In “The Obvious Child” — the lead single from Paul Simon’s 1990 Rhythm of the Saints album — the iconic songwriter sings “The cross is in the ballpark.” It’s a striking and unexpected image in the flow of the song, and it has always seemed to me a sharp encapsulation of several intertwined threads of […]
Local book reviews
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry’ by Austin Frerick
Austin Frerick’s captivating and necessary book Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry (March 2024, Island Press), is a road trip through America’s heartland — but not the one depicted in Grant Wood’s paintings of rural Iowa. Where Wood depicted an early 20th century lush with rolling fields of green, Frerick’s contemporary […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Be Not Afraid of My Body’ by Darius Stewart
Again and again in his new memoir Be Not Afraid of My Body (Belt Publishing, February 2024), Darius Stewart manipulates language, takes topics that are otherwise coated with stigma and hushed tones and makes them plain, reinvents form and expectations and insists that poets are taking over prose. Somehow, without maintaining any strict chronology or […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘Secret Pizza: A Midwestern Fairytale’ by Brenden Greeley
Let’s start by getting all the toppings on the table. Better than a decade ago, I self-published a comedic novel titled Murder by the Slice. It drew heavily on my own experiences as a pizza delivery driver in Cedar Rapids as a young man. The book was received fairly well locally (and a bit beyond), […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘The Renegade Nuns on Wheels MC, Post Apocalypse, Lost Nation, Iowa’ by Jason Thomas Smith
The newest book by Jason Thomas Smith was released on Sept. 24, 2023. That’s just four days before my most recent birthday, and even reading it now, months later, it feels like a present, gift-wrapped and handed to me on a silver platter. It starts with a desolate town and one lone priest out of […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘This American Ex-Wife’ by Lyz Lenz
“My marriage ended on a Monday.” Lyz Lenz opens This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life (out Feb. 20, 2024) this simply. And she pulls no punches in laying out her nonfiction narrative that interrogates the traditions and institutions behind marriage. We follow the arc of Lenz’s divorce — her […]
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Book Review: ‘Black Punk Now’ edited by James Spooner and Chris L. Terry
I’m a sucker for an anthology. Short work requires a certain balance of delicacy and force that long-form writing can work around, and the curation process of selecting, collecting and presenting those pieces is its own truly under-discussed art form. It’s something that I love to do, and I especially enjoy experiencing thoughtful examples of […]
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Book Review: ‘A New History of Iowa’ by Jeff Bremer
“History doesn’t repeat itself,” the saying goes, “Historians repeat each other.” There’s some truth in that, but the bigger truth is that most people just repeat whatever version of history they learn in school, seldom venturing far beyond what they learned in a general survey course. (Many LV readers may be exceptions to that rule, […]
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Book Review: ‘For a Second, In the Dark’ by Alec Hershman
For a Second, In the Dark is a distinct collection of poems in which Alec Hershman takes us on a daunting yet humorous journey through reality. Released in October 2023 by MWC Press, For a Second, in the Dark marks Hershman’s third publication. It was published as the 2021 Foster-Stahl Chapbook Series Editor’s Choice Selection […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Book Review: ‘The War Begins in Paris’ by Theodore Wheeler
As a reader, I have largely ignored the historical fiction genre. The War Begins in Paris (2023), by Theodore Wheeler, shows me that I have been remiss. Through it, I’ve learned that at its best, the genre turns a mirror toward the reader and subtly pushes us to see history repeating itself. And it can […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Book Review: ‘Sundog’ by Melissa Conway
“At the end of January 2018 I sat in a coffee shop sipping a tea I couldn’t afford and reflected on the last month I barely survived. This exercise became a monthly meditation on time passing, what it’s like to live in a body, as a self, something holy, a wrong turn.” This introduction to […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Book Review: ‘Other Minds and Other Stories’ by Bennett Sims
Within Bennett Sims’ Other Minds and Other Stories (Two Dollar Radio) you’ll find several stories about a variety of psychologically interesting narrators. The one thing that brings them together: they’re all quite bizarre. Sims’ writing is at its strongest when a story’s movement and narration flow hand-in-hand seamlessly. A story that embodies this well is […]
