I've already had the
pleasure of writing about the Virgil Hutton Haiku Memorial Award
Chapbook series. (See review below.). This prestigious biennial award is
for the four best collections of traditional haiku, as defined by the
Haiku Society of America. The Award is graciously managed by Lenore
Hutton (of the Hutton family) and Saki Press. Jim Kacian's In Concert
($4.50) was one of the 1999-2000 winners. Kacian, who lives in Virginia
and is the editor of the sterling Frogpond magazine, is an superb poet.
The works here have a musical/concert theme, and most of them are
absolutely first-rate. The haiku range from the quiet ("in concert/the
solo violinist/and his shadow") to the humorous ("for her solo/the
flautist's nipples/ stand up"). First-rate, too, are the poems in Randy
Brook's The Homstead Cedars ($4.50), which was a winner in the
1998-1999 Chapbook series. Here, Brooks focuses on his ancestral
homestead in western Kansas. While a some of the haiku are a bit too
descriptive ("scraggly old pine/leans over the well house--/the only one
left"), most are evocative and give pause, e.g., "grandma's
quilt.../brothers of the round table/snoring underneath." To order this
books and other titles from the Virgil Hutton Haiku Memorial Chapbook
series, just go to: www.geocities.com/sakipress/
The Virgil Hutton
Haiku Memorial Award Chapbook Contest is a prestigious contest for the
four best collections of traditional haiku (an unryhmed Japanese verse
form typically consisting of three lines of 5-7-5 syllables each). This
biennial program is ably managed by Lenore Hutton. Saki Press is also a
vital partner for this award. One of the 1999-2000 winners was Peggy
Willis Lyles, who was born in Summerville, South Carolina. Her
Thirty-Six Tones ($4.50 paper) is a praiseworthy selection of some
of her favorite haiku. She moves from the descriptive ("black-water
pond/reflections lapping/cypress knees") to the humorous ("New Year's
Eve/old couple hugging/the fire") with consummate ease. You'll also find
a such classics as: "winter beach/an empty shell/holds the sound". To
read more about Saki Press or The Virgil Hutton Haiku Memorial Award
Chapbook Contest, go to: www.geocities.com/sakipress
A 1990 paperback, Missing Measures: Modern Poetry and the Revolt
Against Meter (The University of Arkansas Press/$22.50) is an
engrossing and thoroughly accessible examination of "why modern poets, a
great many of them at least, abandoned metre officiel in favor of
free verse." Timothy Steele--a professor of English at California State
University in Los Angeles and a refreshing New Formalist
himself--discusses the works and thoughts of such free verse advocates
as T.S. Eliot, Walt Whitman, Paul Verlaine, Ford Madox Ford, and Ezra
Pound. Alas, Steele devotes just one page to the haiku. But his thoughts
on this Japanese verse form are very insightful. Perhaps he will devote
more space to it and other contemporary formalists (e.g., Derek Walcott)
in the second edition of this fine book.
Derek Walcott: A Caribbean Life (Oxford University Press, $35) is
a sweeping and thorougly-accomplished literary biography of one of the
greatest poets of our time. Bruce King--who has held professorships in
Europe, Canada, and the U.S.--had tremendous access to letters, diaries,
and uncollected writings. Also, King conducted a slew of interviews in
the Caribbean, Europe, and North America. The author takes us from
Walcott's birth (1930) into a St. Lucia English-speaking mulatto family
and his enrollment in the University College of the West Indies to his
winning the Nobel Prize (1991) and publication of his latest book of
poems ("Tiepolo's Hound," 2000). But King doesn't just
astutely examine Walcott's work. Personal matters are respectfully
discussed also. For instance, the author details Walcott's troubled
marriages, his loner ("even secretive") personality, his
rivalry with V.S. Naipaul, his deep friendships with Robert Lowell and
Joseph Brodsky, and--despite a series of complications, including
the "death of many friends of his youth"--the completion of
the extraordinary epic "Omeros." There are over a dozen crisp
black & white illustrations in the mid-section of the book.
