Ploughshares Summer 2019 - Edited by Viet Thanh Nguyen

I've been reading Ploughshares for so many years now and it continues to delight and inspire me. This edition was no different. All the guest editors bring their own tastes and ideas to the table and in this collection Viet Thanh Nguyen stated she was looking for voices that may not otherwise have a chance to be heard. 

In this edition, we get a fine collection of poetry from James Hannaham. His poems range from non-fiction to fantasy and everything in between. They are thoughtful and enjoyable. 

I really enjoyed Doorway to Darnkess by Kenneth Calhoun, which explored the themes of cowardice in a teacher by introducing a magical element amidst images of escape. 

The non-fiction story Prison in the Age of Euphemisms by Alex Chertok gives a stark look at the differences between pampered high school students and their counterparts in the prison system who certainly have a different outlook on the world in which we live. 

The always brilliant Roxane Gay's Immediate Family gives portraits of two generations of Haitian immigrants and the cruelties time and choices play on people between generations.

Yaron Kaver's I Only Had Eyes for You was a sad but hilarious look at one man's process of divorce and losing his wife and then his friend in quick succession. When he makes a quick decision to lie about something, the lie snowballs in unpredictable ways. 

Butterfly at Rest by Scott Nadelson tells the story of an artist/actor/comedian Henry who is dealing with the aftermath of being blacklisted in the McCarthy era. It's a stark look at the way the Committee on Un-American Activities ruined lives and reputations. 

Lynne Sharon Schwartz' Am I a Thief? was hilarious. It's about a woman who steps into the literal shoes of someone else at a movie theater and finds them so comfortable she walks off in them leaving her own shoes behind. 

I also really loved Rob Magnuson Smith's Glacier that deals so well with loss and the distance it creates between relationships. 

Solid solid writing and curating of these stories.

4/5 Stars. 

I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer - Michelle McNamara

Two nights ago, I woke up out of breath, my heart racing, trying and failing to catch the tail end of whatever dream I was just having. I looked out my bedroom door to the top of the stairs and realized I had just seen someone standing there with a flashlight. This is the kind of thing I'll Be Gone in the Dark does to you. It makes you see things that aren't there. It makes you live, again and again, the terror of almost 100 victims of the Golden State Killer. 

Michelle McNamara's exhaustive research is evident on every page. That the book was published after her death is also evident, for while the chapters themselves flow flawlessly thanks to her unique prose and steady cadence, the way the chapters are laid out feels a bit out of sync with the rest of the book.

For ten years, Joseph DeAngelo stalked victims up and down the Golden State - raping more than 50 women and killing almost a dozen. Now that he's been caught, you get a sense of just how onto him Michelle really was. No one would have been more delighted by his capture than her, except of course this terrible person's many victims and their families. I also think Michelle would have done an amazing job piecing together DeAngelo's travels and motivations. I'm sad we won't get to read that book. And I'm sad to think Michelle is likely DeAngelo's last victim, having worked herself into a constant state of anxiety and exhaustion over the research and writing of this book, would she have been led to take the deadly combination of prescription drugs that, together with an unknown heart condition, led to her death? 

I'm glad her friends and family worked to get Michelle's book published. Some people wouldn't want their name forever connected to a serial killer, but somehow, I can see how this would have honored her memory.

4/5 Stars. 

Just Kids - Patti Smith

I have been sitting far too long on this review. It's not that I haven't wanted to. I've just been really swamped with other stuff. In any case, let me tell you how absolutely delightful Patti Smith is. 

Just Kids details the years Patti Smith spent with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe when they were LITERALLY starving artists in New York City. From rundown apartments in Brooklyn to the fabulous and tragic Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan, Patti and Robert, supported and inspired each other to keep reaching and keep creating. 

I have to admit, other than a colleague I worked with over a decade ago who was a bit of an aging hippy, I'd never even really heard of Patti Smith before. "Because the Night" was a Natalie Merchant song from VH1 (I'm so embarrassed). In any case, I saw a reference to this book and decided to listen to the audio. After I started listening, Patti and Robert references were popping up everywhere, like in Little Fires Everywhere which I read earlier this month. 

So I took a deep Wiki dive on these two remarkable people and knew before I got to the end that Robert was going to die of AIDS related complications and that I would be really heartbroken for Patti who always held him in her heart even after they grew apart. What can you say about young love and young lovers who aside from being incredibly cool nerds were creative about life and the universe. Robert Mapplethorpe went on to stretch and challenge the definition of art. His provocative photos tested the boundaries of what could be available to the public. 

Just look at these incredibly cool humans.

And I loved all the ways Patti describes him and their life together. They may have been Just Kids, but they loved and created for a lifetime. It was wonderful to get a glimpse of such a powerful friendship.

4/5 Stars. 

The Empty Throne - Bernard Cornwell

A mere 22 days ago, I finished The Pagan Lord and wondered how my main squeeze Uhtred was going to continue his dominance of the Mercian and Saxon fighters. You see, his chest, like mine, was pierced by a sword at the end of the last book and I wasn't sure he was going to make it. 

