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Book Review :: I Want to Burn This Place Down by Maris Kreizman

I Want to Burn This Place Down by Maris Kreizman book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

In her collection of essays, I Want to Burn This Place Down, Maris Kreizman doesn’t hide her purpose, stating in the introduction that she has moved further to the political left, and each of these essays ties to that idea in some way. However, rather than writing ideological jeremiads, she uses her personal experiences and her reading of culture to show the problems with America’s move to the right and how a move to the left would be more humane and beneficial.

In “Copaganda and Me,” for example, she writes about the television shows and movies she and her brothers watched when she was younger: Miami Vice, CHiPs, and Police Academy. She excavates what that media taught them about the police and their relationship to the public, contrasting that portrayal with what her experiences in life, such as “stop-and-frisk” laws in New York and George Floyd’s murder, have shown her. Her two brothers become police officers, while she moves in the other direction, protesting police actions; she loves her brothers, but she’s unable to talk to them about politics.

Kreizman circles back to healthcare in several essays, such as the first essay “She’s Lost Control Again” and “I Found My Life Partner (and My Health Insurance) Because I Got Lucky.” In that first essay, she talks about her struggles with Type 1 Diabetes. While she spends significant time talking about trying to keep her blood glucose numbers where they should be, that leads her into an exploration of insulin costs and the ways the healthcare system fails people. In the latter essay, she focuses on healthcare more directly, arguing that nobody should have to rely on luck or marriage to have healthcare, an idea she complicates by pointing out that she’s reliant on her husband for it, taking away some of her freedom/independence.

The weaving of the personal and political works well to remind readers that those two are always cojoined, no matter what politicians argue. She shows readers again and again that policies affect people’s day-to-day real lives because they affect her real life, as they do all of ours. Such an approach is more convincing and more moving than another political screed, so one hopes readers will take note of the effects that political actions have on Kreizman and so many more.

I Want to Burn This Place Down by Maris Kreizman. Ecco, July 2025.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels.

Book Review :: Confessions by Catherine Airey

Confessions by Catherine Airey book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

Confessions, Catherine Airey’s debut novel, follows three generations of Irish women, moving from the 1970s to the 2020s, showing how each of them deal with discovering who they are, partly through love and relationships, but partly through art and culture, as well. The novel begins with Cora in New York City in 2001 as she was already struggling with stability, given the death of her mother. The death of her father begins to push her over the edge until a letter from her Aunt Róisín gives her a chance at a new life in rural Ireland.

In the 1970s, Róisín and her sister Máire watch as a group called The Screamers move into a house in their neighborhood, ultimately hiring Máire as an artist to catalog their life. Michael, the boy who lives next door, but who doesn’t fit in for his own reasons, loves Máire, but watches her ultimately move to New York to pursue her artistic desires, while Róisín stays home alone.

In 2018, Cora’s daughter Lyca lives in rural Ireland with her mother and Great Aunt Ró. Cora is one of the main activists working for legalization of abortion in Ireland, while Lyca looks through the old house as a means to understand herself and her family.

Given the title, the main irony of the novel is that the characters don’t often confess the truth to one another, as most of the revelations that come in the novel do so because a separate character finds out information about one of the others. Given the different points of view, readers often hear about one character from another, not from themselves. Thus, they all have to decide what they should reveal and what they should hide, usually out of a desire to protect.

Overall, Airey’s novel shows the struggles women have faced and continue to face — whether that’s abusive men, a culture that outlaws choice, or isolation that comes from their not following the dominant narrative —but also how they can support one another to build real community, at times.

Confessions by Catherine Airey. Mariner Books, January 2025.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. IG, Threads, and BlueSky: @kevinbrownwrites

Book Review :: Spent by Alison Bechdel

Spent by Alison Bechdel book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

Spent, Alison Bechdel’s latest work, is subtitled “A Comic Novel,” setting it apart from her first three graphic memoirs. That said, while this work is fiction, it still draws heavily on Bechdel’s life, mainly in themes more than in events, including a main character clearly modeled on Bechdel herself. In this reality, though, she’s a pygmy goat farmer in addition to being a graphic artist and writer. As in real life, she has had a work become so successful that it’s been turned into a television show, much as Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home became a Broadway show. However, the difference here is that Bechdel has lost control of that intellectual property, so it has steadily moved away from her original vision.

