by Michael Langthorne ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 15, 2012
An effective, dark look at growing up with alcoholic parents.
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Langthorne’s debut novel centers on a young man’s turbulent youth with his dysfunctional parents.
“My limitations are strange, but I can only do what only I can do,” says Wilbur Topsail, the narrator of Langthorne’s novel. Born in 1950s Michigan to a WWII–vet father and a spirited, accommodating mother, Topsail has a normal boyhood featuring TV, comic books, chemistry sets and playmates. But the story darkens as his parents’ drinking begins to spin out of control. What was once social drinking on weekends grows into epic benders punctuated by rage, vomit and blackouts. Young Wilbur endures as best he can, earning good grades and dreaming of college in Ohio. By this point in Wilbur’s bitter, outspoken account, he has lost whatever slim illusion he might have had about his parents: “I could see that I was economically dependent on two weekend alcoholics and deep inside I knew everything would get far worse, I could taste the doom foretold.” And things do get worse. His parents’ dream of buying a marina turns into a nightmare that ends in bankruptcy. Wilbur describes the deteriorating relationship with his parents as alcohol takes control of their lives. A disastrous trip to Nogales with his father is evocatively recalled—“As the day progressed, with the fake blind men begging on the corners, and filthy little girls in tattered clothes, no taller than my waist, trying to sell sticks of chewing gum, I began to sicken”—in addition to later tragedies. Wilbur recounts his later life and bleak philosophy in equally unsparing detail. The book concludes with “The Life Expectancy of Pantyhose and the Poems of Middle Age,” a volume of poetry Wilbur self-publishes during a particularly aimless point in his life. The hopelessness of the narrative will be challenging for most readers, and the minimal comfort Wilbur derives from his memories will be small consolation for those who can relate.
An effective, dark look at growing up with alcoholic parents.Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2012
ISBN: 978-1468176735
Page Count: 182
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Susan Count ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
A short, simple, and sweet tale about two friends and a horse.
A novel tells the story of two spirited girls who set out to save a lame foal in 1952.
Mary, age 12, lacks muscle control of her legs and must use a wheelchair. Her life is constantly interrupted by trips with her widower father to assorted doctors, all of whom have failed to help her. Mary tolerates the treatments, hoping to one day walk unassisted, but her true passion involves horses. Possessing a library filled with horse books, she loves watching and drawing the animals at a neighboring farm. She longs to own one herself. But her father, overprotective due to her disability and his own lingering grief over Mary’s dead mother, makes her keep her distance. Mary befriends Laura, the emotionally neglected daughter of the wealthy neighboring farm owners, and the two share secret buggy rides. Both girls are attracted to Illusion, a beautiful red bay filly on the farm. Mary learns that Illusion is to be put down by a veterinarian because of a lame leg. Horrified, she decides to talk to the barn manager about the horse (“Isn’t it okay for her to live even if she’s not perfect? I think she deserves a chance”). Soon, Mary and Laura attempt to raise money to save Illusion. At the same time, Mary begins to gain control of her legs thanks to water therapy and secret therapeutic riding with Laura. There is indeed a great deal of poignancy in a story of a girl with a disability fighting to defend the intrinsic value of a lame animal. But this book, the first installment of the Dream Horse Adventure Series, would be twice as touching if Mary interacted with Illusion more. In the tale’s opening, she watches the foal from afar, but she actually spends very little time with the filly she tries so hard to protect. This turns out to be a strange development given the degree to which the narrative relies on her devotion. Count (Selah’s Sweet Dream, 2015) draws Mary and Laura in broad but believable strokes, defined mainly by their unrelenting pluckiness in the face of adversity. While the work tackles disability, death, and grief, Mary’s and Laura’s environments are so idyllic and their optimism and perseverance so remarkable that the story retains an aura of uncomplicated gentleness throughout.
A short, simple, and sweet tale about two friends and a horse.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Hastings Creations Group
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Susan Count
by Katie Keridan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 2018
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.
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Keridan’s poetry testifies to the pain of love and loss—and to the possibility of healing in the aftermath.
The literary critic Geoffrey Hartman once wrote that literature—and poetry, in particular—can help us “read the wound” of trauma. That is, it can allow one to express and explain one’s deepest hurts when everyday language fails. Keridan appears to have a similar understanding of poetry. She writes in “Foreword,” the opening work of her debut collection, that “pain frequently uses words as an escape route / (oh, how I know).” Many words—and a great deal of pain—escape in this volume, but the result is healing: “the ending is happy / the beginning was horrific / so let’s start there.” The book, then, tracks the process of recovery in the wake of suffering, and often, this suffering is brought on by romantic relationships gone wrong. An early untitled poem opens, “I die a little / taking pieces of me to feed the fire / that keeps him warm / you don’t notice that it’s a slow death / when you’re disappearing little by little.” The author’s imagery here—of the self fueling the dying fire of love—is simultaneously subtle and wrenching. But the poem’s message, amplified elsewhere in the book, is clear: We go wrong if we destructively give ourselves over to others, and healing comes only when we turn our energies back to our own good. Later poems, therefore, reveal that self-definition often equals strength. The process is painful but salutary; when “you’re left unprotected / surrounded by chaos with nothing you / can depend on / except yourself / and that’s when you gather the pieces / of the life you lost / and use them to build the life you want.” The “life you want” is an elusive goal, and the author knows that the path to self-definition is fraught with peril—but her collection may give strength to those who walk it.
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72770-538-6
Page Count: 196
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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