An amusing story stretched too thin.
A microbiological adventure centered on a little boy bacterium and a girl virus living in a young human boy’s fluffy, four-legged best friend.
With his first book for children, Lyen (Alma’s Journey, 2012) takes young readers inside the digestive system of a dog named Pembroke, where the microbes lead very humanlike lives. Arthur Bacterium meets Patty Virus when she walks into his class at school. Despite her being different from Arthur’s bacteria classmates, Arthur is kind and welcoming, and the two become fast friends. In Pembroke’s colon, where Arthur and his parents live, most of the microbes are “good bacteria” living in symbiosis with the canine. The bacteria fear viruses since they can make Pembroke sick by infecting and destroying other cells (like them), but Patty is a Nelson virus, a good strain that Arthur’s father Louie, a professor of virology, says descends from the viruses that lived in Lord Admiral Nelson, who died during the Battle of Trafalgar. Excessive or bizarre factual additions like this frequently reveal the overly elaborate nature of the authorial conceit and can occasionally be a source of conflict or error in the novel. The professor suggests that Patty and Arthur leave the colon and cautiously investigate different areas of Pembroke’s anatomy, so the pair set out in a kayak filled with supplies along the “Great Brown River.” After a thorough tour of the intestine, they muster the courage to visit, through various veins, arteries and channels, the stomach, the liver—or “Hepatic Mountain,” which is particularly well-described—the pancreas, circulatory and cardiovascular systems, the brain and even “The Great Expanse” outside the pup. Although exhilarating, the idea of Patty knowing how to return the two microscopic organisms back to Pembroke’s digestive track is a bit too implausible, as is her knowledge of human affairs and the generally convoluted depiction of the relationships among bacteria, viruses and organ systems. The book is most illuminating and charming when it stays within the metaphor, describing the personal roles and experiences of Arthur, his friends and family. The glossary helps with understanding the microbiology terms, but the story is unnecessarily complicated and long, and there are frequent unsavory descriptions of fecal gases, smells and fluids.
An amusing story stretched too thin.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475958553
Page Count: 180
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.
A slim volume of largely gay-themed writings with pessimistic overtones.
Poe (Simple Simon, 2013, etc.) divides this collection of six short stories and 34 poems into five sections: “Art,” “Death,” “Relationship,” “Being,” and “Reflection.” Significantly, a figurative death at the age of 7 appears in two different poems, in which the author uses the phrase “a pretended life” to refer to the idea of hiding one’s true nature and performing socially enforced gender roles. This is a well-worn trope, but it will be powerful and resonant for many who have struggled with a stigmatized identity. In a similar vein, “Imaginary Tom” presents the remnants of a faded relationship: “Now we are imaginary friends, different in each other’s thoughts, / I the burden you seek to discard, / you the lover I created from the mist of longing.” Once in a while, short story passages practically leap off of the page, such as this evocative description of a seedy establishment in Lincoln, Nebraska: “It was a dimly lit bar that smelled of rodent piss, with barstools that danced on uneven legs and made the patrons wonder if they were drunker than they thought.” In “Valéry’s Ride,” Poe examines the familial duties that often fall to unmarried and childless people, keeping them from forming meaningful bonds with others. In this story, after the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hits Louisiana, Valéry’s extended family needs him more than ever; readers will likely root for the gay protagonist as he makes the difficult decision to strike out on his own. Not all of Poe’s main characters are gay; the heterosexual title character in “Mrs. Calumet’s Workspace,” for instance, pursues employment in order to escape the confines of her home and a passionless marriage. Working as a bookkeeper, she attempts to carve out a space for herself, symbolized by changes in her work area. Still, this story echoes the recurring theme of lives unlived due to forces often beyond one’s control.
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5168-3693-2
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.
A collection speaks in part to the poet’s Mexican-American heritage.
In these multifaceted poems, Mexico-born, Houston-raised Salazar (Of Dreams and Thorns, 2017) explores general human themes like love and war in addition to specific experiences as a person of color. The book begins with a sensual meditation on desire, featuring luscious descriptions of a lover, from lips “moist like youth” to the body’s “softest velvet” slopes. The poems shift to odes to cultural icons like the Tejano star Selena and Mexican-German painter Frida Kahlo as well as occasion pieces honoring his brother’s 40th birthday and a friend’s mother’s memorial service. The author hits his stride when he delves into identity. In “I Am Not Brown,” he contemplates the societal implications of skin tone and his inability to fit into the rigid category of Caucasian or Latino. “For white and black and brown alike / Are slaves to history’s brush strokes,” he writes. “Grateful for the Work,” perhaps Salazar’s loveliest poem, catalogs the day of a laborer, starting with an early morning awakening and following him as he toils in 100-degree heat, enjoys tacos from his lunch pail, buys beverages from a child’s lemonade stand, and returns home to an equally hard-working wife. The author then makes an abrupt turn toward Syria in a series of poems that condemn that country’s president, Bashar Hafez al-Assad. They serve as a rallying cry for Syrians and grieve for the murdered masses. Salazar’s closing poem, “Sons of Bitches,” is a clunky rant about a 20-year-old immigrant shot in the head by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent. The gratuitous violence and political theologizing are ill at ease with the intimate, personal experiences that preceded them, such as the fablelike “A Mexican is Made of This,” in which Salazar beautifully describes the “rainbows, bronze, backbone, butterflies” that his people embody.
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9991496-3-8
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Bronze Diamond Productions
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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