The Yellow Birds, by Kevin Powers. Compelling, beautiful, heartbreaking: I read this book in three days. This elegantly written and structured little tome holds one man’s experience of war between its covers. At 230 pages it’s a tome not in length but in weight: it’s heavy. John Bartle is 21 when he arrives in Iraq in early 2004; his fellow soldier Daniel Murphy is 18. The story moves in time and place, between
Book Review(s): Three by J.M. Coetzee
Disgrace
A terrific novel, compelling read, Coetzee at the top of his form. Interesting note: The first and last sentence of each chapter, when typed out in a separate document, read like a long narrative poem. They make sense! This, along …
Book Review(s): Two by Louis Bayard
The School of Night
When disgraced academic Henry Cavendish attends the funeral of his friend, Alonzo Wax, two stories are set in motion: a mystery about a 17th Century letter, and a love story. Bayard is completely open on page one: 1. Alonzo Wax is a sneak, liar and thief, and 2. It’s a love story.
Book Review: The Little Stranger
The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters. This story set in post-WW II England is a masterful exploration of the hazy edges of unreliable first-person narration. Faraday, a country doctor, narrates this tale of an aristocratic family driven to madness and suicide by “the little stranger” in Hundreds, their decaying Warwickshire mansion—but Waters gradually reveals …
Enter It! A contest for fast writers
For the masochists: My first fiction effort, a novella entitled Pawn to Queen, won the infamous 3-Day novel writing contest: $200 and publication! You thought Nanowrimo was a grind? Try this one. What better way to spend a weekend?
If you want to know what it did to me, read on.