In the letter that author Jon Cone sent along with the first two volumes of his Liminal: Shadow Agent project (Greying Ghost), he calls the slim books “comic book scripts.” They are, in a sense. They tell a pictureless story of a superhero entering a fight against a great evil. The dialogue is called out […]
Local book reviews
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: MEKTOUB — ‘Elizabeth’
In 2019, frequenters of Goosetown Café mingled with friends of John Rapson to delight in the new band he had assembled: MEKTOUB. It was a trio, initially — Rapson on the keys, Ryan Smith on woodwinds and Nielo Gaglione on vocals and mandole. Together, the three produced a distinct style of improvisational music they describe […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘The Long Corner’ by Alexander Maksik
Alexander Maksik Wednesday, May 25 at 7 p.m., Prairie Lights Bookstore, Free Alexander Maksik’s new novel The Long Corner (Europa Editions) — out May 17, the fourth release from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop grad — skillfully explores the intersections of capitalism and dictatorship, cliché and originality, art and life. By the end, the […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Bach and the Blues’ by Gary Kelley
Waterloo Cedar Falls Symphony: Between Bach and the Blues GBPAC Great Hall, Cedar Falls, Thursday, May 26 at 7 p.m., $6.75-55.75 The third week of November, 1936. Thanks to a brief story on National Public Radio, illustrator Gary Kelley learned the odd synchronicity of that moment, and decided to spin it into a graphic novel, […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Book Review: ‘Sort of Super’ by Eric Gapstur
He had to have known it was coming. There is no way that a competent publicist didn’t prepare Eric Gapstur for the eventuality that his graphic novel about 11-year-old Wyatt Flynn and his family coming to terms with his newly acquired superpowers in the wake of his mother’s disappearance would draw comparisons to the Netflix […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Book Review: ‘Monarch’ by Candice Wuehle
Jessica is an ex-child pageant queen with an awful memory. In fact, she can’t remember her childhood nearly at all outside of the pageants she participated in. The daughter of Dr. Clink, chair of the Boredom Studies department at a nameless Midwestern university, and Grethe Clink, a Norwegian beauty who hosts not-quite-Tupperware parties, Jessica has […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Book Review: ‘The Soul of the Family Tree’ by Lori Erickson
One morning, in a fling of middle-age thrill-seeking, Lori Erickson filled a small glass vial with her spittle and mailed it to AncestryDNA. Given that Erickson’s last name is Erickson and that she hails from Decorah, Iowa, arguably the most Norwegian-American small town on the continent, the results of the DNA testing were not surprising: […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘This American House’ by Jason Loper and Michael Schreiber
As a woman in her mid-20s who has dedicated her life to the arts, owning any sort of house feels like a fantasy, much less one with as much historical significance as the Meier House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Monona, Iowa. But even for a person who doesn’t know much about architecture or […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘The Family Chao’ by Lan Samantha Chang
Family can be a tricky balancing act. Lan Samantha Chang, in her newest novel, gives the central family the surname Chao, making them collectively, of course, the Chaos. There are a couple of sections early in the book where she really locks the reader into what seems like an obvious analogy: “‘We Chaos, who are […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Memento Vivere’ by Laura Johnson
In Memento Vivere (Cabin Bear Books), a tiny volume of rebellion against death, Cedar Rapids poet Laura Johnson creates a still life of delights and damages reminding both herself and the reader: Remember you must live. (For those missing the reference, “memento mori” is a commonly used phrase meaning “remember you must die.”) In the […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Midwinter Constellation’ ed. Becca Klaver
Midwinter Constellation (Black Lawrence Press) is the collaborative effort of 32 poets paying homage to Midwinter Day, by Bernadette Mayer, on the 40th anniversary of its creation. It is the brainchild of editor Becca Klaver who states in the afterword that she created this virtual space to be transparent and collaborative, following the “six-part structure […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Devil House’ by John Darnielle
America loves a good murder. Maybe we’ve always been this way, but sometime in the past few years, true crime evolved from guilty pleasure to passionate obsession. People discuss “blood spatter” and “Munchausen by proxy” with the same amateur enthusiasm once used to dissect Tarantino dialogue or the Cubs’ dubious playoff hopes. Once the lurid […]