One of the main themes that Bechdel explores through that change is fame and all that goes with it, especially the idea of selling out. The Bechdel of this novel has achieved a level of success, but she wonders if it’s worth it, especially when her next book offer comes from Megalopub, which is not only a large corporation, but one owned by a right-wing-supporting owner, one who goes against everything Bechdel supports. Similarly, Bechdel’s partner Holly creates online content which pushes her into a higher level of notoriety. At first, that change seems positive, as she begins to receive free equipment for their farm, but she begins to obsess over statistics and views, spending more time on metrics than on enjoying their life.

There are also subplots of relationships among their friends, which should remind readers of the community in Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For, but the main focus, as the title implies, is on what and how one spends, whether that’s money or time or energy. The fictional Bechdel feels overwhelmed by the trajectory of the world, but she ends by finding a glimmer of hope in the community that might help replenish her and those around her. That’s an approach most of us could use these days.

Spent by Alison Bechdel. Mariner Books, May 2025.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. IG, Threads, and BlueSky: @kevinbrownwrites

Book Review :: Black in Blues: How Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry

Black in Blues: How Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

As the title conveys, Imani Perry’s latest book uses the color blue to explore the history of Black Americans. Many of the historical figures and events in the collection of essays are well-known, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Toni Morrison, Louis Armstrong, George Washington Carver, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and Nina Simone. However, Perry also draws from the lives and stories of lesser-known artists, musicians, and historical figures to give a fuller view of the story of African Americans.

It’s the use of the color blue, though, that helps her reshape and refashion the histories she tells, digging deeper than the traditional stories even a well-educated reader might know about the famous and less so. For example, she draws on the ninth chapter of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man to explore the history of architectural blueprints, which then leads to a meditation on improvisation for when ideas don’t go according to plan, moving to a concluding paragraph on Thelonious Monk’s “In Walked Bud,” which Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies” inspired. She ends the brief essay by writing, “[Monk] dismantled every blueprint. He showed how it felt to be rescued. The exercise is clear in retrospect: act and build with love — when faced with the prospect of death. That’s how we live.” It is this associative style of writing that gives each essay its power, as Perry ties together seemingly disparate ideas to convey undercurrents throughout Black history.

The culminating effect of the essays is not one of a linear history where one can trace a supposed progress toward more rights or freedom. Instead, Black in Blues reveals how African Americans have moved through and around the dominant white culture, creating their own stories and art and history, a culture that most white people remain ignorant of beyond the names of a select few. She celebrates the life that has thrived within that world, as she writes in the final essay: “Death comes fast, frequent, and unfair. And we’re still here. We know how to breathe underwater. Living after death. It is a universe in blue.” Perry reminds readers of ways in which that universe is simultaneously awful and beautiful.

Black in Blues: How Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry. Ecco, January 2025.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. IG, Threads, and BlueSky: @kevinbrownwrites

Book Review :: Behind You is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj

Behind You is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

Susan Muaddi Darraj’s latest work, Behind You is the Sea, is a series of interlocking stories that follow several Palestinian American families through their lives in Baltimore. While they all know each other well, their relationships both between families and within families are often strained, sometimes due to differences in class, but often because of a moral judgment one makes against another.

For example, the opening story centers on Reema Baladi, a young woman pregnant with her first child. She’s been seeing Torrey, but now that she’s pregnant, he is less interested in her. She compares herself to Amal, who is also pregnant, but who is planning to have an abortion, a decision that has made her an outcast in the community, including her family, as her parents have kicked her out of the house.

The collection ends with a story focused on Marcus Salameh, Amal’s brother. Their father has died, and Marcus has to take the body back to Palestine to bury him there. He discovers that their father had been supporting a woman named Rita, whom the Israelis had imprisoned and raped, leading to the community’s subtly ostracizing her—she’s invited to funerals, but not to weddings, for example. Marcus is confused as to how his father could reconcile supporting Rita, while banishing Amal, his own daughter.

The stories in between explore other relationships that are severed or strained, but also those that reconnect and grow. While some families break apart, other relationships develop and strengthen. There are stories that deal with domestic violence and eating disorders, but also those that reveal characters who discover the ability to love and forgive. As Marcus reflects in the final story, “The Arabs were a people that knew life could be horrifically unjust and unfair—and yet they cherished it.” Through all of their suffering, these are characters who cherish life, even when, like all of us, they do so inconsistently and imperfectly.

