Book Reviews: July 2013
Special Powers and Abilities, Poems by Raymond McDaniel
The Recipe Project: A Delectable Extravaganza of Food and Music, Food/Cooking & Essays by One Ring Zero, Michael Hearst (Editor), Leigh Newman (Editor)
The Decline of Pigeons, Fiction by Janice Deal
Elseplace, Poems by Laurie Filipelli
In the Garden of Stone, Fiction by Susan Tekulve
Farmer’s Almanac, Stories by Chris Fink
Several Ways to Die in Mexico City: An Autobiography of Death in Mexico City, Nonfiction by Kurt Hollander
Night Moves, Poems by Stephanie Barber
Allegiance and Betrayal, Stories by Peter Makuck
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Special Powers and Abilities
Poems by Raymond McDaniel
Coffee House Press, January 2013
ISBN-13: 9781566893152
$16.00; 99pp.
Reviewed by Michael Luke Benedetto
Raymond McDaniel’s third book of poetry, Special Powers and Abilities, places him firmly at the intersection of a Venn diagram flanked by poetry enthusiasts and fans of the long-running DC Comics series Legion of Super-Heroes. Though claiming loyalty to both of these factions amid dedicated bibliophiles is not a requirement of navigating the densely packed, near-hundred pages of reference-rich poems, it certainly couldn’t hurt. For those unfamiliar with the Legion, McDaniel seeks to recreate the complex world of futuristic teen heroes through versified renditions of what typically define classic super-hero storytelling: short bios and origins brimming with consonant-laden proper nouns, dramatic inner monologues revealing key plot points, details regarding who occupies each ends of ever-shifting love triangles, a few bad puns, and—of course—special powers and abilities.
Once properly inducted into the realm of McDaniel’s childhood, the thin narrative layer is peeled back to expose the beating heart that has allowed these tales to endure in the psyches of comic book fans everywhere. Since the Legion of Super-Heroes perpetually exists one thousand years from present day, and since the series first appeared in 1958, dedicated fans are not only granted a glimpse of a fantastical future but are afforded some insight into the past, where these future narratives were constructed forty or fifty years ago. In “What to Expect: Earth on Less than Ten Mega-Credits a Day,” the megalopolis of New Metropolis glitters across the entirety of the Eastern Seaboard and “eradicates the night sky, lit like infinite candles that gutter but never go / out, a city on the hill that sits at the bottom of a well of worlds,” a testament to the seemingly ceaseless prosperity of mid-century America.
In numerous persona poems written from the perspective of Braniac 5, a teenager with a genius-level intelligence rarely found outside of comic book super-heroes, McDaniel flexes his poetic muscles, making it clear that, as dedicated as he is to the history of the Legion, he is equally well versed in the subtleties of his craft. In “Braniac 5 Archives the News of the World That Was,” McDaniel could easily be describing the sentiment of those readers fond of this sequence when stating, “Once you engaged me with carbon, compressed your fist / to palm a perfectly patterned diamond, hardened to beauty.” These poems are constructed with couplets that leave no room for excess. Alliteration, internal rhyme, and elaborate word play seem to spring effortlessly from the mind of Braniac 5 as he leads us through the intricacies of his thoughts and the bizarre expanses of his universe.
Though Special Powers and Abilities is teeming with poems of various uncommon forms, a few will become quite familiar by the end of the collection, including a poetic sequence highlighting important events in the Legion’s history. Titles such as “Twelve Hours to Live!” and “The Hero Who Hated the Legion!” are taken from particular issues of the comic book and used throughout the sequence. Here we are treated to more than just summary of the Legion’s exploits. A conflicted speaker relays the tragic deaths and origin stories of long-beloved heroes, but also laments the plight of comic book fans inextricably bound to a flawed narrative with an occasionally shameful past. In poems adopting the exclamatory titles mentioned above, the speaker admits, “I can’t even tell you what happens next / it’s too stupid,” and bitterly contemplates how a utopic vision of the thirtieth century could possibly include an autonomous island “occupied by radical black separatists […] whose lone hero is one angry black man / whose super power is to raise his voice.”
