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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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Fall Asleep Forgetting by Georgeann Packard

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The appreciation of a novel can occasionally come down to something as random as timing.  When one reads a book too early or too late, one can miss important elements within the story.  This reviewer read Lord of the Rings too late and found its cod-archaic prose akin to downing a sedative.  Similarly, when reading Paradise Lost in middle school, the only thing gained was “bragging rights” since the poetry remained impenetrable.  All this represents a roundabout preface for my appreciation of Georgeann Packard’s novel Fall Asleep Forgetting. In the months leading up to September 11, 2001, the inhabitants of … Continue reading Fall Asleep Forgetting by Georgeann Packard

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Elysiana by Chris Knopf

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The novel Elysiana is about the eponymous barrier island off the coast of South Jersey.  Chris Knopf, known for the Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery novels, has written a self-contained novel set in the summer of 1969.  It begins with Midwestern girl Gwendolynn Anders suffering a bad drug trip.  Time loses coherence as Gwendolynn experiences memories and flashbacks, seeing herself at a party, and then finding herself in the back of car.  She gradually regains control of her mental faculties and then realizes she is on Elysiana.  The island, only twenty-five miles long and a mile wide, presents a microcosm of … Continue reading Elysiana by Chris Knopf

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Fidel by Néstor Kohan and Nahuel Sherma

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Fidel distills the life of Fidel Castro into less than two hundred pages.  Written by Néstor Kohan and illustrated by Nahuel Sherma, the book functions as a short biography and a primer on such topics as Latin American politics, South American fascism, and anti-globalism.  (The hyperventilating political discourse of today has reduced the term “fascism” to an empty meaningless term.  For an academic investigation, one should consult Stanley Payne’s A History of Fascism: 1914 – 1945.  For a more literary examination, one should read Robert Bolaño’s Borges-esque Nazi Literature in the Americas.)  Kohan writes about Leftist topics and Seven Stories … Continue reading Fidel by Néstor Kohan and Nahuel Sherma

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Isabel at Midnight @ Joe Bob Briggs

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Isabel at Midnight by Ken Knight offers a fascinating world of organized crime, white supremacists, and “psycho-kink.” The novel centers on Isabel Marcano, a scion of a Virginia-based Mafia family. She suffers from helios-porphyria, meaning she would get serious burns if she exposed her skin to sunlight. With this ailment, Isabel worked various night shift jobs. The novel opens with Isabel winning a wrongful termination suit thanks to the work of an arrogant lawyer named Diego Tanner. Knight throws in a few more characters. Isabel’s friend Danielle Kenyon, a successful escort, has a hidden agenda. There is the corrupt cop … Continue reading Isabel at Midnight @ Joe Bob Briggs

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God by Alexander Waugh

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The premise of God is simple: write a book about the descriptions of God.  Alexander Waugh, son of columnist Auberon and grandson of satirist Evelyn, crafts a diminutive book exploring the attributes of God.  Mining a variety of sources, including different Bible translations, Gnostic, apocryphal, visionary, Jewish, Muslim and Mormon texts, Waugh offers the reader a multitude of perspectives on the topic.  The challenge comes from the traditionally held beliefs that God is invisible and immaterial.  Waugh leaps from one religious tradition to another, comparing and contrasting, occasionally dissecting a long-held truism with a satirist’s eye. The writing is crisp … Continue reading God by Alexander Waugh

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The Last Estate by Conor Bowman

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The Last Estate by Conor Bowman is a rare miniature treat.  The book, little over 160 pages, contains multitudes.  It focuses on the story of Christian Aragon, the last surviving son of a Provençal vintner.  He is nearly seventeen in 1920 and the shadow of his older brother Eugene, killed in the Great War, looms large.  The hot summer has Christian conflicted by the opposing forces of lust and virtue, the former represented by the young geography teacher Miss Playben and the latter by the cantankerous Jesuit priest, Father Leterrier.  Fr. Leterrier tortures his students with interminable lectures about Holy … Continue reading The Last Estate by Conor Bowman

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