A sprawling novel that, despite its huge cast, may charm fans of contemporary romance.
A debut novel that follows the ups and downs of a British rock band, on the charts and in their lives.
Astrid, just a teenager, has already done enough jet setting. Raised in Canada and whisked to Australia, she’s later dragged back home by her overbearing father after her mother dies. She makes a host of friends, and the center of this new family is Dandy, a beautiful free spirit who meets a group of young musicians in London. Dandy falls in love with guitarist Mac, while Astrid falls for Kenny, a soulful singer who’s also wild about her. Mac’s already a successful solo musician when he decides to form a new band, The Midnight All Stars, with Kenny and several others. Dandy and Mac marry and struggle to start a family despite Mac’s hectic tour schedule. Astrid and Kenny also have a child but eschew marriage. The band’s popularity soars, and a tour stop in Germany turns into a dangerous mob scene. As the drama of the band continues—a drummer in rehab, a useless tour manager—their dramatic personal lives keep pace. Astrid pursues filmmaking and is seduced by movie mogul Alister, whom she marries in what her loved ones fear is a fit of insanity. Dandy, meanwhile, is torn among her blossoming career as a novelist, the demands of her children and the constant loneliness of having a husband on the road. The novel’s greatest distraction is its sheer population, as readers meet 23 characters in the first 50 pages, with dozens more to follow. Readers may find themselves constantly flipping back to remember, for example, who Julia’s husband is or how many sisters Dandy has. The plot’s many twists, including the introduction of a long-lost nephew, only adds to the confusion. The strongest relationship in the book is Dandy and Mac’s, whose deep love and affection comes through clearly on every page; it would be satisfying to follow their marriage alone, but the chapters switch between Dandy’s and Kenny’s points of view, making for an overwhelming tale. Determined readers, however, will be rewarded with warm portraits of love—between friends, lovers, partners, parents, children and band mates.
A sprawling novel that, despite its huge cast, may charm fans of contemporary romance.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-1466397927
Page Count: 652
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A fine anthology of some of the best contemporary poetry around.
Fresh new writers rub elbows with past masters in this scintillating collection of verse.
Under the label “New Neo-Realist,” Lark, editor of the Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities, assembles a collection of narrative poems that usually feature frank engagement with ordinary life; a modern, colloquial idiom; and emotion leavened by irony, astringency, and flashes of humor. That leaves room for a huge range of subjects, styles, and moods. Erika Meitner’s “Wal-Mart Supercenter” contrasts the stores’ sublime friendliness with the police-blotter hell surrounding them (“A couple tried to sell their six-month-old for twenty-five bucks / to buy meth in the Salinas Walmart parking lot”), and L.W. Milam’s surreal “Tootie Fruit ME and Ass-Grasp LA” invokes “crowds of crying turtles, & / Peasant armies of hymn-singing, drug-ridden geckos.” Christopher Kennedy’s mordantly funny “Riddle of Self-Worth” laments that “My pet vulture has the disconcerting habit of staring / at the clock and then at me”; Howard Nemerov’s lyrical “Goldfish” spotlights the creatures’ “Waving disheveled rags of elegant fin / Languidly in the light”; and Tom Crawford’s “Companion to a Loon” levels a matter-of-fact elegy: “Listen bird, I’m past making death sad. / The tide has no time for wakes / or tragedies. We’re either coming in / or going out.” The volume contains an especially strong set of poems by women, including Kate Gale’s agonized “What I Did Not Tell Anyone,” in which a new mother confides “That I felt my whole family / greedily feeding off me. / That my body felt stolen. / That I felt like Russia during all the wars / troops tramping over me on their way to Moscow,” and Christine Hamm’s bitterly whimsical “Signs You Are Ovulating”: “As you apply mascara / in the bathroom, your eyes slit, / a crow hops onto your shoulder, / and whispers, right here, now.” Lark juxtaposes works by well-known legends, such as Allen Ginsberg, Philip Larkin, e.e. Cummings, and Langston Hughes, as revealing counterpoints to the newer poems. Unlike the strings of cryptic non sequiturs in much Master of Fine Arts—bred poetry, these poems are decidedly reader-friendly without compromising their literary artistry. Along with their inventive language and dazzling metaphor, their accessibility and immediacy pack a wallop.
A fine anthology of some of the best contemporary poetry around.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-917320-58-3
Page Count: 202
Publisher: MHO & MHO Works
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A sexy, bittersweet reverie of love relayed in brief, powerful bursts of poetry.
A breathtaking collection of tender poems about love and loss.
Darlington (China Bus, 2017, etc.) is a man of few words, but in this slim book of untitled verse, he proves that those few words are enough. He depicts love as “a feast of goosebumps / laid out for curious taste buds” and “a party / posted signs: / NO RE-ENTRY.” He woos readers with a speaker’s recollections of staying up all night reading The Love Poems of Lord Byron with a beloved and later finding torn-out pages from that volume hidden in other books. Another speaker reminisces about a girl who likes “small tomatoes / as they pop in her mouth / simple cotton undies / and a good pizza crust.” Yet another poem tells of a weekend camping trip, complete with mushroom foraging and a visit from a bear at breakfast. Even when a speaker is in a relationship, he senses its inevitable end; one poem discusses keeping written tabs of a love’s delicious details: “now my house is / full of such notes / so many that in a / strong breeze / they’re like butterflies / releasing from a / garden / each one / some part of you.” When a relationship ends, a sorrowful speaker seeks the advice of the sun, the moon, and the sea in a poem that offers solace but no answers. Darlington is a master of brevity, and each poem in this collection is like a time capsule, packed with nostalgia and sensual description. Of a secretly kept photograph, he writes, “You are flushed from sex and / the afternoon sun runs like butter / down your spine.” Even the sparsest poems are explosively potent, such as: “stay / like this / a moment / our costumes fallen to the floor.” Darlington takes full advantage of white space on the page, effectively playing with line breaks and indents to create a game of hopscotch for the eyes while simultaneously filling the soul.
A sexy, bittersweet reverie of love relayed in brief, powerful bursts of poetry.Pub Date: May 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-71905-049-4
Page Count: 70
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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