This collection is suffused with the wonder, excitement, disappointment, and grief felt periodically by many fans of long-running comic series. By its end many readers—comic fanatics and newcomers alike—may find themselves initiated into the Legion of Super-Heroes. Some may even seek out the ongoing source material, a prospect McDaniel would no doubt appreciate.
The Recipe Project: A Delectable Extravaganza of Food and Music
Food/Cooking & Essays by One Ring Zero, Michael Hearst (Editor), Leigh Newman (Editor)
Black Balloon Publishing, October 2011
ISBN-13: 9781936787005
$24.95; 116pp.
Reviewed by Ann Beman
More kooky book than cookbook, The Recipe Project contains recipes, restaurant playlists, interviews with famous chefs, and essays by renowned food writers. The project folds cooking, music, and writing into one weird, multisensory jam that begs the question: Are chefs the new rock stars?
Apparently, the jam began as a whacky experiment. Michael Hearst and Joshua Camp, co-founders of the band One Ring Zero, have a habit of tapping unexpected sources for song lyrics—famous novelists, ice cream trucks, and planets, to name a few. Between the two, they play accordion, theramin, claviola, stylophone, and power drill, and their sound has been described as “gypsy-klezmer circus-flea-cartoon.” With this project, the pair thought it’d be a kick to make a song out of Chris Cosentino’s recipe for brains and eggs. Cosentino loved the result, told some chef buddies, and the chef buddies wanted their own recipe-songs. Et voilà, chefs as rock stars.
Thus, The Recipe Project transcends the usual cookbook by turning its recipes into songs—ingredient by “freshly ground” ingredient, word for “until just barely tender” word—as in Cosentino’s how-to for Brains and Eggs, sung channeling the Beastie Boys: “Remove the brains from the water with a perforated spoon and place on a plate.” Tom Colicchio’s genius recipe for Creamless Creamed Corn gets surf rock treatment, while Aarón Sánchez’s Duck Breast with Dulce de Leche Ancho Chile Glaze does the polka, Mexican banda-style. A CD included with the book features ten such songified recipes by nine famous chefs and one food writer/journalist.
“I listen to music with a good dance beat because it imposes a rhythm, which is important when you are cooking,” says Mark Kurlansky, the James Beard award-winning author of such nonfiction best sellers as Cod and Salt. “If you cook with a sense of rhythm it will impose restraints and balances.” Kurlanky’s interview is among several in the book, which also contains essays by well-known food writers, the tone and content serving as part food memoirs, part liner notes.
All in all, The Recipe Project provides a fun mashup—recipes and songs and essays to rock the culi-nerdy world. Shelve it with your cross-disciplinary cookbooks, if you keep a collection.
The Decline of Pigeons
Fiction by Janice Deal
Queen’s Ferry Press, July 2013
ISBN-13: 9781938466090
$16.95; 234pp.
Reviewed by Lori A. May
A finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, this debut collection of stories by Janice Deal is bittersweet. Mesmerizing prose and a fine attention to characterization present the author as a rising star, while the content offers an assortment of melancholy lives that haunt on and off the page.
In The Decline of Pigeons, nine meaty stories depict similarities and separations between friends, relatives, and strangers, by giving thought to the ethics between the living and the dead. Each starring character has an exposed secret or failed history to overcome in navigating their relationships of the past, for the future, and in the more often uncomfortable present.
The lead story “Aurora” presents Atwater, a father clinging to the nostalgic memories shared between him and his young daughter, Candy. He regrets his shortcomings while he relives the moment that changed his family dynamic forever. Atwater had “drunk himself out of his teaching job” years earlier and, despite his wish to bond with his now-adult daughter, his dysfunctional behavior continues to alienate him from his family. Deal presents the father-daughter relationship with artistry; when the two exchange telephone conversations, they never appear in the same space on the page. In this way, Deal demonstrates the emotional and physical distance between them.
