Tag: fiction

99 Novels, book reviews, books, Forgotten Classics2 Comments

Forgotten Classics: The Dark Labyrinth (1947) by Lawrence Durrell

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  An infrequent feature on classic books forgotten to the mists of time. The name Lawrence Durrell is not a name mentioned with any frequency these days, but his work deserves a revival.  The Dark Labyrinth, published in 1947, begins with a simple enough premise: a small group of tourists visits a Cretan labyrinth.  In the ensuing narrative, the group gets lost with certain members getting rescued while others never return.  With this basic plot, Durrell spins a tale chock full of philosophical rumination, surgical precision social satire, and capacious character development.  The foredoomed tour group includes a failed artist, … Continue reading Forgotten Classics: The Dark Labyrinth (1947) by Lawrence Durrell

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New name, same blog

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What’s all this then?  As they say in boardrooms across this fair land of ours, it’s “time to take things to the next level.”  The Driftless Area Review now has a more memorable web address: https://driftlessareareview.com/ It’s easy to remember, you have less to type, and should help with Google searches.  If you’re a publisher or author, my contact information remain the same.  Make sure to update your bookmarks.     Continue reading New name, same blog

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Bones Beneath Our Feet by Michael Schein

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Subtitled “A Historical Novel of Puget Sound,” Michael Schein’s Bones Beneath Our Feet tells us the story of two men, Isaac Stevens, Mexican-American War veteran and first governor of Washington Territory, and Leschi, Chief of the Nisqually tribe.  Published by Bennett & Hastings, a Seattle-based independent publisher, the novel, at first glance, appears like yet another retelling of a White Man-vs.-Native American conflict told with the subtlety of an afternoon special.  “Remember kids, the white man is a pure embodiment of evil while the Native Americans are innocent, Nature-loving gentlefolk.”  This is the simplistic moralizing found in everything from Dances … Continue reading Bones Beneath Our Feet by Michael Schein

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Hav by Jan Morris

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Hav by the Welsh travel writer Jan Morris is a very Borgesian work, bringing to mind the Argentinean writer’s love for mirrors and labyrinths.  There is even a character named Dr. Borge and Hav’s major cultural motif is the labyrinth.  Morris achieves distinction in creating a place that goes beyond being a second-rate pastiche of Borges themes.  Unfortunately, the field of science fiction is riddled with examples of good ideas soured when executed.  Poor execution usually involves sloppy writing where the author received payment by the word. New York Review Books has released a stellar volume with Jan Morris’s Hav.  … Continue reading Hav by Jan Morris

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books, film, Interviews, The Internet2 Comments

An Interview with David Schmahmann, author of The Double Life of Alfred Buber

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Why is Alfred Buber an important character for modern readers? Alfred Buber’s story is a riff off several things: isolation, male loneliness, a feeling some of us may have that for others life is richer, more sensual, more rewarding than it ever will be for us. Buber is frozen by that feeling, by the sense that he is a spectator at his own life, shut out of any chance at love, at being wanted, at feeling full and satisfied. He mistakes these feelings, I think, for desire, and I believe many men do this: conflate loneliness with desire, as if … Continue reading An Interview with David Schmahmann, author of The Double Life of Alfred Buber

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Interview with Author Mary Kennedy Eastham

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West Coast author Mary Kennedy Eastham has been quite busy lately.  Her book of poetry, the Shadow of a Dog I Can’t Forget, was one of my first review copies I received.  I talked with her via an email interview.  Here is what she had to say about her recent projects, the art of writing, her love of dogs, and her favorite writers. WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR CREATIVE PROJECTS? I am trying so hard to finish my novel NIGHT SURFING.  Writing a novel is very different from writing a short story or writing a poem.  There are so many more … Continue reading Interview with Author Mary Kennedy Eastham

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Play Fair! The Art of Friendship and Relationship by Kimberly A. Taylor

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    One doesn’t have to walk far into a bookstore to get assaulted with self-help books and memoirs.  Much like people with blogs, everyone thinks they have something valuable to say.  In addition to memoirs by randomly generated Kardashians the upcoming election season brings with it the fatuous “campaign biography” ghostwritten by the candidate’s staffers not currently concocting an attack ad or planting a piece of journalism with a compliant member of the Fourth Estate.  It is with relief that Kimberly A. Taylor’s hybrid memoir/self-help book is available.  Play Fair! The Art of Relationship and Friendship presents the reader with … Continue reading Play Fair! The Art of Friendship and Relationship by Kimberly A. Taylor

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The Double Life of Alfred Buber by David Schmahmann

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KUMAR(to Goldstein)Well, if you have the yellow fever tonight, there’s a rocking Asian party over at Princeton tonight. GOLDSTEIN Man, I have the yellow plague. There’s nothing sexier than a hot Asian chick…or dude for that matter… Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle (Danny Leiner, 2004), script by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing.  But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (1867) by Karl Marx A Woman of Property David Schmahmann … Continue reading The Double Life of Alfred Buber by David Schmahmann

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An Interview with Lisa Flowers, Founder of Vulgar Marsala Press

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Can you explain why you named your press Vulgar Marsala? We’re named for an image in DH Lawrence’s “Medlars and Sorb Apples”, from his seminal/groundbreaking collection “Birds, Beasts, and Flowers”.  I toyed with an assortment of names that encompassed a lot of literary and mythological and film references, etc, but ultimately this one stuck…more intuitively/impulsively than intellectually.  It’s an eye-catching name…maybe an amusingly misleading one, until you know what its axe is (some have even assumed it’s some kind of sex publication /site, what with the word “vulgar”). What attracted you to the work of Chad Faries? I’ve described his … Continue reading An Interview with Lisa Flowers, Founder of Vulgar Marsala Press

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The Book of Knowledge by Chad Faries

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With inspiration taken from Arthur Mee’s turn of the century work called The Children’s Encyclopedia, “that cared nothing about alphabetization,” Chad Faries wrote The Book of Knowledge.  Like The Children’s Encyclopedia, this little volume of poetry represents “a tapestry of complete knowledge,” embracing everything from cartography to sexuality to regional history (in this case, Iron County, Michigan) to animals and the avant-garde.  Published by the puckish literary upstart calling itself The Vulgar Marsala Press, the Book of Knowledge has four sections with abundant illustrations peppered throughout. Faries possesses a poetic voice intellectual, eccentric, and playful.  Despite his PhD in Creative … Continue reading The Book of Knowledge by Chad Faries

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