Tender yet mournful writing by a sharply observant poet.
In his second book of poetry, Defibaugh explores love and loss and living with a disability.
Defibaugh began writing in his early teens, or roughly when he was confined to a wheelchair as a result of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. His debut collected 16 years’ worth of poetry, from his amateur beginnings to his later, more mature verse. This second book also deals with coming to terms with illness but with a greater sense of self-assuredness and poetic dexterity. The collection is divided into three parts—“Virginia Beach, 1990,” “Red Flags,” and “Broken Shells”—which underscore a coastal theme prevalent throughout. The collection opens at a point of innocence when the poem “Virginia Beach, 1990” offers a tableau of a small child making sand castles: “She’s flipping over / a fifteen-cent sand bucket, / her first real castle, / hastily constructed under / a flimsy yellow sun.” In a nod to imagism, Defibaugh deftly captures a fleeting and serene moment in the child’s life that is unselfconsciously carefree, soon to be interrupted by the turbulence of experience. He presents the trials of life in various forms that include stifling parental authority in “Bars”: “Being guarded isn’t the freedom / she was born deserving.” “Selective Service Exemption” links disability and estrangement in the phrase “how to love without being loved.” Defibaugh’s poetry has a cumulative impact. The poem “Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy” charts the progression of the poet’s illness from his diagnosis at age 4, remarking: “Pines replaced peers repulsed by awkward moving. / Nature disregarded disability.” Elsewhere the comfort of exploring nature is torn away by further deterioration: “By fourteen, I could not navigate the forest / Or even hobble from room to room.” Admirers of Defibaugh’s debut collection will note that this one has fewer moments of levity here, and excursions into comedy can prove mordantly dark. In “vs. Modern Medicine” the poet notes: “Waiting for a cure is silly; / this chair will be my resting place, / and I’d settle even sooner / if it had a higher voltage.” This is a deep emotional excavation of hardship, carefully conceived and keenly executed from the author of Dynamic Parts (2014).
Tender yet mournful writing by a sharply observant poet.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-69078-827-0
Page Count: 58
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
A ghost story, a love story, a mystery—this seductive novel has it all.
A haunted house full of haunted people is the setting for this lively, moving tale.
When 15-year-old Sana Malek and her widowed father move from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Durban in 2014, they land in a once-glorious mansion overlooking the sea, now a ramshackle rooming house presided over by a kindly old man called Doctor. Sana is familiar with ghosts, having been haunted all her life by the spiteful ghost of her previously conjoined twin sister, who died soon after they were separated. So she recognizes that the house teems with them. She forms tentative bonds with some of the place’s corporeal residents, a group of contentious older women. But she’s more interested in the departed, and she begins to unravel their stories, especially when she finds a long-locked bedroom with diaries and photos that are evidence of a couple in love. In 1919, we learn in the book’s second timeline, a dashing, wealthy young Muslim man named Akbar Ali Khan left his village in Gujarat. Eventually he settled in Durban, following an arranged marriage in India with his modern Anglophile wife, Jahanara Begum. They have a son and daughter, but their marriage never warms, despite the spectacular house and gardens he builds for them. Then he does fall in love, with a Tamil girl hired to work in his sugar factory. Meena rejects him, but he takes her as another wife anyway, patiently winning her over until their love catches fire. Akbar isn’t the only one in love with Meena; the djinn of the title, an ancient creature weary of the world, is enchanted. But Jahanara’s bitter jealousy of Meena will lead them all to a terrible fate. Almost a century later, Sana will put it all together—but will that bring catastrophe? Khan’s prose is lush and lovely, her pacing skillful, and she successfully weaves a complex plot with a large cast.
A ghost story, a love story, a mystery—this seductive novel has it all.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780593653456
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
