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The Reckoning by Howard Owen

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In Howard Owen’s ninth novel, The Reckoning, the lives of George James and Freeman Hawk meet again after decades of separation.  Freeman was an African-American civil rights activist who fled to Canada to avoid getting drafted.  George James was a scion of the old money South and an heir to the Old Dominion Ham Company.  Owen shifts between past and present, reflecting the tense relationship between George James, widowed and alcoholic, and his son Jake.  Freeman Hawk returned to George, but George’s idealization of Freeman makes the opaque circumstances harder to pick up.  George tells Jake how Freeman led the … Continue reading The Reckoning by Howard Owen

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Contracts: the Essential Business Desk Reference by Attorney Richard Stim

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Contracts are everywhere.  Richard Stim makes this obvious in the introduction to Contracts: the Essential Business Desk Reference. Enumerating everything from employment contracts to those involving insurance, credit cards, toll roads, and music and book downloads, contractual relationships are everywhere and nowhere.  Because of this situation, Contracts is an essential tool for navigating the occasionally intimidating aspect of signing the dotted line.  Following or breaking contracts have real consequences for all involved. The book organizes the various terms associated with contracts in alphabetical order.  Aided by cross-references, it provides easy navigation of topics.  Nolo, the publisher, also boasts dictionary definitions … Continue reading Contracts: the Essential Business Desk Reference by Attorney Richard Stim

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Years of Upheaval (1981) by Henry Kissinger

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A Second Term and a Third-rate Burglary Now Watergate does not bother me Does your conscience bother you? Tell the truth. “Sweet Home Alabama,” Lynyrd Skynyrd (1974)   Years of Upheaval, the second volume of memoirs by Henry Kissinger, continues his personal account of public service, spanning the time of Nixon’s re-election to Nixon’s resignation following the Watergate scandal.  The memoirs record a short span of time although it encompasses a plethora of geopolitical, domestic, and personal events.  In the words of Homer Simpson, this volume has it all, “the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles.” Riding on … Continue reading Years of Upheaval (1981) by Henry Kissinger

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To Account for Murder by William C. Whitbeck

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If Permanent Press had a prestige novel, To Account for Murder by William C. Whitbeck would it.  The novel presents a fictionalized version of real life events that happened in Michigan.  In 1945, Senator Warren G. Hooper was murdered in a gangland-style slaying.  To this day, the murder case has never been solved.  William C. Whitbeck, the author of the novel, also works as Chief Judge of the Michigan Court.  He presents us with the tale of one Charlie Cahill, a disabled vet, prosecutor, and son of an Irish bootlegger. Set in Lansing during 1945 and into 1946, Whitbeck paints … Continue reading To Account for Murder by William C. Whitbeck

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The Beloved @ Joe Bob Briggs

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There’s something rotten in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It corrupts relationships, threatens children, drives people to murder, and leaves a wake of destruction whatever it touches. It would be one thing if it were a hideous monster or some crazy murderer on the loose. What if it was your boyfriend or girlfriend? The Beloved by J.F. Gonzalez tells the tale of Ronnie Baker and Diana Marshfield, a new couple facing resistance from Ronnie’s family. Ronnie, a recovering drug abuser and recently divorced from Cindy, met Diana online. Now Diana has agreed to move in with Ronnie, despite never having met his family. … Continue reading The Beloved @ Joe Bob Briggs

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The Dissemblers by Liza Campbell

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The Dissemblers is a story about creativity, betrayal, art, crime, and jealousy.  Ivy Wilkes has recently graduated from art school and has moved to New Mexico to work in the Georgie O’Keeffee Museum.  She works as a cashier, but hopes being close to where O’Keeffe created her work will inspire her to do the same.  Ivy lives below a couple of musicians, Jake and Maya.  When not playing with the orchestra, Jake works as a guard at the museum.  Ivy eventually becomes romantically involved with Omar, café owner and Jake’s brother. As an artist, Ivy is remarkably perceptive.  She narrates … Continue reading The Dissemblers by Liza Campbell

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Critical Appraisal: The Landscape of Hell

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The representation of Hell as a cartographic region has its origins in Dante’s Divine Comedy.  Dante adapted the imagery already present in medieval painting and sculpture to comment on his political situation and his own scientific and theological beliefs.  He populated it with real people, including political heroes and villains, good popes and bad popes, adulterous princesses, and monsters human and mythological.  On Dante’s spiritual journey, he traveled with the Roman poet Vergil down the various circles of Hell and then up Mount Purgatory.  Finally, led by his beloved Beatrice, he journeyed through the heavenly spheres until he was in … Continue reading Critical Appraisal: The Landscape of Hell

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The Road by Vasily Grossman

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Best known for his novel Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman also wrote short stories and worked as a war correspondent in the Second World War.  A Ukrainian Jew with parents who worked as urban professionals, Grossman did not represent the common stereotype of the Eastern European Jew living in a “Litvak shtetl.”  The Road, a collection of short stories, journalism, and letters published by New York Review Books, provides a useful jumping off point for anyone interested in the life and work of Vasily Grossman.  It includes his earliest stories and his last short story he wrote.  “The Hell of … Continue reading The Road by Vasily Grossman

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How to Survive a Natural Disaster by Margaret Hawkins

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With her sophomore effort entitled How to Survive a Natural Disaster, Margaret Hawkins offers the reader a meditation on family, faith, and redemption.  Given the subject matter, one shouldn’t expect a Nicholas Sparks clone or some other emotionally exploitive trash that usually lines the shelves of bookstores and tops bestseller lists.  The novel is about redemption, but it is a strange and dark redemption, more Dexter than The Notebook.  Through the prism of multiple voices, Hawkins reveals a family in turmoil and a traumatic event that shatters the numbing dysfunction.  (The cover displays a young child, teddy bear in hand, … Continue reading How to Survive a Natural Disaster by Margaret Hawkins

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Dead Weight by John Francome @ Joe Bob Briggs

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Phil Nicholas is a National Hunt jockey psychologically shaken after a bad fall. The National Hunt is a popular series of races involving horses in steeplechase races. Phil’s horse didn’t make it over one of these barriers, making the fall particularly nasty. He has had symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and it is making him not race as well. Because of the fall, he seeks psychiatric help, but keeps it secret from his wife Julia, a horse trainer, and his fellow jockeys. Phil is afraid the therapy might make him appear weak. Keith works as a gamekeeper and has been … Continue reading Dead Weight by John Francome @ Joe Bob Briggs

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