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Category: Book Reviews
Book Reviews
A review of There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children Until They Moved Back In by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
If you have any familiarity with Russian culture, Russian people, or if you step back just for a moment from some of the intensity of the exchanges between the characters that people her stories, you sense a thread of humour, of warmth, of great compassion about the passing nonsense we call life.
A review of A World Elsewhere by Sigrid MacRae
At six, newly arrived in the United States from Germany, young Sigrid von Hoynigen-Huene was called a “Nazi” by a schoolmate. As a child and teenager, she blamed the father she had never known for her feelings of not belonging. Although Heinrich von Hoynigen-Huene, who died in July 1941, was an “iconic presence” when she was growing up, the “family lore” about him troubled her.
Jeri Kroll on Workshopping the Heart
The author of Vanishing Point, and Workshopping the Heart reads from and talks about her latest books of poetry, about the transition from poetry to drama, the relationship between poetry and theatre, about her protagonist Diana, on writing about anorexia, about family…
A review of Vanishing Point by Jeri Kroll
At no point does the book lose its dramatic momentum. In fact, so compelling is the plot at times that it takes some effort to slow down and read the poems fully as poetry should be read, rather than racing on to see what happens. Vanishing Point is quick and easy to read, but the poems repay second and third readings where the complexity of the work begin to unfold. Diana’s self-awareness grows viscerally and sensually as she comes to accept the sensations of her adult body through the final section.
A review of Perla by Carolina De Robertis
Breadth of vision and the ability to construct tension from the first page maintains the drama as the events wind and twist through each step taken toward the inexorable truth about Perla, her parents, her lineage and her country. It is a journey well worth taking.
A review of The Killer Next Door by Alex Marwood
Marwood makes clever use of cliffhanger endings and shifts from one point of view character to another to build suspense. The Epilogue begins grimly, showing Cher back in the social welfare system, but surprises us with a gratifying conclusion. Readers who enjoyed Marwood’s earlier mystery/suspense novel, The Wicked Girls, will like this one for its many surprises.
A review of Impressionism edited by Ingo F. Walther
This is a glorious book, packed with information and insight and luxuriously detailed reproductions, which you’ll undoubtedly want to dip into always. It overflows with rapturous beauty
A review of No One is here Except All of Us by Ramona Ausubel
No One is here Except All of Us is an exquisite, circular tale that takes us back to where we started – where we all start – at birth, where we create the world afresh. It’s full of wonder even in the midst of the most dire tragedies. Beautifully written, full of pain and poetry, this is a book that opens histories most intense and painful moments and shows what survives: love and DNA.
A review of Vienna Nocturne by Vivien Shotwell
Vienna Nocturne is outstanding, as well, because of Shotwell’s knowledge of opera. As a professional singer, a mezzo-soprano, she knows how a singer feels as she or he stands before an audience, and she can also put musical effects into words. When Anna first sings the role of Susanna, she has “the sensation of balancing a ball on her nose like a bear at a circus.”