When a young woman who cannot move on after a monumental loss detaches herself from the familiar, “Darkness Can Fall Without Warning” examines the aftermath. Audrey flees overseas to reconnect with her former friend, Felicia, and here the author demonstrates the struggle between resolving the present and accepting the past. Failing to find solace in the city of Paris, Audrey recognizes how her sorrow will continue on with her, regardless of where she is or whom she is with. In the otherwise harmless witty dialogue exchanged between the two women, Felicia toys with her wounded friend: “Darling, don’t ever lose your sense of humor. You’re boring without it, don’t you know?” Deal’s characters reveal the disconnection between nostalgia and reality and show how words can sometimes hurt more than physical pain.
Obsessions, regrets, failures, and appeals to make good fill these flawed lives, creating a complex collection of stories that demonstrate Deal’s knack for bringing the short form to life. Internalized emotions and faulty actions layer a complicated world where each of Deal’s characters demonstrates the best and worst of humanity.
Elseplace
Poems by Laurie Filipelli
Brooklyn Arts Press, March 2013
ISBN-13: 9791936767182
$14.95; 100pp.
Reviewed by Gina Vaynshteyn
Laurie Filipelli’s debut collection of poetry, Elseplace, softly offers beautiful language, striking settings, and a calendar of surreal images. Revolving around the twelve months of the year, Filipelli’s poems start with a “pointless beginning” and end with snow, fog, and a “small girl proud on an elephant’s back,” a finale titled “Mail Box” that whispers something powerful to her readers. Published by Brooklyn Arts Press, Elseplace is stunning, sorrowful, and quietly magnanimous.
Filipelli is a lyric poet; the movement within her poems is fluid and sweet, although rigid when it wants to be. Transitions are seamless and clever. In the poem, “Afternoon,” Flilipelli writes:
I’m carrying a melon, but I want it to be
a large fish, a lost coin, a flamingo pink,
inflatable, wrapped around a wrist.
I want to float in a sea of bright objects.
Here, the poet plays with sign and signifier by deconstructing objects, denying and giving special meaning and weight to words, which often creates an omnipotent snowball effect with language. Playing with words, she creates dichotomy between “Pepsi” and “Coke,” “East” and “West, “Up” and “Down.”
Elseplace starts in winter with solemn poems that rely on stoic imagery to convey a sense of loneliness and stark silence. This poetry often finds energy in its sleepiness. The poem “Cold Snap” is dark; it begins with, “Standing on the bank, we see things floating. // underlined in the water, what looks like the body of an infant and another.” The piece has an arcane, magical quality to it. Imagery of bodies, a glowing mother, and dark water could symbolize re-birth, femininity, or detachment. The speaker in “Cold Snap” finds herself in the mist and materializes surreally, stating, “In winter nothing wakes us.” This hibernation repeats itself in other poems such as “The Wrong Poem,” “January,” and “Take it Slow.”
Toward the end of the collection, Filipelli’s poems become more and more fleshy and alive. Staying dormant in the first section of the book, the poems open up and begin to bloom for us. In “101 New Pockets of Sorrow,” the poem begins with, “I peel back skin; a sweet pulp sticks / between my teeth, like a tongue, inconsolable,” portraying depression by using words such as “stains” and “bile” to emphasize on the sense of bleakness.
Throughout the collection the poet uses fruit and bright colors to create a sense of thawing. In “Poem City” the speaker compares “the beaches and fruits of yesteryear” to describe where Reagan died. A juxtaposition of liveliness and winter is emphasized in “June” with, “One orange poppy and a snow capped range.” As locations shift, are forgotten, or are examined like picture frames, Filipelli does not stay in one place for too long.
Organized in five unnamed parts, Elseplace plays with form as well as content and growth. “The Wrong Poem” is simply structured in couplets, creating a back-and-forth rhythm:
There was a line that said
I almost let you leave me,
mailboxes, a question
of who was who. You asked:
I didn’t really know.
I’m lost washing dishes.
There is arguably disconnect between these lines; “The Wrong Poem” asserts the wrong answers to the right question, or perhaps the right questions for the wrong answers.
Poems named after months are always in prose format, creating neat little blocks of visual associations and gorgeous spacing that allow each poem to breathe and the reader to cleanse their palates. “November Blue” plays with the color, a unique and uplifting piece that places the speaker in a “blue-streamered old hotel,” in “Blue Texas sky, blue map of the world.” The speaker claims, “O snow cone lips and sweet sapphire, we’re finally moving on.” The poem pulls us forward, imploring us to keep venturing further and further.
