While brazenly honest, this blend of autobiography and ruminations takes some distractingly strange turns.
A computer-savvy Cuban expatriate recounts his personal experiences and offers reflections in this debut book.
Rey may have been born in Cuba, but he has little good to say about the country. He, along with his wife and daughter, defected to Canada on May 26, 1987, when the plane they were on stopped to refuel in Gander, Newfoundland. The author explains: “I ran away from both the Capitalist Cuba with the Dictator Fulgencio Batista and the Communist Cuba with Emperor Castro the First.” His memories of Cuba involve terrible conditions with rationed food, gross inefficiency, and a lack of free speech. By contrast, he found his life in Canada and later the United States to be a time of great possibility. Though he and his family fled to a foreign country with just the clothes on their backs, they were able to make something of themselves. The author often expounds on his love of his new homeland. He also insists he should not be doubted just because his language is not perfect: “The accent is present in my English, but not on my knowledge or in my feelings, they are pure.” Later portions include an extended ode to Rosa Parks, some gripes about his life in the U.S. (particularly with the “City of Medicine,” Durham, North Carolina), and some of his letters to various newspapers. The last are usually meant to refute any starry-eyed reports that Cuba is anything but a brutal dictatorship. As he wrote to the Toronto Star in 2001 of politics in Cuba, “There is only one party in the island, as far as I witnessed during 25 years, the other choices are to become a fulltime silent person or to go to jail.” While it is clear the author has an ax to grind regarding his native land, his sincerity is never in doubt. For example, Rey points out that, although he worked with technology in Cuba, he “couldn’t have a personal computer, practically couldn’t even dream of having one.” He also manages to mix well-known events, such as the Mariel boatlifts, and relatively obscure tidbits, like the Cuban programming language LEAL. While such a breadth of material gives the book a very personal depth, some topics tend toward the bizarre. For instance, readers will learn more about the author’s views on prostitution and gay sexuality than they may have bargained for. Rey also includes feedback he received on his stories from a writing website. One section even features steps for creating beer. Nevertheless, in most discussions, a sense of humor shines through. He is at once cranky, passionate, and comical. For instance, the author explains that when becoming a U.S. citizen, he was asked if he would defend the country during a war. Though he said yes at the time, he would now alter his answer to include the caveat that if some companies he felt had wronged him were attacked, he would “gladly step aside instead and allow” the enemy “to conquer those places!” Taken together, this collection of memories, opinions, reflections, poetry, and miscellanea makes for a truly unique, if meandering, experience.
While brazenly honest, this blend of autobiography and ruminations takes some distractingly strange turns.Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63338-631-0
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Fulton Book
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Erudite writing from an author struggling to find meaning through music.
An Ohio-based poet, columnist, and music critic takes the pulse of the nation while absorbing some of today’s most eclectic beats.
At first glance, discovering deep meaning in the performance of top-40 songstress Carly Rae Jepsen might seem like a tough assignment. However, Abdurraqib (The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, 2016) does more than just manage it; he dives in fully, uncovering aspects of love and adoration that are as illuminating and earnest as they are powerful and profound. If he can do that with Jepsen's pop, imagine what the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Prince, or Nina Simone might stir in him. But as iconic as those artists may be, the subjects found in these essays often serve to invoke deeper forays into the worlds surrounding the artists as much as the artists themselves. Although the author is interested in the success and appeal of The Weeknd or Chance the Rapper, he is also equally—if not more—intrigued with the sociopolitical and existential issues that they each managed to evoke in present-day America. In witnessing Zoe Saldana’s 2016 portrayal of Simone, for instance, Abdurraqib thinks back to his own childhood playing on the floor of his family home absorbing the powerful emotions caused by his mother’s 1964 recording of “Nina Simone in Concert”—and remembering the relentlessly stigmatized soul who, unlike Saldana, could not wash off her blackness at the end of the day. In listening to Springsteen, the author is reminded of the death of Michael Brown and how “the idea of hard, beautiful, romantic work is a dream sold a lot easier by someone who currently knows where their next meal is coming from.” In all of Abdurraqib’s poetic essays, there is the artist, the work, the nation, and himself. The author effortlessly navigates among these many points before ultimately arriving at conclusions that are sometimes hopeful, often sorrowful, and always visceral.
Erudite writing from an author struggling to find meaning through music.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-937512-65-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Two Dollar Radio
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
A brief but sometimes knotty and earnest set of studies best suited for Shakespeare enthusiasts.
A brisk study of 20 of the Bard’s plays, focused on stripping off four centuries of overcooked analysis and tangled reinterpretations.
“I don’t really care what he might have meant, nor should you,” writes Smith (Shakespeare Studies/Oxford Univ.; Shakespeare’s First Folio: Four Centuries of an Iconic Book, 2016, etc.) in the introduction to this collection. Noting the “gappy” quality of many of his plays—i.e., the dearth of stage directions, the odd tonal and plot twists—the author strives to fill those gaps not with psychological analyses but rather historical context for the ambiguities. She’s less concerned, for instance, with whether Hamlet represents the first flower of the modern mind and instead keys into how the melancholy Dane and his father share a name, making it a study of “cumulative nostalgia” and our difficulty in escaping our pasts. Falstaff’s repeated appearances in multiple plays speak to Shakespeare’s crowd-pleasing tendencies. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a bawdier and darker exploration of marriage than its teen-friendly interpretations suggest. Smith’s strict-constructionist analyses of the plays can be illuminating: Her understanding of British mores and theater culture in the Elizabethan era explains why Richard III only half-heartedly abandons its charismatic title character, and she is insightful in her discussion of how Twelfth Night labors to return to heterosexual convention after introducing a host of queer tropes. Smith's Shakespeare is eminently fallible, collaborative, and innovative, deliberately warping play structures and then sorting out how much he needs to un-warp them. Yet the book is neither scholarly nor as patiently introductory as works by experts like Stephen Greenblatt. Attempts to goose the language with hipper references—Much Ado About Nothing highlights the “ ‘bros before hoes’ ethic of the military,” and Falstaff is likened to Homer Simpson—mostly fall flat.
A brief but sometimes knotty and earnest set of studies best suited for Shakespeare enthusiasts.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4854-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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