Assorted tales and contemplations that inspire as often as they entertain.
A Tennessee judge reflects on family life and braves dystopian futures in a collection that blends memoir and speculative fiction.
Swann, the author of Politics, Faith, Love(2017), divides his book into three distinct parts. The first is a series of what-if scenarios; Bill Kirksey, the author’s alter ego, wakes up on different mornings to a staggering loss—on one morning, he’s lost his sense of hearing; on another, there’s no electricity. In each story, the losses affect everyone in the world, and Kirksey, his wife, and their grown children must adjust to the new normal in Gatlinburg. The most imaginative tale of the bunch, in which people pick up teleportation skills, is disappointingly brief. The book’s second section centers primarily on Kirksey’s past and particularly his home life. These warm, charming stories include one in which he learns that his mother’s preference for dark chicken meat and gizzards was only because she knew her other family members liked the other parts of the bird better. The final, nonfictional section, which takes up more than half the book, collects a hodgepodge of first-person musings, poetry, and tales of Swann’s days on the judicial bench. In this part, the author sometimes relies too heavily on secondary material, such as identical biblical verses in different translations and lengthy court documents. Nevertheless, the author’s prose style is buoyant and memorable: “He could remember how the power line outside his fifth-grade window had stacked up with snow, right on the wire, an ever-mounting knife-edge of snow, thin as the wire itself.” Although he delivers his life stories with fond nostalgia, he’s also occasionally playful; one piece, for instance, is essentially a list of words and phrases in East Tennessee dialect, which he helpfully translates. Overall, the book is endlessly upbeat, spotlighting a “pretty decent” depiction of humankind as well as Swann’s steadfast positivity.
Assorted tales and contemplations that inspire as often as they entertain.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982261-69-6
Page Count: 210
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A brutally honest and evocative account of anxiety and depression in poetry.
A collection of poetry focuses on mental health struggles.
Marín, who holds a doctorate in African American literature, found inspiration for this book’s title in James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” a short story that reminds readers that deep water and drowning are not synonymous. It is an apt metaphor for the poet, who has suffered from anxiety and depression for much of her life. In free-verse poems, she transports readers from her childhood in Málaga, Spain, to the adolescent onset of her symptoms and her challenging adulthood. She methodically unpacks the torment she experienced from the “demon in my mind,” her “tyrant” of a brain, and a “a mob of angry people yelling” in her head. She recalls being told her troubles were all in her head by a doctor whose only solution was Valium. Confessions follow regarding the “mask I wear to chameleon / my way through each day” and how a “list of mistakes I made this past year pile up in my mind like cars.” She examines the frustration of finding the right antidepressant and how she despairs at the drudgery of everyday life. She divulges the difficulties of maintaining a marriage and parenting children while experiencing mental illness. Marín boldly confronts her own and others’ emotions and behaviors. “Mom’s silence claims / its space between the ceiling, floor, / and four walls of every room, enshrouding / the house with a smothering cloak / of unanswered questions,” she writes in “Behind Walls.” Her descriptions are vivid and tactile; a compassionate teacher comforted the author with “arms like a blanket.” Marín poignantly depicts how mental illness feels in lines like “Fear kidnaps my nerves, / ties them with electric wire,” and “I’m tired of the iron ball, / stuck in my throat.” Though she does experiment with a handful of haiku, they don’t always resonate. The poet’s writing excels when it has more room to explore.
A brutally honest and evocative account of anxiety and depression in poetry.Pub Date: June 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73479-868-5
Page Count: 101
Publisher: Legacy Book Press LLC
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A penetrating work of family history and self-reflection.
In this memoir, a retired psychotherapist attempts to untangle a relative’s personal life as a way of understanding her own.
Cox first heard the story of her great-grandmother Elizabeth from her parents when she first got married—how the woman had borne two children out of wedlock and how no one, even their descendants, knew who the children’s fathers were. The story held a special significance for Cox, both because she shared her great-grandmother’s first name—Elizabeth—and because the author had gotten pregnant with her first child when she was an unmarried teenager. It was not until 2004, four decades later,in the aftermath of her marriage’s dissolution, a disastrous love affair, and a severe depressive episode, that Cox decided to try to find out the truth of her great-grandmother’s life: “I have a strong feeling that there is something in it I need to discover….In order to find myself today, I need to know where I have come from, who my ancestors were and what that means for me.” The retired author set about to understand the life of that other, earlier Elizabeth through research and travel; while doing so, she began to unpack her own difficult adolescence, which was further complicated by fears brought on by her parents’ poor health. Cox, a psychotherapist, uses her expertise to delve into her own psychology as well as that of her great-grandmother. Here, for instance, she speculates on how Elizabeth’s experience with her own father (an ill man, like Cox’s own) affected her: “Did Elizabeth shoulder more of the burden than a twelve-year-old girl should have to?...Children did work in the mills at a very young age and there would be no money coming in if William couldn’t work.” Overall, the author manages to excavate quite a bit from the historical record, filling in gaps with a novelist’s sense of narrative. Although there are no real groundbreaking revelations here, she manages to say quite a bit about the complicated dynamics of families—many of which seem to repeat themselves generation after generation.
A penetrating work of family history and self-reflection.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-78864-933-9
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Cinnamon Press
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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