Part medical thriller and part love story, Janna McMahan's Undertow (BookSurge,
$15 trade paper) is a vivid and engrossing work. It's set in present-day
Columbia, South Carolina. Architect Michael McKeever, who's been jailed
for five years on DUI charge involving an accident, is finally a free
man. But he soon finds himself in yet another strange situation: A body
is pulled from the canal in front of the Central Correctional Institute,
where Michael was incarcerated. His insistent questions only results in
his being falsely accused of parole violations. He has to prove John
Doe's identity in order to remain free. And the only person who can
truly help him is his estranged ex-wife, Amanda. McMahan takes us from
the posh office of a university president and the labs of a noted
medical school to the streets of downtown Columbia and the frightning
granite dungeon of CCI. While the dialogue isn't always as sharp as it
could be (especially in the early chapters, when some of the characters'
exchanges are too clearly used for exposition), this first-novel
succeeds on many levels. The author is ingenious at bringing in details
that help round out a character. For instance, McMahan not only tells us
that University of South Carolina president, Warner Dupree, seemed
"brash to the old money crowd" and is "famous for his
18-hour days," but that "Fifty-eight photographs hung above
the curved staircase leadding to the president's office. These candid
portraits showe Dupree's entourage of connections who visited the
university--William F. Buckley, Walter Cronkite...George Bush and
senators and congressmen galore."
Michael too is well-fleshed. He is, by turns, talented, flawed,
street-smart, and vulnerable. And the author gets all of the Capital
City's details down in an accurate and entertaining manner, whether
she's speaking about the delicious food at the Blue Cactus Restaurant or
the forboding interiors of CCI. Undertow is available in trade paperback
and as an electronic download through BookSurge.com. The author
lives in Columbia, SC, with her husband and her lovely daughter,
Madison.
Laura Van Wormer has penned
another sexy, skillfully-crafted suspense novel. Featuring Sally
Harrington--the smart, attractive television reporter and amateur sleuth
who engaged readers in "The Last Lover" and
"Expose"--Trouble Becomes Her (Mira, $22.95) has Sally
producing a special for DBS News on the infamous Presario cime family.
It isn't long before Sally finds a body in her car trunk and the target
of an assassination attempt. Can she complete her true-crime project,
find who is out to get her, and hold on to the new love interest
(interests?) in her life? The story moves quickly and the plot is
replete with surprising but credible turns. And Van Wormer's details
(whether about life in Manhattan or the rigors of TV journalism)
enhances the narrative without ever slowing down the story. Some of the
dialogue lacks the precision and the drama of her plot twists. But this
is a minor matter. Van Wormer, a former editor at Doubleday, divides her
time between Manhattan and Connecticut.
Crossing Over (Jodere, $23.95) is a riveting book. John Edward
shares the joys, pains, heartaches, and surprises of being a psychic
medium with his own popular TV show. The book primarily covers two
areas: The moving stories of the people Edward has encountered (as well
as the passed-on friends and relatives that often accompanied those
people) and how he made his own "crossing over" to an
internationally known psychic. Edward is as authentic as he is
down-to-earth and funny. For instance, after getting his TV show (for
years, he gave readings and talks in "Holiday Inns in states I
can't even locate on a map"), Edward notes--while waiting for his
cue to go on stage--that the "studio was the original home of Big
Bird, Bert, Ernie, and Oscar the Grouch. They shot 'Sesame Street' right
where I'm standing...So I guess I fit right in"). And there was the
time that his guides, whom he fondly calls "The Boys,"
instructed him not to let the hugely-popular Entertainment Tonight film
his book signing at a Barnes & Noble. Even Edward half-questions his
sanity when he calls his poor publicist and tells her that, yes, despite
the enormous publicity ET will bring, she must not let them cover the
event. His publicist doesn't question his sanity at all. She thinks he's
nuts! (Sorry, you'll have to read the rest of the dramatic story
yourself.) Throughout the book, Edward is very careful to detail the
ways in which specific people helped him with his success. They range
from Larry King and Debbie Luican (president of Jodere Group publishing)
to the immensely-talented Rick Firstman (Edward's collaborator) and
Edward's astute wife, Sandra. Also, he rightly sings the praises of talk
show host and South Carolina native, Leeza Gibbons. Edward writes that
the skilled and lovely Gibbons handled his work "with respect"
and has always shown tremendous "compassion and
understanding," Crossing Over is already in its second printing,
and one doesn't have to possess Edward's skills to know that the book is
destined for many more editions. The publisher's Web address is:
www.jodere.com. And Edward's website can be found at: www.johnedward.net.
