Like the heroines of the telenovelas they love, the characters in this book (three women from the same gossipy village in Cuba, now working in a New Jersey doll factory) are painted with somewhat broad strokes, but they're each more complex than the others think. And, also like novelas, their stories are pretty addictive. Santiago has created a great, classic diva in Graciela, a bad girl with a heart of gold. And when her bitchy "friends" relentlessly try to take her down for such transgressions as daring to take fashion design classes, Santiago shows how suffocating small-town life can be, so much so that it can follow you across an ocean. But of course Graciela's not one to taken down easily, and for that you can't help but root for her.
For me, this book put a personal face not only on Iraq and the war there, but on conceptual art, which can seem as distant and confusing as a foreign war. For Bilal, art and survival are almost synonymous. When he builds a mud-brick hut to protect his paintings from sandstorms in a brutal Saudi refugee camp--and when other refugees follow his example by creating art, building huts and eventually creating a working village--I got shamelessly misty-eyed. Sadly, the case for art and against war is one we have to make over and over again, but not many do it better than Bilal.
I tore through this book in the same manner I devoured Prep--something about my apparent hunger to see an angsty female adolescence given literary weight. Landis shines her considerable literary light on moments and images: for example, the care her bisexual protagonist devotes to touching a pregnant friend's wrist rather than her stomach. It's a book of rooms (the mother character is a designer, so this is both literal and figurative); there's sturdy architecture here, but it's often masked by a beautiful set of curtains. Very occasionally I wanted some of those offstage plot points to get bigger play (what? Leah's dad died? when did that happen?), but mostly I was happy to revel in the details.
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L.A. noir with a healthy dose of gleeful, funny pulp, this novel of scam artists trying to out-scam each other is lots of fun to read. Pam Ward seems to enjoy pushing the limits of how nasty she can make her characters, and her wicked joy is contagious. By not just blurring but totally rubbing out the line between villain and hero (not to mention black and white, male and female, even living and dead), she also reveals how a sly individual can use society's mistaken assumptions to his or her advantage.
Lynne Thompson isn't just an amazing poet, she's a versatile one--there are persona poems in here, prose poems, short clever poems, long allusive poems, mysterious near-cut-ups, dense and troubling poems, funny poems about fitting into jeans. She describes the moon (she's a writer who dares to describe the moon) as "a subversive magnet," which could double as a description of a certain really brilliant poet.
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Cheryl Klein has commented on (17) products.
Tomorrow They Will Kiss by Eduardo Santiago
Cheryl Klein, December 22, 2009
Like the heroines of the telenovelas they love, the characters in this book (three women from the same gossipy village in Cuba, now working in a New Jersey doll factory) are painted with somewhat broad strokes, but they're each more complex than the others think. And, also like novelas, their stories are pretty addictive. Santiago has created a great, classic diva in Graciela, a bad girl with a heart of gold. And when her bitchy "friends" relentlessly try to take her down for such transgressions as daring to take fashion design classes, Santiago shows how suffocating small-town life can be, so much so that it can follow you across an ocean. But of course Graciela's not one to taken down easily, and for that you can't help but root for her.Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun by Wafaa Bilal
Cheryl Klein, December 5, 2009
For me, this book put a personal face not only on Iraq and the war there, but on conceptual art, which can seem as distant and confusing as a foreign war. For Bilal, art and survival are almost synonymous. When he builds a mud-brick hut to protect his paintings from sandstorms in a brutal Saudi refugee camp--and when other refugees follow his example by creating art, building huts and eventually creating a working village--I got shamelessly misty-eyed. Sadly, the case for art and against war is one we have to make over and over again, but not many do it better than Bilal.Normal People Don't Live Like This by Dylan Landis
Cheryl Klein, November 2, 2009
I tore through this book in the same manner I devoured Prep--something about my apparent hunger to see an angsty female adolescence given literary weight. Landis shines her considerable literary light on moments and images: for example, the care her bisexual protagonist devotes to touching a pregnant friend's wrist rather than her stomach. It's a book of rooms (the mother character is a designer, so this is both literal and figurative); there's sturdy architecture here, but it's often masked by a beautiful set of curtains. Very occasionally I wanted some of those offstage plot points to get bigger play (what? Leah's dad died? when did that happen?), but mostly I was happy to revel in the details.(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
Bad Girls Burn Slow by Pam Ward
Cheryl Klein, July 3, 2009
L.A. noir with a healthy dose of gleeful, funny pulp, this novel of scam artists trying to out-scam each other is lots of fun to read. Pam Ward seems to enjoy pushing the limits of how nasty she can make her characters, and her wicked joy is contagious. By not just blurring but totally rubbing out the line between villain and hero (not to mention black and white, male and female, even living and dead), she also reveals how a sly individual can use society's mistaken assumptions to his or her advantage.Beg No Pardon
Cheryl Klein, June 17, 2009
Lynne Thompson isn't just an amazing poet, she's a versatile one--there are persona poems in here, prose poems, short clever poems, long allusive poems, mysterious near-cut-ups, dense and troubling poems, funny poems about fitting into jeans. She describes the moon (she's a writer who dares to describe the moon) as "a subversive magnet," which could double as a description of a certain really brilliant poet.1-5 of 17next