A wild one that could set the screen ablaze.
A movie superstar’s shocking on-set death gets the wheels rolling in this increasingly bizarre Hollywood thriller.
Axel Hawk and Zoe Burns, mostly platonic (not his choice) partners at the A TO Z private investigation agency, are hired by starlet Lacey Sills to pursue her suspicions that the death of Montilladan, Hollywood’s “most beloved and most detested star,” is not as it seems. Early on, Wyatt delivers a jaw-dropping revelatory twist. After a reference to Errol Flynn and dialogue that might have been lifted from a 1930s B movie—the director tells his star, “I love ya, Monty. I really do. I love ya”)—there’s another surprise: The story actually takes place in the present day. There are plenty of other surprises to come, some so ludicrous as to be entertaining in their own rights. Some of them are related to out-of-left-field characters. Axel, for example, is an aspiring Shakespearean actor prone to dropping quotes from the Bard of Avon. That doesn’t play well with a cop who has a grudge against him from a previous case. “It’s bad enough…I got to associate with someone who acts in Shakespearean productions,” he growls in all seriousness to Axel. Wyatt doesn’t write with authority or verisimilitude about moviemaking or PI work, which undermines the credibility of his narrative. Similarly, dialogue can be stilted: “I am in a constant state of dolor from the loss of my loved one,” Lacey moans to Axel and Zoe. But if, as one character muses, the movie rights to the story are ever in play, then Wyatt has provided some vivid set pieces that should make for fun viewing. Among them are Axel’s sky-diving entrance on Zoe’s patio, a bathroom beating in which Zoe shows off her prodigious martial arts skills and a warehouse set-to. Montilladan, in particular, could be a game-changing role for an actor who could pull off its seemingly impossible chameleon-esque demands. As a character named Tinker says: “Personally, I don’t think that anyone would believe this.”
A wild one that could set the screen ablaze.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4809-0906-9
Page Count: 332
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
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