Behind You is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj. HarperVia, January 2025.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. IG, Threads, and BlueSky: @kevinbrownwrites

Book Review :: The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich

The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

Louise Erdrich’s novel, The Mighty Red, appears to be about a young woman, Kismet, who is in love with Hugo, but marries Gary Geist, who seems to be protected by a guardian angel (or perhaps by his privilege), while also following Kismet’s mother, Crystal, who works driving a truck hauling sugar beets to the plant. There’s also a subplot about Crystal’s husband (though they’re not really married), Martin, who made poor investments for the local Catholic church’s renovation fund, losing everything in the 2008 recession (or embezzling it).

The novel is about those people and the area in North Dakota where they live, and their stories are interesting enough on their own to keep the reader engaged, wondering why Kismet would make the decisions she makes, how Crystal will cope with Martin’s disappearance (and the FBI’s investigation into that disappearance), and what secret Gary is hiding from Kismet.

It’s what characters don’t know or willfully ignore that truly matters, though, as Erdrich shows the effects humanity has on the planet, as well as on each other. Gary’s family signed a contract to raise only genetically-modified sugar beets, ones that will withstand the weedkiller RoundUp, refusing to see the effects that deal will have on their land and themselves. Americans willfully overlook the bailout of the banks, while people lose their houses, as well as church renovation funds. The country has always overlooked the way they treated Indigenous people, taking their land as well as their lives, leaving them with little of either, well into the twenty-first century.

Erdrich uses the sugar beets—and sugar, in general—as a metaphor for what we do to the planet and to each other. What the characters believe will be sweet in the short-term has long-term consequences, while the difficult decisions are the ones that lead to meaningful relationships. And all the while, the Red River runs through their lives, unchanging, ever-flowing, always changing.

The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich. HarperCollins, October 2024.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite

Book Review :: Stealing by Margaret Verble

Stealing by Margaret Verble book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

The title of Verble’s latest novel has multiple meanings throughout the work, ranging from the stealing up on somebody when they’re unaware to the theft of land that occurred when colonizers landed on North America to the life that the main character feels has been stolen from her.

Kit, a twelve-year-old Native American girl living in the middle part of the 20th century, tells the story of her life, ranging from when she was six, when her mother died of tuberculosis, to her current situation in a boarding school. That span covers a number of ways Indigenous people have continued to suffer from the colonization of their land. Her mother’s death reveals the poor healthcare; her Uncle Joe is an alcoholic, which ultimately leads to his death; his father, even though he served honorably in World War II (several people in town refer to him as a “war hero”), finds himself in a difficult legal situation due to Kit’s relationship with a new neighbor, Bella; the court puts Kit in a boarding school rather than with her family, trusting the state over her true relations.

Readers who are aware of what Native American children suffered at those schools won’t be surprised by what happens to Kit and her peers there. What they might be surprised by, though, is Kit’s resilience. As her relatives consistently remind her, they survived the Trail of Tears, so they can survive anything. Though the dominant white society tries to steal everything Kit values, she holds her true self in her heart, where nobody and nothing is able to take it away from her.

Stealing by Margaret Verble. Mariner Books, 2023.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite

Book Review :: A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh

A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

A Sign of Her Own, Sarah Marsh’s debut novel, follows Ellen Lark, a girl who lost her hearing when she was four due to Scarlet Fever. Her mother and paternal grandmother—her father worked away from the family, then died—send her to school, then to work with Alexander Graham Bell, to learn lip-reading and Visible Speech, a phonetic means of pronunciation. Essentially, they want her to be able to pass as a person who is able to hear others.

Ellen fully embraces this approach, though there are hints of dissatisfaction early in the novel, even before she works with Bell. That unhappiness becomes fully developed when she meets Frank, as he grew up in a largely Deaf family—his mother is the exception—and community. She sees the joy of communication they have with one another, not through trying to imitate those who are able to hear, but by fully embracing their culture, especially signing.

Bell’s work on the telephone is in the background throughout the novel, especially the possibility that he stole the idea from Elisha Gray, reinforcing the overall idea of (mis)communication and (missed) connections. Ellen’s lip-reading often leads to misinterpretation, and numerous characters accidentally or willfully misunderstand each other.

Marsh clearly portrays the Deaf community’s internal conflict over signing versus lip-reading/English (heightened by external actors, such as Bell). Ellen has to learn who she is and who she wants to be, which will ultimately help her find the community she needs.

