A winsome debut certain to garner a readership well beyond the YA genre.
Kingsley’s debut, a bildungsroman with humor, mystery and magical realism.
Thirteen-year-old Angel Bishop’s father hasn’t been in her life since she was a baby. The few stories she can glean from her mother, Ruth, and grandmother, Naomi, do little to elucidate who he is or why he’s lived apart from them for so long. In addition to her despondency in believing herself to be the cause of his absence, she resents her family members, who refuse to tell her anything meaningful about him. When a phone call suddenly announces his return for Thanksgiving, confusion and trepidation overshadow any happiness she thinks she ought to feel. With the help of Old Susan, the town recluse, and her Aunt Patsy, a resident of the local mental institution, Angel attempts to discover exactly why he left. In the process, she learns more than she ever expected about her family’s secrets and her own role in the mystery. Amid all of this, Angel also contends with classic teen concerns like friendships, school, first love and puberty. Kingsley’s eloquent prose breathes life into Angel’s trials and tribulations. Angel’s sensory awareness and appreciation, from the natural beauty of her small Appalachian town to the smells emanating from her grandmother’s kitchen, add richness and depth to the story. For example, in a passage describing her idea of an autumn spirit, she explains, “[C]ome November, she leans her head into the wind as her wild skirts are stripped away, leaving her branches bare like bony limbs reaching out for something.” While Angel’s voice may leave some readers wishing for a bit more originality, taken in concert with the dynamic secondary and even tertiary characters, any shortcomings will likely be absolved. Kingsley uses a subtle touch with magical realism, providing just enough to imbue her story with a fitting sense of enchantment. She also deftly avoids a saccharin or trite conclusion, instead maintaining a high level of believability.
A winsome debut certain to garner a readership well beyond the YA genre.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Little Falls Press
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.
A slim volume of largely gay-themed writings with pessimistic overtones.
Poe (Simple Simon, 2013, etc.) divides this collection of six short stories and 34 poems into five sections: “Art,” “Death,” “Relationship,” “Being,” and “Reflection.” Significantly, a figurative death at the age of 7 appears in two different poems, in which the author uses the phrase “a pretended life” to refer to the idea of hiding one’s true nature and performing socially enforced gender roles. This is a well-worn trope, but it will be powerful and resonant for many who have struggled with a stigmatized identity. In a similar vein, “Imaginary Tom” presents the remnants of a faded relationship: “Now we are imaginary friends, different in each other’s thoughts, / I the burden you seek to discard, / you the lover I created from the mist of longing.” Once in a while, short story passages practically leap off of the page, such as this evocative description of a seedy establishment in Lincoln, Nebraska: “It was a dimly lit bar that smelled of rodent piss, with barstools that danced on uneven legs and made the patrons wonder if they were drunker than they thought.” In “Valéry’s Ride,” Poe examines the familial duties that often fall to unmarried and childless people, keeping them from forming meaningful bonds with others. In this story, after the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hits Louisiana, Valéry’s extended family needs him more than ever; readers will likely root for the gay protagonist as he makes the difficult decision to strike out on his own. Not all of Poe’s main characters are gay; the heterosexual title character in “Mrs. Calumet’s Workspace,” for instance, pursues employment in order to escape the confines of her home and a passionless marriage. Working as a bookkeeper, she attempts to carve out a space for herself, symbolized by changes in her work area. Still, this story echoes the recurring theme of lives unlived due to forces often beyond one’s control.
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5168-3693-2
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.
A collection speaks in part to the poet’s Mexican-American heritage.
In these multifaceted poems, Mexico-born, Houston-raised Salazar (Of Dreams and Thorns, 2017) explores general human themes like love and war in addition to specific experiences as a person of color. The book begins with a sensual meditation on desire, featuring luscious descriptions of a lover, from lips “moist like youth” to the body’s “softest velvet” slopes. The poems shift to odes to cultural icons like the Tejano star Selena and Mexican-German painter Frida Kahlo as well as occasion pieces honoring his brother’s 40th birthday and a friend’s mother’s memorial service. The author hits his stride when he delves into identity. In “I Am Not Brown,” he contemplates the societal implications of skin tone and his inability to fit into the rigid category of Caucasian or Latino. “For white and black and brown alike / Are slaves to history’s brush strokes,” he writes. “Grateful for the Work,” perhaps Salazar’s loveliest poem, catalogs the day of a laborer, starting with an early morning awakening and following him as he toils in 100-degree heat, enjoys tacos from his lunch pail, buys beverages from a child’s lemonade stand, and returns home to an equally hard-working wife. The author then makes an abrupt turn toward Syria in a series of poems that condemn that country’s president, Bashar Hafez al-Assad. They serve as a rallying cry for Syrians and grieve for the murdered masses. Salazar’s closing poem, “Sons of Bitches,” is a clunky rant about a 20-year-old immigrant shot in the head by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent. The gratuitous violence and political theologizing are ill at ease with the intimate, personal experiences that preceded them, such as the fablelike “A Mexican is Made of This,” in which Salazar beautifully describes the “rainbows, bronze, backbone, butterflies” that his people embody.
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9991496-3-8
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Bronze Diamond Productions
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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