by Egon H.E. Lass ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 3, 2021
Effective, cutting but sometimes disconcerting poetry.
A collection offers satiric poems that have been rejected by other publishers.
Lass was born in a German village in 1938, “a couple of months after Kristallnacht.” The poet asserts that “being formed by the 20th Century, I could not help who I was, and sarcasm was just about the only thing left to me.” This collection is divided into sections, including “Silly Poems,” “Charades on a Political Reality Show,” “Vibe of the Ishtar Gate,” and “The Left Drawer,” with poems ranging from the mischievously playful to the bitingly sarcastic. All of the selections were rejected for publication elsewhere. The opening poem, “The Apple,” plays on the word app to muse about religion and technology. Elsewhere, Lass sneers at the “coolness” of West Coast culture and its ever-evolving trends: “Roadkill from LA is superior, / Being reptilian and wise. / My rocking horse is entangled in deep / Stratosfairies of thenness, newness, itness, And ifness.” Named for the ancient Babylonian gate decorated with deities and animals, the Ishtar poems diverge into mythology, summoning, among others, Canaanite gods and West African spirits. Here, the poet melds the mythological world with the trappings of the contemporary: “Let’s avoid those seraphs, / What horrid little pests they are, / Dipping their arrows in angel dust Viagra!” Meanwhile, many of “The Left Drawer” poems scoff wearily at the absurdity of modern life: “A world glut-stuffed / With sons-of-bitches.”
Lass writes erudite poetry that is punctuated with precise, powerfully unsettling imagery: “And I will hear half your words. / My emotions are deadened / Like desiccated nerves.” Many of the untitled poems found here pose probing philosophical questions and respond with devastating answers: “Is man kind? / Is mankind God? / Is God mankind? / Mankind is God in ruins.” There is often a fine line between satire and the offensive. Lass enjoys approaching that divide. His writing can be crudely humorous, as when pointing out the brazenness of oil corporation executives: “Whether you pull out / Your testicles / While peeing, / Or leave them discreetly / In, / Is an absolutely / Sure indicator / Of your racketeer / Rank.” But readers who interpret the poet as perpetuating rather than lampooning prejudice will not enjoy his work: “I did watch the Para-Olympits. / You gotta admit, it’s a little tough to watch for too long….They don’t need me watching them, / let them do their own / hype.” In this collection, no subject is immune to satire. In another piece, the poet mimics Jamaican patois to call out corrupt evangelists: “He go to dey horehouse and he get rolld.” Such lines may well be written with ironic implications, but are difficult to stomach. On other occasions, the use of irony drives home Lass’ point emphatically, as when adopting the voice of pro-gun politicians to emphasize the absurdity of their argument: “The truth is not the truth, / Therefore it can never be true! / Death by automatic rifle occurs / Because there is a lack of such weapons.” Many of these rejected poems are worth reading, but the assemblage is marred by a few that stray too far over the line.
Effective, cutting but sometimes disconcerting poetry.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-66419-545-5
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Xlibris US
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Alison Espach ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 30, 2024
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
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Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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SEEN & HEARD
by Lisa Scottoline ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 15, 2025
The mystery plot and the Italian idyl both play supporting roles in this fairy tale for grownups.
Scottoline’s latest links her great love of Italy with her long record of female-centered crime fiction.
Julia Pritzker has a presentiment that something terrible is around the corner, but she never imagines just how terrible: When her husband, Philadelphia attorney Mike Shallette, tries to protect her from a man who grabs her designer bag, he gets stabbed to death before her eyes. Julia’s grief becomes laced with guilt when she realizes that her daily horoscope had predicted a calamity she’s now convinced she could have prevented. The news from Italian attorney Massimiliano Lombardi that his late client has left her millions in cash and an estate worth nearly as much again doesn’t comfort her, but it does provide distraction—especially since she’s never heard of Emilia Rossi and has no idea why she’s been chosen as her heir. Since Julia, adopted at an early age by a couple who’ve been dead for years, wonders if Emilia might have been her biological grandmother, she travels to Chianti in hope of recovering some of Emilia’s DNA. Unfortunately, caretakers Anna Mattia Vesta and Piero Fano have burned all of Emilia’s clothing and personal items on her orders, so there’s nothing left to test. Growing convinced that the stars are directing her and that her history is rooted in Emilia’s decrepit house, Julia turns down repeated offers for the property and resolves to secure evidence confirming the relationship between Emilia and her. Now all she has to do is protect herself from the shadowy figures tracking and following her and recover from a series of vivid, hallucinatory nightmares that seem to be the cost of claiming her heritage.
The mystery plot and the Italian idyl both play supporting roles in this fairy tale for grownups.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781538769997
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
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