A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh. Park Row Books, February 2024.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite

Book Review :: Black AF History by Michael Harriot

Black AF History by Michael Harriot book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

Michael Harriot makes the point of Black AF History about as clear as he can in the title. The subtitle—The Un-Whitewashed Story of America—removes any remaining doubt. Some of the history will be familiar to most readers, though the angle Harriot takes won’t be. For example, when he refers to at least one elected official as a serial killer, what he means is that they were an active member in the KKK. He wants readers to see what they think they already know for the reality that it actually is: leaders in the KKK killed numerous Black people, so they’re serial killers. He also presents history that isn’t taught in any high school (or most college) classes, and he does an excellent job of focusing on Black women who aren’t named Rosa or Harriet.

Given that Harriot isn’t an historian by training, his presentation (though not his research) is far from scholarly. At times, his Uncle Rob will supposedly interrupt a chapter and provide a slightly more colorful presentation; there are footnotes that are more side-eyes than clarifications; and there are at least two interviews with Racist Baby, a character that first showed up on Reddit.

He does structure the book like a typical history textbook, though, complete with supplemental materials and end-of-chapter quizzes, though those structural devices are more of a wink-and-nudge than anything else. Overall, Harriot doesn’t want his readers just to be informed; he wants them to be angry AF.

Black AF History by Michael Harriot. Dey Street Books, September 2023.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite

Book Review :: Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli book cover image

Review by Kevin Brown

Nwabineli’s second novel, Allow Me to Introduce Myself, follows Aṅụrị Chinasa, a twenty-five year-old woman born in Nigeria and raised in England. Her mother died in childbirth, so her stepmother, Ophelia, became the primary caregiver, as her father struggled with grief. Aṅụrị spends much of the novel involved in a lawsuit with Ophelia, as Ophelia was one of the earliest momfluencers, making millions through advertising and sponsorship, with all of the content focused on Aṅụrị. The effects of that childhood have prevented Aṅụrị from moving on, as she turned to alcohol as one of her main means of rebellion against Ophelia and her expectations.

Further complicating the situation is that Ophelia is now carrying out the same parenting approach with Noelle, Aṅụrị’s half-sister, with similar effects. Aṅụrị not only wants Ophelia to remove all of the content concerning her childhood; she wants Ophelia to stop posting about Noelle. In fact, Aṅụrị wants to take Noelle out of the house and raise her on her own.

Aṅụrị has several people helping her work to move past the scars of her childhood: her two best friends—Simi and Loki—her therapist Ammah, her lawyer Gloria, and a possible boyfriend, Christian. However, the years of damage make it difficult for Aṅụrị to trust anybody.

Nwabineli’s novel is an excellent exploration of the effects of the internet’s lack of privacy on children, calling into question parents (and children) who willingly give up their lives to total strangers for financial gain. This timely exploration should have every reader asking whether what they view online has effects they might not have considered.

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli. Graydon House, May 2024.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite

Book Review :: Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi

Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi book cover image

Guest Post by Kevin Brown

In Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi’s Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions, interlocking stories form a novel that follows four Nigerian girls as they become women trying to determine who they should be and what role their lives should play in the history of their country. In fact, the first story begins in 1897, well before any of the girls are born, and ends with a story set in 2050 with the remaining women meeting to help one of them solve a significant problem. On the one hand, this collection examines the positives and negatives of Nigeria’s history and culture, as it shows the effects of the Biafran war, the rise of Evangelical churches and anti-LGBTQ laws, the rich culinary connections, and the deep family relationships. In the final story, Ogunyemi even uses her background in medicine to critique the American healthcare system, especially around medical debt. More than anything, though, Ogunyemi’s work reveals richly developed characters who try to negotiate what it means to be a Nigerian woman, always relying on their friends to help them through triumph and tragedy. These characters care deeply for one another and, mostly, for their families, so they are willing to make whatever sacrifices are necessary so that the others’ lives can be better, no matter what political and cultural shifts occur.

Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi. Amistad, September 2022.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite or kevinbrownwrites.weebly.com/.

