A well-structured, enjoyable tale about growing up and letting go.
Cromley’s debut coming-of-age novel follows a 15-year-old high schooler as he comes to terms with his parents’ split and the confusion of adolescence.
Kirby is your typical teen: mouthy, distrustful of authority and highly aware of his raging libido. But he’s also concerned about the stability of his small family unit. During his short life, he endured a seemingly endless parade of his mother’s suitors, until his stepfather, Bradley, became a more stable presence five years ago. Recently, however, Bradley hasn’t been around the house. He’s disappeared for short periods before—Kirby measures his sabbaticals by an “informal indicator” called “Bradley-Returns Index”—but he’s always come home. When Kirby returns from a torturous stint at computer camp, he finds his mother in a relationship with their neighbor Uncle Harley, or, as Kirby calls him, “the insurgent.” Kirby fears that this development could wipe out the BRI entirely, so he becomes determined to restore order. He enlists the help of his only friends—the meek, sometimes-frustrating Julian, and a troubled girl named Izzy, who’s the object of Kirby’s fantasies—to track down his missing stepfather. The trio “borrows” Julian’s dad’s classic 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner and sets off across Montana on a road trip, and hijinks and adventures ensue. Ultimately, Kirby must confront Bradley and the reasons why the BRI may be permanently at zero. The present-tense, first-person narration works well for recounting these youthful escapades; Kirby is simultaneously reflective and impulsive, making decisions in real time and almost immediately experiencing their consequences. The prose, especially the dialogue, is strong but may be a bit mature for young readers (“You look like a fetus,” is a compelling but perhaps age-specific insult; there are also frequent references to masturbation). Although set in the 1980s, the story and tone have a timeless feel, and Kirby’s struggles with self-exploration are very relatable. Overall, the novel’s strength lies in its evocation of how it feels to live in a sometimes-disappointing world.
A well-structured, enjoyable tale about growing up and letting go.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2013
ISBN: 978-0615872759
Page Count: 230
Publisher: Tortoise Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A fine anthology of some of the best contemporary poetry around.
Fresh new writers rub elbows with past masters in this scintillating collection of verse.
Under the label “New Neo-Realist,” Lark, editor of the Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities, assembles a collection of narrative poems that usually feature frank engagement with ordinary life; a modern, colloquial idiom; and emotion leavened by irony, astringency, and flashes of humor. That leaves room for a huge range of subjects, styles, and moods. Erika Meitner’s “Wal-Mart Supercenter” contrasts the stores’ sublime friendliness with the police-blotter hell surrounding them (“A couple tried to sell their six-month-old for twenty-five bucks / to buy meth in the Salinas Walmart parking lot”), and L.W. Milam’s surreal “Tootie Fruit ME and Ass-Grasp LA” invokes “crowds of crying turtles, & / Peasant armies of hymn-singing, drug-ridden geckos.” Christopher Kennedy’s mordantly funny “Riddle of Self-Worth” laments that “My pet vulture has the disconcerting habit of staring / at the clock and then at me”; Howard Nemerov’s lyrical “Goldfish” spotlights the creatures’ “Waving disheveled rags of elegant fin / Languidly in the light”; and Tom Crawford’s “Companion to a Loon” levels a matter-of-fact elegy: “Listen bird, I’m past making death sad. / The tide has no time for wakes / or tragedies. We’re either coming in / or going out.” The volume contains an especially strong set of poems by women, including Kate Gale’s agonized “What I Did Not Tell Anyone,” in which a new mother confides “That I felt my whole family / greedily feeding off me. / That my body felt stolen. / That I felt like Russia during all the wars / troops tramping over me on their way to Moscow,” and Christine Hamm’s bitterly whimsical “Signs You Are Ovulating”: “As you apply mascara / in the bathroom, your eyes slit, / a crow hops onto your shoulder, / and whispers, right here, now.” Lark juxtaposes works by well-known legends, such as Allen Ginsberg, Philip Larkin, e.e. Cummings, and Langston Hughes, as revealing counterpoints to the newer poems. Unlike the strings of cryptic non sequiturs in much Master of Fine Arts—bred poetry, these poems are decidedly reader-friendly without compromising their literary artistry. Along with their inventive language and dazzling metaphor, their accessibility and immediacy pack a wallop.
A fine anthology of some of the best contemporary poetry around.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-917320-58-3
Page Count: 202
Publisher: MHO & MHO Works
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A sexy, bittersweet reverie of love relayed in brief, powerful bursts of poetry.
A breathtaking collection of tender poems about love and loss.
Darlington (China Bus, 2017, etc.) is a man of few words, but in this slim book of untitled verse, he proves that those few words are enough. He depicts love as “a feast of goosebumps / laid out for curious taste buds” and “a party / posted signs: / NO RE-ENTRY.” He woos readers with a speaker’s recollections of staying up all night reading The Love Poems of Lord Byron with a beloved and later finding torn-out pages from that volume hidden in other books. Another speaker reminisces about a girl who likes “small tomatoes / as they pop in her mouth / simple cotton undies / and a good pizza crust.” Yet another poem tells of a weekend camping trip, complete with mushroom foraging and a visit from a bear at breakfast. Even when a speaker is in a relationship, he senses its inevitable end; one poem discusses keeping written tabs of a love’s delicious details: “now my house is / full of such notes / so many that in a / strong breeze / they’re like butterflies / releasing from a / garden / each one / some part of you.” When a relationship ends, a sorrowful speaker seeks the advice of the sun, the moon, and the sea in a poem that offers solace but no answers. Darlington is a master of brevity, and each poem in this collection is like a time capsule, packed with nostalgia and sensual description. Of a secretly kept photograph, he writes, “You are flushed from sex and / the afternoon sun runs like butter / down your spine.” Even the sparsest poems are explosively potent, such as: “stay / like this / a moment / our costumes fallen to the floor.” Darlington takes full advantage of white space on the page, effectively playing with line breaks and indents to create a game of hopscotch for the eyes while simultaneously filling the soul.
A sexy, bittersweet reverie of love relayed in brief, powerful bursts of poetry.Pub Date: May 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-71905-049-4
Page Count: 70
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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