writing is infused with sharp wit and biting irony, making it both engaging and nuanced. Minor Feelings serves as an essential guide for those navigating multiple identities and offers both lay and scholarly readers a profound understanding of the vast literary and artistic contributions these marginalized communities have made to the ever-evolving landscape of American culture.
A review of Cold Truth By Ashley Kalagian Blunt
I read this book in just over a day, pushing back other commitments because I couldn’t bear to stop. The book is full of suspense which Kalagian Blunt creates in all sorts of ways. The most notable is her terrific characterisation. The main protagonist, Harlow, drives the narrative forward with just the right combination of intellectual acumen, warmth and anxiety. The reader becomes invested in Harlow and her desperate search for her missing father Scott.