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THE CRYING BOOK

Name: THE CRYING BOOK
Author: Heather Christle
ISBN: 978-1-948226-44-8

by Heather Christle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 5, 2019

A surprisingly hopeful meditation on why we shed tears.

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An eclectic reflection on human waterworks.

Award-winning poet Christle (Creative Writing/Emory Univ. Heliopause, 2015, etc.) pushes the boundaries of her genre with this hybrid approach to tears. Fusing poetry with lyric essay and a significant amount of research, the author sheds new light on the basic, universal phenomenon of crying. Beyond fact—namely, that at one point or another, fluid has leaked from everyone’s eyes—some may wonder what more there is to know. This book provides the definitive answer: plenty. There are no chapters. Rather, in one long reflection, divided into small, partial-page sections, Christle examines such elements as pretend grief (she cites poet Chelsey Minnis, who calls it “cry-hustling”); “white tears,” (a Caucasian person’s response to suddenly realizing the enormity of systemic racism); and the differences between the three types of tears: basal (lubricant), irritant (a response to a foreign substance), and psychogenic (emotional). She also considers the distinction between crying and weeping—“crying is louder; weeping is wetter”—and introduces readers to professional mourners and lachrymatories, small vessels in which tears are stored. Of particular interest is Christle’s inquiry into the connections among grief, gender, and anger. She wonders “whether men kill to create an occasion for the grief they already feel.” The author infuses these tear-related themes with prose about her personal experiences, including her own treatment for depression and her staggering grief over a dear friend’s suicide. The format of the book lends itself to either quick consumption or measured contemplation; sections range from one sentence to a little more than a page. Though this structure could make for a choppy text, the transitions between her various sources and streams of thought are mostly seamless, providing a pleasurable, even restful reading experience. The narrative is saturated with significant threads of sadness, but they don’t overwhelm. Rather, the unconventional format, combined with the author’s vast survey of the topic, provides fascinating food for thought.

A surprisingly hopeful meditation on why we shed tears.

Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-948226-44-8

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Catapult

Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2019

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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I WAS TRAINED TO BE A SPY

by Helias Doundoulakis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 27, 2007

Exciting, first-hand account of a World War II spy.

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A soldier’s memoir of his espionage training and subsequent adventures behind enemy lines in World War II Greece.

Greek-American Helias Doundoulakis spent May 1941 helping his father tend the family’s vineyard in Crete. One fateful spring afternoon, however, he looked up to see German paratroopers falling from the sky. The German Army, having seized control of mainland Greece, had turned its sights to Crete. After the Nazi takeover, Doundoulakis and his brother joined the resistance and were evacuated to Cairo by the British. There, the author enlisted in the United States Army and received training as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services. His education, described in fascinating detail, included the arts of parachute jumping, cracking safes and picking locks. Doundoulakis was also required to master skillful lying and the ability to easily assimilate to different environments. Armed with this set of skills, he was delivered by boat to Greece’s second largest city, Salonica. Doundoulakis is ordered to set up a wireless station to report Nazi troop movements and other relevant information to OSS headquarters, but the author soon discovered Salonica was crawling with German soldiers. He was forced daily to navigate a tricky course through a sea of informants and their radio interference equipment as well as the constant threat of capture, torture and execution. Although Doundoulakis’s prose may be unpolished, he is able to evoke the suspense and thrilling detail of his many narrow escapes and also convey his youthful sense of excitement and adventure. His intimate rendering of the adversity Greek civilians faced during the war is particularly moving. But the author’s account of life after the war is less enthralling; no matter how exceptional his post-war experience, it shrinks in comparison to tales of avoiding the Gestapo behind enemy lines and practicing the arts of intelligence.

Exciting, first-hand account of a World War II spy.

Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2007

ISBN: 978-1-4257-5379-5

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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CONOR

A BIOGRAPHY OF CONOR CRUISE O'BRIEN

by Donald Harman Akenson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1994

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Conor Cruise O'Brien may or may not be ``the greatest living Irishman'' or ``the most important Irish nonfiction writer of the 20th century,'' but he has certainly found a splendid biographer in historian Akenson (History/Queen's Univ., Ontario). Born in 1917, O'Brien could seemingly do everything but math. He supported himself with prizes at university; wrote literary criticism; was on the fast track in the Irish Foreign Office until he jumped off it, carrying out too exactly the unattributable wishes of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjîld; was vice chancellor of the University of Ghana, a New York academic, an Irish Cabinet minister, editor-in-chief of The Observer, and the author of seminal books on Ireland and Edmund Burke. Along the way he became the enfant terrible of the UN, not only revealing in his To Katanga and Back how it worked but doing it in such entertaining fashion that Akenson calls it ``the first successful picaresque novel of postcolonial Africa, but...a novel that is built almost entirely of fact.'' He showed enormous courage in Ireland, denouncing the constitutionally asserted right of the South to exercise jurisdiction over Ulster as ``essentially a colonial claim'' and campaigning ceaselessly against the romanticization of violence. It would be surprising, in a life devoted to journalism and crusades of one kind or another, if O'Brien had not gone off the rails from time to time as he did in the late 1960s: His castigation of Western imperialism as ``one of the greatest and most dangerous forces in the world today'' and his statement that containing communism was one of the greatest dangers to world peace suggest his limitations. But his courage, his honesty, his restless mind, and his eloquent writing assured him of a wide audience, and his States of Ireland and The Great Melody have both been remarkably influential books, the latter, according to Akenson, ``among the great biographies of the 20th Century.'' This, too, is a very fine biography, full of wit, verve, candor, and a critical appreciation of its subject.