“The Question” is uniquely formatted as prose, but is broken apart with white space. Segregating narrative and conversation/monologue, Filipelli manages to create a dynamic, multi-layer poem.
After that, like flowers paired in a pot, or paint buckets propped against a fence, we lined up with our skinny legs and luck threaded us together.
You and me
Under a Patsy Cline/Chet Atkins rest-stop sign,
our sweat thin as beer can condensation.
Here, Filipelli uses spacing, shifting from first person to second person narrative, repeating “You and me” three times. Creating wild west–like snippets, “The Question” is more playful and story-like in comparison to many of the other poems in Elsewhere.
An astonishing and deeply stoic collection of poetry, Elseplace is led by a poet who has left palpable pieces of herself in spots that have viscerally absorbed depression, longing, love, ambivalence, guilt, and abandonment. Laurie Filipelli’s poems are intricate and careful scraps of beauty that altogether create a masterful first collection.
In the Garden of Stone
Fiction by Susan Tekulve
Hub City Press, April 2013
ISBN-13: 9781891885211
$17.95; 336pp.
Reviewed by Lori A. May
Winner of the South Carolina First Novel Prize, In the Garden of Stone is a beautifully woven multi-generational story of a West Virginia family. Beginning with Sicilian immigrants who came to America to make an earnest living with coal stained hands, this is a novel steeped in sorrow, struggle, legal and emotional crimes, and redemption.
Throughout each generation, poverty and pride collide as the labors of love and land fuel passions. The reader is first introduced to teenaged Emma, who possesses a youthful desire for pleasure even as she works her fingers to the bone. While running errands for her family, Emma meets Caleb Sypher. The cryptic older man speaks to her primal senses, and she “blushed, her sweaty hands melting the ice block down to half on the way back to her aunt’s house.” This moment launches the story of the longing and heartache of a young woman who falls in love with a man and marries him a week later, growing into her adult life too fast and too soon. As innocent as she is, Emma’s mother provides instruction for her daughter’s first night as a married woman, “warn[ing] Emma that feeding her new husband calves’ feet jelly, dandelion, or too much salt would lead to reckless amatory feelings, causing irreparable mischief.”
The romance between Emma and Caleb not only leads the way to future generations in the narration, it also heightens the novel’s suspense. Caleb is a quiet, humble man, yet he possesses secrets not easily uncovered, like the details of how his first wife died. While sharing champagne that “flowed like liquid gold into the glass, so beautiful that even a child would be tempted to drink it,” Emma finds courage in prying into her husband’s past. This event signifies Emma’s metamorphosis from naïve farm girl to a more worldly woman. She becomes “surprised by her own boldness” as she defends her marriage, even to her own family who remains suspicious of Caleb throughout the years.
There is a quiet mystique throughout these southern lives. Tekulve presents lulling prose that offers a lyrical sense of place: “The red rising sun burned the dingy fog above the coal camp until the narrow sky turned indigo, the color of birdhouses behind the Poles’ and Italians’ houses down in the foreign place.” Depression-era characters are crafted with reality, as they hide silverware and become suspicious of anyone who threatens to destroy what little security they have built into their lives.
Adding to the descriptive prose is Tekulve’s evident passion for culinary flavor. Many pages are filled with decadent depictions of meals that evoke the senses. An evening’s meal is described as “rabbit braised with honey and vinegar, covered with wild onions and figs,” while a snack of popcorn is eaten “from the good china bowls, spooning it into their mouths with the wedding silver.”
In the Garden of Stone is both a family saga spanning generations and a time capsule of southern history and culture. With painstaking lyrical prose that depicts the harsh realities of the land and its people, readers will be lured and lulled by the thorough and thoughtful care of Appalachian lives over several defining years.
Farmer’s Almanac
Stories by Chris Fink
Emergency Press, 2013
ISBN-13: 9780983693277
$15.95; 225pp.