A History of Navigation
on Cypress Bayou and the Lakes (University of North Texas Press,
$67.95) is an in-depth and well-written examination of how water
transportation affected the natural and socioeconomic aspects of
Northeast Louisiana, East Texas, and the Red River from 1800 to the
present. Jacques D. Bagur--a professional researcher living in Baton
Rouge--details how the natural logjam called The Great Raft (a unique
phenomenon on the Red River) formed a continuous water body west of
Shreveport. In the 1800s, savvy steamboat captains traveled east on the
river (a region known as Cypress Bayou and the Lakes) and developed a
system of ports. Jefferson became the most important of these. The
author's research confirms that these landings fell victim to the same
source that extinguished many early settlements: The railroads. Bagur
notes that a dam prevents boats from traveling between Shreveport and
Jefferson today. Yet, this robust water body still offers much to nature
lovers and contemporary watercraft.
John Updike's Americana (Knopf,
$23.95) is a witty, reflective, and observant collection of sixty-two
poems. The book is divided into four sections: America (cities and
airplanes); the poet's life, birthdays, and ailments; foreign travel;
and, beginning with the marvelous "Song of Myself," daily
life. The endings of some of these works is uncommonly commonplace. In
"Phoenix," for example, we read how this "made
mirage" (how stunningly right that description!) with its maze of
jogging paths "entraps a swarm/ of retirees all struggling not to
die." But most poems are vivid from start to finish. In "61
and Some," Updike ends his perfect little 9-line hymn to aging with
a "globular cloud of green cumulus/holds now an arc, a bulge of
rouge,/held up to the bored blue sky like a cheek to kiss." Other
especially fine works include "A Brazilian Valentine,"
"The Sound Heard Early In the Morning of Christ's Nativity,"
and "Flight to Limbo" ("The girls in the tax-free shops
stood frozen/amid promises of a beautiful life abroad./Louis Armstrong
sang in some upper corner,/a trickle of ignored joy").
The Creative Writer's Companion (St. Martin's, $14.95) is a
resourceful guide to selling your ideas for movies, books, electronic
media, and more. Stan Corwin--a former publisher and now the president
of Stan Corwin Productions, a bicoastal film and media
company--discusses how magazines, web sites, games, television, CD-ROM
publishers, and film companies are hungry (indeed, ravenous) for
captivating content. The author details how you can take a single idea
and--by giving it the proper slant and appearance--turn it into a
multimedia extravaganza. Corwin's prose is concise, ively, and
instructive.
Revenge of the Pequots (Simon
& Schuster, $25) is a fascinating story about a near-extinct tribe
in Connecticut that turned itself into the wealthiest and most
influential group of Native Americans in history. Kim Isaac Eisler tells
how Richard "Skip" Hayward, then an unemployed ship-worker,
honored his grandmother's dying wish to make a success of his tiny
Native clan. Forming alliances with controversial moneymen and utilizing
his incredible business acumen, Hayward established the Foxwoods Resort
and Casino in 1992. It wasn't long before it was grossing over $1
billion a year at its massive complex in the backwoods of Ledyard,
Connecticut. Eisler's writing is filled with intriguing details, as well
as personal and political drama. We learn about everything from
Hayward's going up against such casino moguls as Steve Wynn and Donald
Trump to his giving away millions of dollars to various educational and
cultural organizations, including the Smithsonian Institution's new
American Indian Museum. The author also does a marvelous job of writing
about the modest setbacks that Foxwood have suffered in recent years.
(They lost a court battle to a neighboring tribe--the Mohegans-- who
were granted the right to operate a casino just a few miles from
Foxwoods. Consequently, the Pequots' profits have been reduced by over
twenty percent.) Eisler is the national editor of Washingtonian Magazine
and author of the widely-praised "A Justice For All."
