From Gently Read Literature Spring 2014 Sometimes in the process of getting engrossed in a truly mesmerizing book, you can’t help but take a sly glance at the author’s photo—even though you’re not supposed to—and wonder if perhaps she's really writing this riveting tale about herself in spite of the fact that it says "novel" on the [...]
From Gently Read Literature Spring 2014 In the spare yet rich poetry of Doug Holder's book Eating Grief at 3:00 AM, published by Muddy River Books, there is a symphony of voices, places, and sounds. So clear are the ambiences, the run-down settings, the often broken, yet not always unhappy people who populate these poems, it's [...]
Death is complicated, not to mention hard to write about. There are various approaches, some more entertaining than others. The risk is in the tone. One can fall into the deep abyss of fear and loneliness so many of us feel when it inevitably happens to those around us, the way our culture prefers. Or [...]
By Bonnie ZoBell Stefanie Freele's beautiful short story collection, Surrounded by Water, is surrounded by illumination. The book, published by Press 53, shines brilliantly through the depths of human sorrow and hope, but it does so on Freele's own quirky and quiet terms. This author has an uncanny gift to get right to where it matters in [...]
By Bonnie ZoBell Why isn't "Rusty Barnes" a household name? Is it because he doesn't schmooze the right people or because he isn't semi-nude in his author's photo? Or maybe it's because he doesn't write about the beautiful people. The characters in Rusty Barnes' outrageously good story collection Mostly Redneck (Sunnyoutside Press) wouldn't be caught dead [...]
By Bonnie ZoBell Imagine being able to slip through a passageway in own your laundry room and arrive in a whole different life when yours isn't going so well. Personally, I wish I'd heard of this a long time ago and will be contacting Ellen Meister immediately for tips since this is exactly what happens [...]
By Bonnie ZoBell Open the cover, turn to the first page, and you are in a time capsule--China before Mao; France, Germany, Italy and Poland during World War II; San Francisco in a time when private eyes spoke strangled English to shapely, fawning, double-dealing babes; San Quentin prison when the death penalty was carried out [...]
By Bonnie ZoBell Nate Jordon's extraordinary new chapbook The Weekender holds nothing back but takes us right inside a jail and fairly slams us—no, not up Nothing is held back inside the Merced County Corrections Facility. Sure, there is the cheek spread and full cavity search we've all heard about, but here we're told in a human tone [...]
When Myra Sherman, author of the disturbing and affecting new short story collection, JAILED published by Desperanto, creates scenes and characters in jails, she knows of what she speaks. These dazzling stories are full of authentic details. Her characters are heart-breaking. You become so engrossed you prefer to read way too late at night trying [...]
Review by Bonnie ZoBell The women in Myfanwy Collins' breath-taking debut novel haven't had an easy time of it. In Echolocation, published by Engine Books, the beautiful and haunting Geneva loses an arm when a saw kicks back and cuts through her forearm. She lives only because of her tenacity; despite the gushing blood, [...]