by Ellery Akers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 24, 2020
An intelligent and deeply political set of poems.
Akers, a poet of the California coast, writes of life on the brink of ecological collapse in her newest collection.
This short book of poetry is centered on a particular verb—“swerve,” a sudden change in direction that, Akers writes, smells “astringent, like the wind off the sea.” The poet mourns an unexpected loss—“When I was born I thought I’d be taken from the earth / I didn’t think the earth would be taken from me.” It’s a loss that’s been legislated by incompetent presidents, greedy senators, and other powerful people who refuse to prevent it, her poems assert. She approaches her grief like a naturalist, carefully naming again and again what her speakers long to conserve: “scud,” “bracken,” “clubmoss,” “cormorant.” And more: “I call the shapes of leaves: spatulate, cordate, pinnate, lanceolate.” Further, Akers knows intimately what threatens the beauty that her speakers hope to protect: “I know the names of the machines that cut down the forest: / feller buncher, shovel logger, tower yarder, stroke delimber, skidder.” Knowing and naming all parts of a moral universe is part of Akers’ obsessive, intelligent effort to trace the elemental origins of the world. Money is not money but “green rectangles made from trees,” longing “for the forest it came from.” Overall, these poems aren’t as brilliant as Akers’ earlier work, but although they’re world-weary, they’re not without hope; they also include records of the small, successful acts that resist environmental decline: “I remember the moment when a river that used to catch fire / turned from flammable to swimmable.” Akers dedicates the last parts of the book to organized resistance and the possibility of swerving back from disaster. Aside from the clumsy bluntness of the title, “#MeToo: Women in Touch with Their Anger” is an impressive and moving reinterpretation of the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, praising defiance rather than compliance. Resistance is personal for these women who protect themselves and the Earth from abusive people.
An intelligent and deeply political set of poems.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4218-3640-9
Page Count: 74
Publisher: Blue Light Press
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
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A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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by Alison Espach ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 30, 2024
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
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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