A multilayered and often effective poetic exploration of the past’s effects on the present.
A collection of poems about history, family, and love by a millennial Romanian American poet.
The title of this book comes from a Romanian expression about delusion—a concept that the speaker in the title poem says she struggled with as she dreamed of a creative career. In “Equilibrium,” the speaker tells the reader ways that “Things could be worse”—from cancer-ridden parents to a lover leaving for the priesthood. A speaker reunites with an estranged cousin in a Camden pub to discuss troubled family ties in “Nu e rolul meu [It’s not my role].” “Under your mattress” explores a father’s notion that both money and secrets are meant to be stashed away. The seizure and torture of a speaker’s grandparents under Communism, and the legacy of paranoia it imparted on their descendants, are the focus of “Opening the Orange Envelope.” The all-consuming nature of new love inspires “Scumpul meu [My dear]” and “Înainte [Forward].” Bejan unpacks—and rails against—a toxic relationship in “#Simplicity” and “The Streets of Johannesburg.” She concludes with translations of a pair of poems by Ana Blandiana and Nina Cassian. In this book, Bejan centers her poems in a dazzling variety of settings, immersing readers in such environments as a U.S. military base on the banks of the Black Sea, an unnamed invitation-only island, and the “Strip-mall paradise” of Raleigh, North Carolina. In “Bucharest,” she describes in detail the “fumes of gasoline lingering amidst the general smell of pollution / Mixed with cigarettes, mixed with cigars, mixed with, pure, sweet and delicious B.O.” But when she turns her focus to her romantic relationships, Bejan occasionally slips into clichés, as when a speaker describes a lover’s inner light as “more blinding than the sun.” Other poems show notable boldness, however; one bravely catalogs the traumatic repercussions of sexual assault, and another boldly takes on Communism, calling it a system under which “Every man and woman were equal / Equally destroyed / Equally in fear / Equally invisible.”
A multilayered and often effective poetic exploration of the past’s effects on the present.Pub Date: May 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64-662219-1
Page Count: 46
Publisher: Finishing Line Press
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A touching portrait of courage and friendship.
A lifetime of friendship endures many upheavals.
Ellie and Homa, two young girls growing up in Tehran, meet at school in the early 1950s. Though their families are very different, they become close friends. After the death of Ellie’s father, she and her difficult mother must adapt to their reduced circumstances. Homa’s more warm and loving family lives a more financially constrained life, and her father, a communist, is politically active—to his own detriment and that of his family’s welfare. When Ellie’s mother remarries and she and Ellie relocate to a more exclusive part of the city, the girls become separated. They reunite years later when Homa is admitted to Ellie’s elite high school. Now a political firebrand with aspirations to become a judge and improve the rights of women in her factionalized homeland, Homa works toward scholastic success and begins practicing political activism. Ellie follows a course, plotted originally by her mother, toward marriage. The tortuous path of the girls’ adult friendship over the following decades is played out against regime change, political persecution, and devastating loss. Ellie’s well-intentioned but naïve approach stands in stark contrast to Homa’s commitment to human rights, particularly for women, and her willingness to risk personal safety to secure those rights. As narrated by Ellie, the girls’ story incorporates frequent references to Iranian food, customs, and beliefs common in the years of tumult and reforms accompanying the Iranian Revolution. Themes of jealousy—even in close friendships—and the role of the shir zan, the courageous “lion women” of Iran who effect change, recur through the narrative. The heartaches associated with emigration are explored along with issues of personal sacrifice for the sake of the greater good (no matter how remote it may seem).
A touching portrait of courage and friendship.Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781668036587
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.
Many years after her older brother, Bear, went missing, Barbara Van Laar vanishes from the same sleepaway camp he did, leading to dark, bitter truths about her wealthy family.
One morning in 1975 at Camp Emerson—an Adirondacks summer camp owned by her family—it's discovered that 13-year-old Barbara isn't in her bed. A problem case whose unhappily married parents disdain her goth appearance and "stormy" temperament, Barbara is secretly known by one bunkmate to have slipped out every night after bedtime. But no one has a clue where's she permanently disappeared to, firing speculation that she was taken by a local serial killer known as Slitter. As Jacob Sluiter, he was convicted of 11 murders in the 1960s and recently broke out of prison. He's the one, people say, who should have been prosecuted for Bear's abduction, not a gardener who was framed. Leave it to the young and unproven assistant investigator, Judy Luptack, to press forward in uncovering the truth, unswayed by her bullying father and male colleagues who question whether women are "cut out for this work." An unsavory group portrait of the Van Laars emerges in which the children's father cruelly abuses their submissive mother, who is so traumatized by the loss of Bear—and the possible role she played in it—that she has no love left for her daughter. Picking up on the themes of families in search of themselves she explored in Long Bright River (2020), Moore draws sympathy to characters who have been subjected to spousal, parental, psychological, and physical abuse. As rich in background detail and secondary mysteries as it is, this ever-expansive, intricate, emotionally engaging novel never seems overplotted. Every piece falls skillfully into place and every character, major and minor, leaves an imprint.
"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593418918
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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