Reviewed by Natalie Sypolt
There are a few things that people outside of the Midwest think about when they hear “Wisconsin.” Cheese. The Packers. Maybe cold weather and hard farm life. In Farmer’s Almanac, Chris Fink sets out to help the reader understand what happens beyond these stereotypes deep in the heart of Odette County, where there’s not much else to do except what has always been done.
In “The Bergamot Weekly Almanac,” the narrator writes directly to his neighbors, admonishing them for their unchanging ways. “Nothing remarkable has ever happened here,” he says. “You people saw to that.” Much like the mud that coats the bottom of the ill-planned Bergamot Lake, people are mired in Odette County, unwilling or unable to leave, even if, like Billy, they can throw one hell of a baseball. When someone does leave, the absence is not for long. They are quickly sucked back into a hole that doesn’t quite fit them anymore.
People in Odette County know who they are. Much like farmers have followed the Farmer’s Almanac for decades, Fink’s characters fall into place, guided by an unwritten rulebook for behavior (therein illustrating the genius behind the organization of this collection, which mirrors an actual Farmer’s Almanac). In “Country Mile,” a story about Worden’s rock crew moving a huge boulder out of the farmer’s field, the narrator says, “Weasel sat up in the tractor where he belonged, and we were down in the dirt where we belonged.” Class is a common theme in this collection. There are the thoroughbreds and the boarder horses, the beautiful people swimming at the quarry and the unlovelies drinking at the Wooden Nickel, those who shoot for sport and those who shoot for food. But, Fink cautions, resist the urge to lump these people together or make judgments based on what they do, how much they have, or even where they live. After the giant boulder is pulled from the field, Weasel uses the tractor to move it to the lake, where all the men undress and jump from the rock into the cool water. Even though all the men are hired laborers, the narrator says, “Our underwear were a rainbow…If someone told you that was Worden’s rock crew, you wouldn’t have believed them. I couldn’t believe it, either, how the color was always right there in those men.”
In “Shady Valley Days,” what might be the heart of this collection, the pastor says,
“It is a human endeavor to wish to know the dimensions of one’s community—the heights of its peaks and the depths of its valleys—and by these dimensions to know integrity…We notice that even a sixteenth, like the head of a small boy, is vital, and in good faith we would never ignore a single sixteenth in our truest measure.”
With Chris Fink, the reader explores the heights and depths of Odette County. There are beautiful glimmers, like Dale’s view from the top of the cliff at the quarry right before plunging in until he turns too far in toward the rock wall.
From the outside looking in, Odette County might seem like a place where not much happens, but what Chris Fink reminds the reader is that, while the landscape might be unremarkable, the people who live there are not. Much like the stories in this fine collection, they are complex, multicolored, and not to be overlooked.
Several Ways to Die in Mexico City: An Autobiography of Death in Mexico City
Nonfiction by Kurt Hollander
Feral House, November 2012
ISBN-13: 9781936239498
$22.95; 245 pp.
Reviewed by Ann Beman
If you’ve seen Christopher Guest’s movie Best in Show, you’ll recall the scene where Harlan Pepper confides that he “used to be able to name every nut there was.” At times in Several Ways to Die in Mexico City, the author might remind you of Harlan Pepper: “Peanut. Hazelnut. Cashew nut. Macadamia nut … Pine nut … Pistachio nut. Red pistachio nut. Natural, all natural white pistachio nut.” But Kurt Hollander’s pistachio nuts are lethal: “hormones, pesticides, antibiotics in food, toxic additives in cigarettes and alcohol, parasites in the water…pollution in the air.” Not to mention disasters, conquest, the Inquisition, cement, motor vehicles, speed bumps, plumbing, amoebas, protozoa, viruses, and Walmart.
Author, photographer, and filmmaker Hollander arrived in Mexico City from his native New York City more than 20 years ago. Plan A: Learn Spanish and soak in what was then a thriving and unique local culture. Drawn by the city’s art world and by the woman who would become his wife and the mother of his two children, Hollander had found his “place on the planet.” While living the happy life, he bought and renovated a funky old billiards hall, then bought a bar. He edited the renowned bilingual art magazine poliester, wrote and directed Carambola, a film homage to billiards culture, and wrote a successful series of children’s books. Everything changed, however, with a raging case of salmonella, which then kick-started chronic ulcerative colitis, an immune disorder causing his body’s defenses to consider his large intestine as an alien to be attacked. “Life dripped out of me and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to stop it.”
