A thoughtful, if unevenly executed, set of tales about the world of nursing.
A short story collection by a retired nurse that depicts moments of trauma and triumph.
Debut author Taylor enjoyed a long and diverse career in nursing; over the course of 40 years, she served in hospice and psychiatric units, treated AIDS and cancer patients, and taught psychiatry to students in a nursing program. All of these roles and more are featured in this assemblage of more than a dozen tales that are either inspired by events in her own life or directly based upon them; the author refers to the stories as being “mostly fictional.” Each one of them provides an impressive look into the challenging world of nursing. In the first work, “Something New,” the protagonist, Patti, who’s a fledgling student nurse, witnesses a birth for the very first time and is astonished by the complexity and struggle of it all. She’s daunted by the experience, but she’s also fascinated: “A few minutes ago I would have said that this was definitely not for me; it was all too much. Now I wonder. Maybe, just maybe, this is something I could get used to.” The author also dramatizes achingly personal moments; in “I’ll Fly Away,” for example, she recounts her real-life experience of her own mother dying of cancer, in which she was left to await the inevitable. All of these pieces are written in a plain, straightforward prose style and have the feel of casual anecdotes, free of poetical embellishment. This lends the stories a low-key power and places the emphasis less on linguistic invention than on plot and protagonists’ insights.
However, this stylistic approach may eventually exhaust the reader precisely because the language casts no compelling spell of its own. Furthermore, the works can be excessively sentimental at times and even a touch cloying. Consider one of the concluding passages of “I’ll Fly Away”: “I wear hot pink to her funeral. We follow the program that she designed with her minister before her death, and sing all the old spirituals, including I’ll Fly Away. I’m high on the idea of her being in heaven with her mother. I know someday I’ll join them there. Hallelujah,I’ll Fly Away too.” There’s a neatness to the way Taylor uses the spiritual to tether the paragraph together, but this narrative symmetry comes across as contrivance. The primary allure of the author’s stories over the course of this collection is their realistic depiction of a complex professional world that very few people get to tour; if they do, it’s only from the perspective of a patient, which isn’t the clearest lens from which to view it. In this compilation, one receives the sharply focused testimony of the other side—an account that shows the deep humanity of a profession that’s devoted to saving other human beings’ lives. Taylor’s collection is impressively honest in this regard, as the reader gets to see the genuine heroism of nurses without any feeling of romanticization.
A thoughtful, if unevenly executed, set of tales about the world of nursing.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-60489-310-6
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Livingston Press
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A page-turning, informative read with a tender shoutout to service dogs.
Hinske’s emotionally charged novel toggles between the storylines of a successful programmer who has gone blind and an earnest pup determined to ace his training as a guide dog.
The tale begins with first-person narration by Garth, a guide dog who is excited about being introduced to “Emily. The woman who would become everything to me.” On his way to meet her, something on the carpet distracts him. “Is that a Cheeto? A Crunchy Cheeto?” he thinks. “I love Crunchy Cheetos.” Flashback to Emily Main, who is in Fiji with her fiance, Connor Harrington III, for their destination wedding. They are a power couple—he’s a top salesman for a large corporation; she’s a lead programmer. Emily suffers from myopic degeneration, which could result in detached retinas, and a fall from horseback causes her to lose her eyesight. Emily, a fiercely independent woman, plummets into a deep depression from which she would not have recovered had it not been for Dhruv, a programmer on her team at work. Dhruv convinces her to attend classes at the Foundation for the Blind, where she confronts her fears, learning skills for living independently. Meanwhile, and separately, Garth undergoes his own rigorous instruction and struggles, including a traumatizing incident in a restaurant where he is attacked by another dog. The two narratives do not converge until the concluding chapters of the novel. Hinske rotates third-person narration of Emily’s story with delightful chapters written in Garth’s voice. Despite the dog’s own anxieties, he provides the novel with comic relief. During a training session on navigating stairs, Garth observes a “two-legged mother” with “a mass of gray curls on top of her head” approaching, and he notes, “I’ve seen four-legged mothers with that hairstyle—they’re called poodles.” While Emily grows into a fully developed character as the story progresses, Connor remains a superficial player. But it is the persistent kindness of secondary character Dhruv that will capture readers’ hearts.
A page-turning, informative read with a tender shoutout to service dogs.Pub Date: June 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73492-490-9
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Casa del Northern Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An often poignant, if somewhat overlong, exploration of authenticity and creative expression.
A collection of short stories, reflective thoughts, and poems examining what it means to live fully and consciously.
The writings in each of the 22 sections in Resor’s debut book correspond to a letter or several—A through Z—with its title and/or theme. For example, the chapter on the letter C contains “Cages To Recognize and Unlock,” which discusses how one constricts one’s feelings, needs, and desires; “Calisthenics for the Contents of our Craniums,” which spotlights ego and empathy; and “Callings From the Deep,” which focuses on knowing oneself well enough to identify and follow one’s purpose. Each essay plays with motifs of inner peace, contentment, originality, imagination, and healing. The mixture of Resor’s own intimate experiences with her poetry and individualized answers to profound questions makes for an engaging read. While the whole work is close to 300 pages, each chapter can be read as a short, stand-alone encounter with Resor’s warm storytelling. Her writing style is playful, provocative, and personable, by turns, and the anecdotes here signal the author’s clear zest for life. It creates a sense of fluidity that’s not often present in self-help works; the overall tone is reminiscent of a casual conversation with a trusted friend. That said, later chapters start to blur together a bit, as the theme doesn’t ever evolve very much past a basic, feel-good message. Resor’s words and ideas are valid and thoughtful, but that isn’t enough to sustain 22 separate installments that all reiterate the same fundamental concepts.
An often poignant, if somewhat overlong, exploration of authenticity and creative expression.Pub Date: May 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9840353-7-3
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Joy on Your Shoulders
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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