It’s official, I’ve reached an age when books set in the past are set in my past. With Susan McCarty’s 2008 I found myself so deeply rooted in a former decade, I instinctively reached for the Fall Out Boy CD I played so many times it became unreadable. An uncanny experience, even if the book […]
Local book reviews
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Release of Information and Other Linked Stories’ by Kali White VanBaale
For her latest collection of short stories, Kali White VanBaale bolts out of the gates with the attention-grabbing, slice-of-life “Hyatt and the Arch.” She doesn’t slow her literary gait until the final page of the final piece, “Hyatt Pune.” Between these two offerings is a wealth of storytelling, enriched by the interplay and shared context […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Dreams are for the Dead’ by S. Elias W Sharp
“‘You ever smoke meth?’ he asked, casual like he was offering a cigarette.” So begins a passage in S. Elias W Sharp’s unforgettable debut memoir, Dreams are for the Dead. A former roommate poses the question to Sharp in the empty apartment they used to share. The furnishings are now all gone. The encounter continues, […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘On Fire for God’ by Josiah Hesse
Opening with visceral imagery of crying, flailing children on the floor of a church, Josiah Hesse’s On Fire for God: Fear, Shame, Poverty, and the Making of the Christian Right (Pantheon Books) sets itself up to be an emotional and unflinching interrogation of evangelical Iowa. The book follows a religious childhood using gorgeous, descriptive language […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘We Can Do Better’ by Paul Johnson, edited by Curt Meine
Former Iowa state legislator Paul W. Johnson wore a number of hats throughout his life, including chief of what’s now known as the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. Editor Curt Meine, a longtime friend and kindred conservationist spirit of Johnson, has gathered an insightful body of Johnson’s work in We Can Do Better: Collected Writings […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Dreams of Fields: Memory Traces of Iowa’s Past’ by Roy R. Behrens
As a born-again-Iowan, I delight in Iowa trivia and the relaying of impressive and surprising Iowa facts that challenge perceptions of a so-called flyover state. To me, these bits of information aren’t just trivia, but snapshots of a larger concept of Iowa, outside of whatever cornfields and caucuses that people imagine when they think of […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Groceries’ by Nora Claire Miller
Groceries by Nora Claire Miller spills into the hybrid terrain to challenge expectations of mixed-genre. It opens a narrative sentence and bulldozes parts of speech to reach its own truest conclusion. It forces its audience to re-learn how to read.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Book Review: ‘Burnt Mountain’ by Emily Wilson
The most prominent, consistent feature of these poems are the heady — even baroque, indulgent — descriptions of the natural world. (I wrote “descriptive” three separate times in my notes.) In “Heath Obscure” Wilson writes of “sumptuary / crumble underfoot” and “the meanly / spangled mollusk grays.” In another poem, “Attention,” Wilson describes “the butte […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Midwest Futures: Poems & Micro-Stories From Tomorrow’s Heartland’ edited by Randy Brown
Midwest Futures (Middle West Press) is a short, albeit stout collection of poems, short essays and stories that encapsulate the Midwest across time and various corners of our region. The collection ranges from science fiction to fantasy, horror (specifically the “sporror” sub-genre — that is, spore horror) and much more. This collection ultimately left me […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘13 Notes from Napoleon, Iowa: Musings on the Edge of the French Empire’ by Anna Barker
For several years, University of Iowa literature professor Anna Barker has produced a steady blizzard of commentary on classic French literature: Hugo, Stendahl, Dumas, Balzac. In her debut book, 13 Notes from Napoleon, Iowa: Musings of the Edge of the French Empire (Ice Cube Press), Barker follows the trail of arguably the most important individual […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘The Black Superwoman & Mental Health: Power & Pain’
Toni Morrison once said, “For me the history of the place of Black people in this country is so varied, complex and beautiful.” I read the influence of Mother Morrison’s quote among the stories, essays and poems shared in the anthology The Black Superwoman & Mental Health (Peter Lang). This collection, edited by Drs. Venise […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Book Review: ‘Malleable and True: A Hybrid Craft Anthology from BRINK Literary Journal’
I have read many craft books, taken gobs of writing classes and read all manner of literature. In my personal time, I tend toward writing that challenges me as a reader and inspires me to try new things. I love hybrid work, which is disinterested in being placed solidly within a single genre. As such, I […]
