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NOTES GOING UNDERGROUND

Name: NOTES GOING UNDERGROUND
Author: Joram Piatigorsky
ISBN: 978-1-951214-52-4

by Joram Piatigorsky ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Penetrating, inventive writing that challenges perceptions of what lies beyond the veil.

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This intriguingly dark collection of short stories by Piatigorsky (Jellyfish Have Eyes, 2015, etc.) considers the possibility of a transitional stage between life and death.

“I cannot fathom my own death,” writes scientist Piatigorsky, “however, the mind and imagination can…indulge in fantasies…that challenge our concepts of death and being human.” This collection of six short stories does exactly that. The first, “Notes Going Underground,” is written from the perspective of a research scientist who finds he has been given a “grace period” between life and death to “size up” his life before burial. In “My Funeral,” a biomedical scientist discovers that once dead, he continues to feel alive and attends his own memorial service. “Waking up Dead” continues in a similar vein with a protagonist who doesn’t realize he is dead and continues his life as usual. The imagination-stretching “Death by Drowning” is about a daughter who connects with an absent father who has been jailed for misusing government funds when researching jellyfish, only for him to die in a bizarre manner. “Mr. Blok” ponders the state of dying after the protagonist falls into a ditch, and “What’s Alive” takes the form of an essay examining the gray area between life and death. The writing is playfully morbid. In “Mr. Blok” an unnerving pleasure arises from the process of dying: “Lying on his back in the mud, soft and warm, with his eyes closed, in the marvelous quietness made him feel almost grateful and glad. How amazingly simple it is to be dead.” Piatigorsky’s prose is laconic yet elegant—always keen to confront the reader with probing questions: “Is a virus dead? Is the peeling bark of a eucalyptus tree alive?” The result is a deeply thought-provoking collection that presents an unflinching examination of a taboo subject. The first three offerings read as a reworking of the same story, each about a scientist negotiating the partition between life and death. Still, despite blurring into one another, these stories capture various aspects of the same phenomena. Accompanied by suitably macabre illustrations by Carrillo, this book is an intriguing read.

Penetrating, inventive writing that challenges perceptions of what lies beyond the veil.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 978-1-951214-52-4

Page Count: 95

Publisher: Adelaide Books

Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2020

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
UNCERTAIN LIVES
by Joram Piatigorsky

- BOOK REVIEW
THE OPEN DOOR
by Joram Piatigorsky

- BOOK REVIEW
THE OPEN DOOR
by Joram Piatigorsky

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CARRIE

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1974

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

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Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).

All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."

Pub Date: April 8, 1974

ISBN: 0385086954

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE
by Stephen King & Peter Straub

- BOOK REVIEW
NEVER FLINCH
by Stephen King

- BOOK REVIEW
YOU LIKE IT DARKER
by Stephen King

- PERSPECTIVES
Appreciations: Carrie Turns 40

- SEEN & HEARD
Stephen King Used ‘Carrie’ Advance To Support Mom

- BOOK TO SCREEN
New ‘Carrie’ Series in the Works at Amazon

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.