Beautifully-packaged, Syd Field's Screenwriting Workshop (Final
Draft/VHS/$59.00) is a first-rate screenwriting course. Based on Field's
best-selling classic "Screenplay: The Foundations of
Screenwriting," this two-video set will greatly help you to convert
your idea into a properly-structured screenplay. No, Field isn't as
animated as some screenwriting gurus, but his words are invaluable. The
tapes are divided into four parts. Part One (Getting Started) covers
isolating ideas, creating subjects, and writing a four-page treatment;
Part Two (Creating Character) discusses what makes a good character, the
essence of dramatic need, and putting together a character biography;
Part Three (Writing the Screenplay) speaks about setting up the story,
putting the screenplay into three acts, and determining the plot points,
i.e., incidents that drive the story forward or turn the story into a
completely different directions; and Part Four (Rewriting the
Screenplay) goes over approaching the rewrite, rethinking what you've
written, tools of rewriting, and sharpening characters). The author also
masterfully analyzes such films as Titantic, The Shawshank Redemption,
and Thelma and Louise. Syd Field's Screenwriting Workshop can be ordered
at the company's Website: www.finaldraft.com.
Fast, funny, and sober, Absolute
Responsibility, Strict Accountability" (1stBooks Library/$4.95
ebook; $11.95 paper; $16.95 hardback) is a political thriller by
first-time novelist and North Carolinian Thomas C. Fairley. The story
centers around Deborah Saraf, a billionaire widow and former Israeli
soldier, who plots to change the way Congress deals with everything from
farmers and the banking industry to gun legislation and managed health
care. The widow, who is dying of cancer, forms an adept and
highly-varied assassination team. In fact, she appears in the first two
paragraphs of the novel--paragraphs that are at once shocking and
cinematic. Fairley does a workmanlike job of fleshing out his
characters. And that's was no easy task, given that the book's chapters
are refreshingly short. Whether it's Wade Jackson (a rangy westerner who
joins the assassination team after the Environmental Protection Agency
said that he and his wife were responsible for a "minimum of $45
million in cleanup cost" on a small spread of prairie grassland
that they purchased with their life savings) or Maguboo Congeme
(criminally insane and the most feared leader in Chad), Fairley makes
them memorable, impassioned, loathsome, and humorous. The women are
especially tough and intelligent (as well as heartless). The author
obviously did considerable research for this book. Whether he's talk
about the lushness of the Taj Mahal II in Las Vegas or the intricate
workings of transferring money internationally, his details have a
captivating ring of accuracy. You will even marvel (and guffaw!) at
Fairley's logistics of having a slew of Good ole' Boys flood downtown
Washington, DC with genuine North Carolina pig manure! If your local
bookshop doesn't have Absolute Responsibility, Strict Accountability,
you may order it directly from the publisher--www.1stbooks.com. A note
about the gracious author: In addition to writing full time, he
researches real estate titles for his wife's law firm and helps to raise
funds for the local sea turtle hospital.
(In retail stores, the novel sells for $18.95 paper and $26.00 cloth.)
M.J. Rose and Angela
Adair-Hoy's How To Publish and Promote Online (St. Martin's,
$13.99 paperback) is a witty and thoroughly instructive work. It's a
revised and expanded edition of the authors' "The Secrets of Our
Success," an e-book that quickly became an underground bible for
online writers and publishers. In concise but detailed chapters, Rose
and Adair-Hoy cover everything you need to know about publishing on- and
offline. Their topic listings include: How To Create an E-Book; Going
from Electronic to Print...And Vice Versa; How To Get E-Books Reviewed;
Writing News Releases that Get Published; and Speaking Engagements. And
there's so much more! The self-publishing success stories are
particularly engrossing, as are Rose's enlightening interviews with
authors on developing a marketing strategies. There is a wealth of
reference information, such as "E-Mags for Authors and
Publishers" and "Authors ' and Small Publishers' FAQ."
Rose's e-published debut novel, "Lip Service," is an erotic
thriller that continues to sell briskly both in the states and
internationally. Adair-Hoy is the publisher of the immensely-successful
"WritersWeekly.com," a weekly (and free) e-magzine featuring
markets for freelance writers, editors, proofreaders, and--bless
her--screenwriters. Every wordsmith should get a subscription to this
sterling newsletter. (The title is the Web address.) Adair-Hoy, who
hails from Texas but now lives in Maine, writes as she talks, i.e., with
vibrant humor and insight. How to Publish and Promote Online is not to
be missed.