Cornwell, obviously being aware of Uhtred's appeal (I was going to write charm, but that's not quite it), decided to toy with my heart and have the opening chapter of The Empty Throne penned by the younger Uhtred. I was saddened that Uhtred had been put out to pasture so unceremoniously, although I doubted he had died. And I was slightly warming to the idea that Uhtred2 (his son) would carry on the legacy of irreverent humor and calling people turds. 

But, alas the second chapter picks up with our trusted narrator and although he's not doing well (he's got a weeping infected wound) he still manages a few barbs now and then. And as always he's 1/4 to 1/2 a step in front of everyone else. So when King Edward's father in law decides to flex his muscles in Mercia, threatening Aethelstan's life and Aethelflaed's daughter with marriage, Uhtred knows he's got to set some things right. 

In the meantime, he needs to find the sword that pierced him in order to be healed. He's sure that someone is using witchcraft to continue to torture him. And who better to tell him than a lady who is having a change of allegiances after her brother turns out to be a whimpering rat turd. 

In the end, Uhtred is intimately involved in making Aethelflaed the Lady of Mercia and protecting the kingdom of Mercia from marauding Norsemen. It will be interesting to see if Uhtred2 has more narrative involvement in the next installment. You know I'll be reading it.

4/5 Stars. 

Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng

Who doesn't love to hate on a character now and then. In Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng gives us a whole family of characters to hate on. 

When Mia and Pearl move to Shaker Heights, Ohio, Mia promises her 15 year old daughter that for once, they will stay put. Mia, who is an artist constantly moving where her inspiration takes her, knows this kind of stability will be a gift to her daughter, who has attended more alma maters than is probably advised.

Mia rents an upstairs unit from the Richardson family - a perfectly situated family of four children (two boys and two girls) with a lawyer father and journalist mother. Elena may have at one time aspired to more than a local beat at a tier three paper, but she never went for it. Now she's content to believe her opinions and her beliefs are the best. She's managed to raise three exceptionally selfish children, and treats the youngest pretty horribly. Now I'm not saying I don't have my moments when we're late leaving the house and my child is crying about how her/his seat belt won't buckle and somehow it's my fault and they hate me, that I don't react in a way that is less than motherly, but c'mon Elena Richardson, your daughter is still a CHILD. Phew. 

So anyway, Mia is a pretty level headed person although she's got some secrets, but she genuinely feels for people. And Pearl starts to hang out more with the Richardsons, finding a kindred spirit in the younger boy, Moody, and finding a smoking hot smoldering spirit for the older brother, Tripp, who, let's face it, has had too much of his life be easy to be anything other than slightly less than an asshole. The older daughter, Lexie, is also incredibly selfish although there is a hint of that starting to change. And Moody, who we may have some sympathy for, ends up being kind of an asshole too. Which leaves the youngest daughter, Izzie, who, constantly berated and unloved by her own mother, has a bunch of issues and is seriously just looking for someone (Mia) to love her. Sad.

And all that would be fine if Elena Richardson didn't have a friend so focused on having a baby that she would railroad the child's biological mother in her quest for custody. Because she does, and that brings out everyone's thoughts and feelings on the subject. When it turns out Mia doesn't agree with Elena, Elena goes through some pretty sneaky and unethical shit to get dirt on Mia. 

I wasn't a huge fan of the ending only because I wanted Elena Richardson to really get hers but alas, this book is probably more like real life where Karma is a bitch, but not always egalitarian. Celeste does some really great work with white privilege, white saviorism, and class distinctions that work really well in the book. I enjoyed it and her writing.

4/5 Stars

The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison

As I sat here, thinking about how to convey my feelings and heartbreak over reading The Bluest Eye, my phone notification tells me that Toni Morrison, Novel Laureate and Pulitizer Prize winner has died at age 88. Her long life was a gift to literature and to arts. That her death comes after two days of media coverage surrounding back to back mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton makes a kind of literary sense in that Toni Morrison was ever a critic of our culture and the often banal cruelty inflicted on minorities, women, and children. 

In The Bluest Eye, Morrison set out to detail and chronicle the destruction of innocence in the literal break down of Pecola, a twelve year old girl who, by the end of the novel, has suffered cruelties minor and grievous resulting in her complete psychotic break. And the language Morrison uses to describe this degradation, its smooth flow and lyrical beauty can make you forget that you are reading something abjectly terrible. And it is, abjectly terrible, and difficult to read, and yet, Morrison pulls no punches. She wants you to be aware of the ways in which humans are capable of destroying other humans. 

“Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another--physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.” 
― Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

When you pick up a Toni Morrison novel you better be ready for your heart to break in ways you didn't know existed. That the Bluest Eye was the first such novel in a series of ever sharpening craft, that she was actually disappointed in later years at her inability to create a more seamless piece of art, is a testament to the growth and skill she acquired as she toiled at this work. 

And Morrison was ever sure of herself and the place in the literary universe where her novels lived. I once saw a interview an Australian morning show did with her where the journalist asked Toni if she would ever consider writing books about white characters. Toni looked this woman dead in the eye for an uncomfortable amount of silence for TV purposes and asked if the journalist had any idea how racist such a question was? 

That such a voice has left the literary world is no question a loss, but we can be grateful for the body of work she leaves behind.

4/5 Stars.