Book Review :: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver book cover image

Guest Post by Kevin Brown

In her latest novel, Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver updates Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield (thus the name of the titular character), moving the story to turn-of-the-millenium Appalachia. This approach tempts those readers who are familiar with Dickens’s novel to play a matching game with characters and events, but Kingsolver’s novel goes much further than a literary exercise that tests readers’ nineteenth-century novel knowledge. Her interest in updating Dickens’ novel is to explore the poverty rampant in Appalachia (as it was in Dickens’s London), a problem made significantly worse because of the opiod crisis. While Dickens’s David struggles through his own forms of exploitation, Kingsolver’s Demon, his friends, and his family are all victims in various ways to the addiction that pharmaceutical companies created in places and people who lacked the means to fight back. As with cases from real life, Demon comes by his addictions innocently, but then struggles with them for hundreds of pages, despite those around him who are trying to help. While Kingsolver shows a community decimated by drugs, she creates characters—as does Dickens—the reader cares about. She puts a face to the headlines many of us have the luxury of skimming over and reminds readers there are too many people whose lives seem destined for destruction, through no fault of their own.

Demon Copperhead by Barabara Kingsolver. Harper Collins Publishers, October 2022.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite or kevinbrownwrites.weebly.com/.

Book Review :: Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates

Blonde a novel by Joyce Carol Oates published by Harper Collins book cover image

Guest Post by MG Noles

Editor’s Note: While we generally prefer new releases, we love to see contemporary takes on older titles and how readers relate to literature over time. Blonde was originally published in 2000, re-released in 2020, and will appear as a Netflix original film in fall 2022.

Marilyn Monroe’s life story is one that most film lovers assume they know well. However, in Blonde (2000), a fictional account of the legendary actress’s life, Joyce Carol Oates takes readers deep beneath the surface of Marilyn into the hidden crevices of her life and her mind. Oates’ words at times ring out like hammer blows. She writes, “Her problem wasn’t she was a dumb blonde, it was she wasn’t a blonde and she wasn’t dumb.”

Blonde leveled me. After reading it, I found myself dizzy with thoughts of the actress – her struggles, her loneliness, her tragic demise. Oates shows that those who encountered Marilyn saw her sadness firsthand and were touched by her. As described by a pharmacy clerk who waited on Ms. Monroe at Schwab’s Drugstore in Hollywood, “She seemed like the most alone person in the world.”

This book shows a hint of the infinite sadness that lies at the center of Ms. Monroe’s eyes. In films, viewers can see the wells of loneliness behind the technicolor. Reading it now in the #MeToo era makes us see the casting couch and all its cruelty for what it is: a maker of stars and a destroyer of lives.

Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates. Harper Collins, 2000/2020.

Reviewer Bio: MG Noles is a hermit, reviewer, history buff, and nature lover.

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Book Review :: How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu book cover image

Guest Post by Kevin Brown

Sequoia Nagamatsu’s novel, How High We Go in the Dark, doesn’t have a plot per se, as it reads more like an interconnected collection of short stories than it does a novel. A character’s wife from one chapter will show up in a later chapter as a friend to the girlfriend of another character, a minor characters in one chapter becomes the focus of a later chapter or vice versa. What the characters do have in common is a tenuous existence, as Earth has become less and less habitable. Throughout much of the book, a pandemic is ravaging the world, killing people by mutating their organ cells, causing hearts to behave like livers or brains to change into lungs. Even after that tragedy becomes more controllable, there is still environmental disaster, as wildfires rage constantly, the Arctic is quickly melting, and sea levels rise by feet, not by inches. What Nagamatsu is most interested in exploring, however, is how people avoid one another, even in the midst of suffering, and how they might still be able to connect to one another. Though technology — perhaps even space travel — could save people’s lives, only true connection has a chance of healing their souls.

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu. William Morrow, 2022,

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press).  He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. You can find out more about him and his work on Twitter at @kevinbrownwrite or http://kevinbrownwrites.weebly.com/.

Book Review :: Resurrecting a Genre by O’Neill and Meyer

The Way Forward by Robert O'Neill and Dakota Meyer book cover image

Guest Post by Shelby Kearns

The candor and vulnerability in The Way Forward: Master Life’s Toughest Battles and Create Your Lasting Legacy by Robert O’Neill and Dakota Meyer just might resurrect the military memoir/self-help genre.

This new book by O’Neill and Meyer certainly has its predictable moments, emulating American Sniper and other made-for-Hollywood books. Part one has life lessons from O’Neill’s upbringing in Butte, Montana, and Meyer’s in Columbia, Kentucky. Part two is stories of boot camp, combat, and their post-military careers. Their Hollywood-worthy stories include O’Neill firing the shot that killed Osama bin Laden and Meyer receiving the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Battle of Ganjgal in 2009.

Continue reading “Book Review :: Resurrecting a Genre by O’Neill and Meyer”