The Narrow Journey (Xlibris Publishers) is a warm, humorous, and
engrossing novel by South Carolina writer, Deborah Clawson Johnson. Set
in late 19th-century Louisiana, the story revolves around a young,
plain-looking Cajun girl named Lucie Trosclair. It tells how she
survives her narrow journey to adulthood, as she--attempting to escape
her hellish life in Louisiana--travels from the brothels of Leavenworth,
Kansas to the silver mining camps of the Colorado Rockies. Johnson
obviously did her research; for every locale has evocative and
accurate-sounding descriptions. When on horse-back in the Rockies, for
instance, we read: "As we climb higher into the range, the pines
began to thin away and those that remained were gnarled and scrubby,
twisted from their long fight for existence. Snow covered the craggy
face of the cliffs as we past the timberline. The pines ended there,
giving way to bare rock...It was a cruel place, this world above the
clouds." Johnson's characters are no less captivating. And that's
no small feat, given the chockablock of people that Lucie meets in her
travels. They range from chefs and prostitutes to cowboys and alligator
wrestlers. The author enlivens her novel by having Lucie narrate the
story--a narration that is at once earnest and compassionate. The Narrow
Journey is available from Xlibris. The Web site is: www.xlibris.com.
Other Web sites from which the novel can be ordered are: Amazon.com,
BarnesandNoble.com, and BooksaMillion.com. And be sure to check your
local bookstore. Johnson herself has a Web site at: www.geocities.com/lucietrosclair2000/.
Tennessee Williams: Plays
1937-1980 Vols. I & II (The
Library of America, $40 each) is a handsome and panoramic work. The
first volume opens with the rediscovery of such early plays as
"Spring Storm" and "Not About Nightengales," a raw
prison drama that is replete with gritty idealism. Then comes the
autobiographical "The Glass Menagerie," the widely successful
"A Streetcar Named Desire," the erotic comedy "The Rose
Tatto," and the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Cat On A Hot Tin
Roof." And the second volume traces Williams' daring and
adventurous later works. There is the shocking violence in
"Suddenly, Last Summer" and "Sweet Bird of Youth,"
the marvelous lyricism in "The Night of the Iguana," the
experimental plotting in "Out Cry" and "Small Craft
Warnings," and the final autobiographical explorations in "Vieux
Carre" and "A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur." There are
32 plays here, winningly compiled and edited by Mel Gussow and Kenneth
Holditch.
Bellow: A Biography
(Random House, $35) is a vivid and richly-detailed study of the life of
one of America's foremost writers. James Atlas takes us from Bellow's
boyhood in the Windy City in the early 1920's and his years of teaching
at the University of Chicago to his slew of awards in the 1960's and
'70s (Pulitzer Prize, three National Book Awards, and the Nobel Prize
for literature) and his eventual move to Vermont--"The Good
Place," as the novelist calls it--to escape the stresses of urban
life. With unblinking astuteness, Atlas examines Bellow's combative and
often self-absorbed personal life, his five marriages, his many lovers,
rivals, and literary friendships. The latter is admirably depicted in
Bellow's vast correspondence with Ralph Ellison, Delmore Schwartz, John
Berryman, John Cheever, and Robert Penn Warren. My only quibble is that
I wish Atlas had written more about Bellow's present-day life in
Vermont. But the biographer does note Bellow's new teaching duties at
Boston University (which he began in the early 1990's), as well as the
publication of his new novel ("Ravelstein"), his marriage to
his devoted fifth wife, and the birth of his fourth son. There are
several sections of fine black & white photos thoroughout the book
The Naked Detective (Villard,
$22.95) is Laurence Shames's latest Key West crime novel. This time
around, Shames (Sha-mus) introduces us to Pete Amsterdam, the world most
reluctant private investigator. He placed an ad in Key West's Yellow
Pages as a PI strictly as a tax dodge--he wanted to claim his new wine
cellar as an "office." The inevitable blond shows up at his
door. In little time at all, Pete is tangled in a mystery involving a
secretly-buried pouch and a cross-dressing man who was supposed to have
died two years before! With workmanlike wonder, Shamus mixes heapings of
swaggering wit, quirky characters, and laudable Key West specifics into
this, his eighth novel. I wish I had the space to quote you sections of
his chiseled and comical dialogue, as well as his marvelously-accurate
renderings of the town itself ("I pedaled through the rusty
street-side gate, clattered over potholes and lumps of coral rock. Boats
loomed all around me in untidy rolls,...resting precariously on spindly
jacks"). Shamus's brilliance extends to his characters also. Each
one is fittingly named, from Lefty Ortega (the local gambling boats
boss) to the "crude, crass...and sort of harmless in the end"
Mickey Veale. And his women characters, too, are as winningly limned.
