Flash fiction at its best that’s definitely worth a look.
A small but mighty collection of textual snapshots.
Inspired by the photographic and artistic works of Tom Patton, Stephani Schaefer, and Sara Umemoto, Davidson (The Farther Shore, 2012, etc.) offers a set of short works that he divides into three sections: “Spectators,” “Signals & Marches,” and “Fog & Woodsmoke.” Often, we think of photographs as repositories of past actions, but the author uses the present tense to lend immediacy and movement to the images that he creates. From the very first text, “Clean Pilgrim,” he draws readers in and leaves them breathless. Referring to Vernal Falls in Yosemite National Park, Davidson captures the cycles of nature and history as well as the musical qualities of water, highlighting its power to nourish, cleanse, transform, and destroy: “Water is the ceaseless murmur of language, an inky stream beckoning all to begin again.” In a similar vein, he depicts geographical features of Utah’s Monument Valley as “sculpted slabs licked clean by God’s weary tongue.” “Ode to a Selfie” finds a kind of sympathetic logic behind ubiquitous smartphone self-portraits, without which no modern take on photography would be complete, showing how we all attempt to cling to memories and preserve them for the future. Thus, Davidson considers internal landscapes as well, as in “Woman with No Hands,” which bears witness to the role reversal that occurs between a mother and a daughter as part of the aging process. One standout in the second section is “Failure,” which compares humans’ precarious existence to the sport of beach volleyball: “Memory grabs at our lives, like a losing player’s fingers thrust into the sand. We throw it all to the wind, praying it won’t spit back.” Many readers will find themselves returning to these short, meditative texts as they would to cherished photographs, searching for one’s own interpretations and discovering new details, nuances, or shadings that they may have overlooked. As Davidson notes in “The Best View”: “Perhaps an artist is nothing more than a parent learning to let go, releasing images into a disorderly world.”
Flash fiction at its best that’s definitely worth a look.Pub Date: July 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-944355-31-9
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Five Oaks Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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