A seafaring poetry collection that sails smoothly until some short fiction knocks it off course.
A collection offers a buffet of surf-and-turf poetry with a serving of gothic short stories for dessert.
Three distinct streams cascade through this sizable volume of oceanic writings by mariner-turned-writer Brewer. The first features poetry drawn from the primal hunger of the sea and those on it, painting an eerie vision of loss and longing in the tradition of William Blake and Edgar Allan Poe. In one poem, the dark and exotic ocean swallows up time itself, keeping a sailor from his true love and family while bringing age and exhaustion through the hard work. In another piece, a seaworthy man becomes like the land bird he sees “perched upon the mast,” wondering “what could cause him blunder / out above the open sea / so very far from field or tree / which he seeks now desperately.” Interspersed between these offerings are numbered poems set in a world of high fantasy, brimming with goddesses, witches, mermaids, and sorcerers. The appearance of “The Red Witch” harkens back to maritime themes, invoking the 1948 John Wayne film Wake of the Red Witch. The collection ends on a selection of short stories featuring murderous sock monkeys, violent eroticism, and, most notably, the “Copacabana at Midnight,” which sees an aging sex worker give herself to the sexual goddess Pomba Gira. Brewer’s poems transition naturally, with shared themes and imagery often feeding from one piece into the next like a tributary into a river. “Our Secret Dale” is a dream of an unrushed time with a faraway love “to taste your pillowed lips sublime.” This is followed by one of the numbered, fantasy-themed works in which passion becomes more sinister and savage: “She’s with me in my dream again. / Her warm touch burns upon my skin.” Imagery like this is used time and again to deftly shift the tone without ever feeling like a non sequitur. The albatross around the neck of this collection is its third section. Though the titular tale and a run-in with a poisonous sea slug make perfect sense, the inclusion of more modern horror and Ralph Ellison–esque SF stories feels like a splash of cold water in the face. A personal essay about the living death of cancer, though moving, also seems out of place among the book’s heavily curated nautical themes.
A seafaring poetry collection that sails smoothly until some short fiction knocks it off course.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-956803-44-0
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Goldtouch Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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