Maggie--an attractive yoga instructor and Pete's love interest--is every
bit as captivating as Lydia, Lefty's over-the-top nympho daughter. As in
all of Shamus's books, there is--refreshingly--a minimum of violence and
gunplay. Don't miss this funny and deftly-written crime caper.
Award-winning journalist Louis Kilzer solves one
of the great World War II mysteries in Hitler's Traitor (Presidio
Press, $29.95). Combining established facts with new information gleamed
from recently declassified archives, Kilzer--employing investigative
skills that have won him two Pulitzers--finds that Hitler's primary
traitor was none other than his trusted deputy, Martin Bormann. The
author also reveals the vital roles played by two brilliant and
beautiful women spies. One was a young Russian Jew who masterminded the
conspiracy, and the other was a "disheveled genius" and
mapmaker who plotted to assassinate Hitler. Kilzer has penned a dramatic
and marvelously-detailed work.
America's Library: The Story of the Library
of Congress 1800-2000 (Yale University Press, $45) is a sterling
history of perhaps the greatest library on earth. James Conaway centers
his study around the thirteen men who have been appointed by presidents
to lead the Library of Congress. Conaway investigates how the
Librarians' experiences and contributions, as well as the Library's
collections--they presently hold over 110 million items, including books
in 450 languages and irreplaceable documents and art works)--have
reflected political and intellectual developments in the United States.
In prose that is both lively and informative, Conaway tells how
the Library grew from a modest collection of 740 books (purchased by the
Congress in 1800) to it housing of hundred of miles of book-shelves
today. There are a wealth of fine b/w and color maps, photos, and
illustrations here. Librarians, book lovers, and avid readers will
thoroughly enjoy this work.
Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of
Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray (Random House, $24.95) is an
engaging and often instructive collection of exchanges between two old
and dear friends, who first crossed paths in 1935, when they were
undergraduates at Tuskegee Institute, in Alabama. Ellision, of course,
is the author of the classic "Invisible Man," and Murray is
the writer of the evocative and stunningly-lyrical autobiographical
novel "Train Whistle Guitar." Edited by Murray and John F.
Callahan, the letters cover the decade of 1950 to 1960, and the topics
range from ambitions and literary struggles to opinions on jazz and
literary gossip. We learn, for instance, that Ellison admired and
respected Robert Penn Warren ("a man who lived and thought his way
free of a lot of irrational illusions"). But Ellison's true mentor
was not a literary figure. It was Jack Johnson ("because he knew
that if you operated with skill and style, you could rise above all that
being a-credit-to-your-race-crap because he was a credit to the human
race...). Both Ellison and Murray enjoyed photography, and a dozen or so
of their pictures can be found in this commendable title.
Celia Garth: A Story of Charleston in the
Revolution (The Nautical & Publishing Company, $24.95) is an
evocative work. First published in 1959 and long out of print, Gwen
Bristow's novel tells the story of a young dressmaker in Charleston, who
watches the Revolution unfold before her eyes. The novel begins with the
second British attack on the city in 1780 and its occupation by Lord
Cornwallis, who leaves a trail of blood and treachery. Celia becomes an
avid patriot and is soon a spy for none other than the mysterious Swamp
Fox himself, Francis Marion. Bristow's book couldn't have been reprinted
at a better time: For the author was inducted into the South Carolina
Academy of Authors on April 15, 2000. The novel's beautiful jacket
painting is by lowcountry artist, Virginia Fouche Bolton.
| -
Rodney
Stevens' reviews
have appeared in The Atlanta Journal/Constitution, The State,
The Herald (Rock Hill), Virginia Quarterly Review, MD
Magazine, and National Review. He lives in Columbia,
South Carolina. |
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