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SPEAKS FOR ITSELF

A COMMODITY OF MUSINGS FROM MY LIFE

A collection of thoughtful but uneven poems.

A volume of poetry focuses on a man’s myriad misgivings.

These poems come from a deeply personal place and center on the speaker’s sense of being wronged. He seeks approval from an educator in “Teacher’s Pet.” “Den of Iniquity” hints at an adult who still lives at home with an oblivious parent. “Old Crows” explores the titular winged creatures and their off-putting personalities. “Graveyard Shift” chronicles the journey of an atypical and misunderstood child as he turns into an eccentric and disenfranchised adult. “Afraid of the Dark” attempts to reframe the mental torment of a shadow self. The poet encourages himself to persevere despite naysayers and obstacles in “Get Me Through.” He laments his unattractive appearance and present circumstances in “Out of Whack.” “Glass House” is an angry diatribe directed at a nebulous “you.” “Suspicion/Extinction” kicks off with the grim proclamation that “Life’s a system of a disease underestimated.” “Neighbor” delves into an adolescent fantasy. “Never Go Back” is a mantra-style poem that emphasizes moving forward. Recurring themes include the battle of darkness versus light, the necessity of truth-telling, and the torturous nature of relationships. The poems in this ambitious collection are steeped in angst. Bailey’s strength lies in coaxing readers into serious subjects through apt metaphors, as when a poem seemingly about snow segues into a moving meditation on a life lived in isolation. But the rhyme scheme sometimes dilutes intense emotions that could have been more poignantly conveyed in free verse: “I feel as though I’m all alone / in the midst of a mayday overblown.” The poems are often skeletal in their lack of detail, becoming too vague to connect with. Readers sees the speaker’s thoughts on the page but get no sense of who he really is, where he is situated in the world, or why they should root for his success. In addition, the author occasionally leans too heavily on clichés, such as the glass house metaphor or phrases like sink or swim and come hell or high water.

A collection of thoughtful but uneven poems.

Pub Date: June 21, 2021

ISBN: 979-8-52-456428-3

Page Count: 103

Publisher: Self

Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2021

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THE WOMEN

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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INTERMEZZO

Though not perfect, a clear leap forward for Rooney; her grandmaster status remains intact.

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Two brothers—one a lawyer, one a chess prodigy—work through the death of their father, their complicated romantic lives, and their even more tangled relationship with each other.

Ten years separate the Koubek brothers. In his early 30s, Peter has turned his past as a university debating champ into a career as a progressive lawyer in Dublin. Ivan is just out of college, struggling to make ends meet through freelance data analysis and reckoning with his recent free fall in the world chess rankings. When their father dies of cancer, the cracks in the brothers’ relationship widen. “Complete oddball” Ivan falls in love with an older woman, an arts center employee, which freaks Peter out. Peter juggles two women at once: free-spirited college student Naomi and his ex-girlfriend Sylvia, whose life has changed drastically since a car accident left her in chronic pain. Emotional chaos abounds. Rooney has struck a satisfying blend of the things she’s best at—sensitively rendered characters, intimacies, consideration of social and philosophical issues—with newer moves. Having the book’s protagonists navigating a familial rather than romantic relationship seems a natural next step for Rooney, with her astutely empathic perception, and the sections from Peter’s point of view show Rooney pushing her style into new territory with clipped, fragmented, almost impressionistic sentences. (Peter on Sylvia: “Must wonder what he’s really here for: repentance, maybe. Bless me for I have. Not like that, he wants to tell her. Why then. Terror of solitude.”) The risk: Peter comes across as a slightly blurry character, even to himself—he’s no match for the indelible Ivan—so readers may find these sections less propulsive at best or over-stylized at worst. Overall, though, the pages still fly; the characters remain reach-out-and-touch-them real.

Though not perfect, a clear leap forward for Rooney; her grandmaster status remains intact.

Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024

ISBN: 9780374602635

Page Count: 464

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024

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