by Ayshe Talay-Ongan ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
An elegant, intelligent romance that’s engaging but at times overdone.
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In this literary love story set in California and Turkey, a determined, independent Turkish woman turns her trials and tribulations into a life of fulfillment.
Young, single Yasmin holds a doctorate in psychology, and she just started her teaching position at a top Istanbul university. After running into an old friend at her local tennis club in the late 1970s, she’s immediately overtaken by a powerful bond to her friend’s husband, Renan; she can tell he feels the same attraction. Yasmin and Renan act honorably, with respect to his marriage and young son, as they endure being close friends without ever crossing a moral line. When Renan and his family move to Australia and the political situation in Turkey becomes unstable, Yasmin packs up her things and starts over in California. She maintains her intense passion for Renan but nonetheless creates a fulfilling professional and personal life for herself in her new city, eventually marrying an esteemed academic, although she never allows her love for Renan to fade. With support from her strong yet gentle mother, she even adopts a child. Talay-Ongan cleverly balances the deep fervor of Yasmin’s feelings for Renan with the reality of setting up a professional center and managing day-to-day life. While the narrative hints at political issues impacting both Yasmin and Renan, the focus of the story doesn’t deviate from their overpowering emotional affair. The pacing is slow and at times filled with overwrought emotion, but the characters are strong and intelligently written. Yasmin, the compelling protagonist, serves as a wise narrator—a resilient, self-aware woman who overcomes obstacles to achieve the goals she sets for herself. Her relationship with her family is complex and touching, although her connection with Renan borders on adolescent obsession. Their interactions are written with an ornate, lyrical quality that would seem more appropriate for a book of love poetry.
An elegant, intelligent romance that’s engaging but at times overdone.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 452
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by William Poe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 16, 2015
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.
A slim volume of largely gay-themed writings with pessimistic overtones.
Poe (Simple Simon, 2013, etc.) divides this collection of six short stories and 34 poems into five sections: “Art,” “Death,” “Relationship,” “Being,” and “Reflection.” Significantly, a figurative death at the age of 7 appears in two different poems, in which the author uses the phrase “a pretended life” to refer to the idea of hiding one’s true nature and performing socially enforced gender roles. This is a well-worn trope, but it will be powerful and resonant for many who have struggled with a stigmatized identity. In a similar vein, “Imaginary Tom” presents the remnants of a faded relationship: “Now we are imaginary friends, different in each other’s thoughts, / I the burden you seek to discard, / you the lover I created from the mist of longing.” Once in a while, short story passages practically leap off of the page, such as this evocative description of a seedy establishment in Lincoln, Nebraska: “It was a dimly lit bar that smelled of rodent piss, with barstools that danced on uneven legs and made the patrons wonder if they were drunker than they thought.” In “Valéry’s Ride,” Poe examines the familial duties that often fall to unmarried and childless people, keeping them from forming meaningful bonds with others. In this story, after the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hits Louisiana, Valéry’s extended family needs him more than ever; readers will likely root for the gay protagonist as he makes the difficult decision to strike out on his own. Not all of Poe’s main characters are gay; the heterosexual title character in “Mrs. Calumet’s Workspace,” for instance, pursues employment in order to escape the confines of her home and a passionless marriage. Working as a bookkeeper, she attempts to carve out a space for herself, symbolized by changes in her work area. Still, this story echoes the recurring theme of lives unlived due to forces often beyond one’s control.
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5168-3693-2
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by J.C. Salazar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2018
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.
A collection speaks in part to the poet’s Mexican-American heritage.
In these multifaceted poems, Mexico-born, Houston-raised Salazar (Of Dreams and Thorns, 2017) explores general human themes like love and war in addition to specific experiences as a person of color. The book begins with a sensual meditation on desire, featuring luscious descriptions of a lover, from lips “moist like youth” to the body’s “softest velvet” slopes. The poems shift to odes to cultural icons like the Tejano star Selena and Mexican-German painter Frida Kahlo as well as occasion pieces honoring his brother’s 40th birthday and a friend’s mother’s memorial service. The author hits his stride when he delves into identity. In “I Am Not Brown,” he contemplates the societal implications of skin tone and his inability to fit into the rigid category of Caucasian or Latino. “For white and black and brown alike / Are slaves to history’s brush strokes,” he writes. “Grateful for the Work,” perhaps Salazar’s loveliest poem, catalogs the day of a laborer, starting with an early morning awakening and following him as he toils in 100-degree heat, enjoys tacos from his lunch pail, buys beverages from a child’s lemonade stand, and returns home to an equally hard-working wife. The author then makes an abrupt turn toward Syria in a series of poems that condemn that country’s president, Bashar Hafez al-Assad. They serve as a rallying cry for Syrians and grieve for the murdered masses. Salazar’s closing poem, “Sons of Bitches,” is a clunky rant about a 20-year-old immigrant shot in the head by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent. The gratuitous violence and political theologizing are ill at ease with the intimate, personal experiences that preceded them, such as the fablelike “A Mexican is Made of This,” in which Salazar beautifully describes the “rainbows, bronze, backbone, butterflies” that his people embody.
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9991496-3-8
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Bronze Diamond Productions
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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