Faced with his own mortality, Hollander devised Plan B. Appropriately, he began with “The End,” the title of the first chapter of an historical guide to death in Mexico City. In this guide/autobiography/meditation, the author introduces the larger issues of death within the culture, but then focuses more tightly, taking a microscope to the particulars. The result is a book that looks at humans’ parasitic relationship with Mexico City, inviting leaps of imagination. Imagine the author’s large intestine as the megacity. Imagine not only inhabiting the city, but the city inhabiting you—
“It’s what’s inside that counts. Having eaten the food, drunk the water and alcohol and breathed in the air in Mexico City almost every day for over twenty years, I have incorporated a microscopic Mexico City inside my body.”
Imagine gods as unicellular microorganisms—
“Bacteria is the great architect of life, for not only was it the very first life form on earth but it has been intimately involved in the creation and evolution of all species. Like a god, bacteria are invisible and omnipresent, and being that they can replicate asexually ad infinitum they are eternal and indestructible. Due to their role in human death, bacteria can also be seen as the Holy Ghost or the Grim Reaper.”
Within his examination and litany of ways to die, Hollander’s voice ranges from lively personal reflection in chapter intros to dry journalism in research and statistics-heavy sections. The narrative would benefit from more of the author’s personal reflection, as he has a pitch-perfect morbid sense of humor, not to mention a developed eye for the artistic merits of urban decay in general and Mexico’s tradition of gore art in particular. Smack dab in the middle of the book are photos by the author. The pictures of street food and public toilets are grotesque. Sure. But the shots of religious figures in Catholic churches and those depicting handmade Santa Muerte figures and their craftsmen are the most arresting, both illustrating beautifully Mexico’s special relationship to—and unique culture of—death.
Turns out, both Hollander’s health and his outlook have improved since the book’s inception, but he imagines his death will most likely come from “the long-term, intimate interaction between [his] body and Mexico City.” Yet you never know. As Harlan Pepper might say, you could go like that, “faster than a walnut could roll off a henhouse roof.”
Night Moves
Poems by Stephanie Barber
Publishing Genius Press, February 2013
ISBN-13: 9780988750302
$10.00; 75pp.
Reviewed by Gina Vaynshteyn
In her latest poetry collection, Stephanie Barber explores the profound effects of Bob Seger’s 1976 classic song, “Night Moves.” In the dutifully titled Night Moves, Barber focuses on YouTube users comments for the unofficial video. She identifies and extracts common themes and the validity of generational music, interest, and emotions to gain a sense of unity and cohesiveness between the several hundred commenters.
Since Barber’s work is purely borrowed from YouTube comments, the collection itself could arguably be labeled as “found poetry.” But does this style automatically rob Barber of her own poetic license and integrity? Poets such as Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot have incorporated various other texts into their poetry before; however, found poetry was truly redefined in the twentieth century. Occurring alongside Andy Warhol’s Pop Art, writers such as Annie Dillard emerged and remolded the standard definition of poetry. Barber, a visual artist as well as a poet, has created poems mowed into grass, art exhibits, and films in addition to conceptualizing music, emotion, humor, and stories. Most of her projects aggressively and beautifully focus on obsessiveness and multi-dimensionality. Night Moves is not just found poetry, but a concept book.
The first comment Night Moves starts with is
“To Julie…where ever you are. I STILL remember the first time I saw you in psychology class, 10th grade, spring of ‘76’. You made night moves for me 77–78. I will carry those memories in my heart forever, and only stop, with the last beat of my heart…..”
The following comment Barber chooses to include acts as a response to this moment of recognition and nostalgia: “I remember…I remember…” Oftentimes, comments speak to each other inadvertently, offering organic, symbiotic relationships between YouTube users. Barber also includes humorous comments, such as “Tina Fey’s ‘Night Cheese’ brought me here,” and “im here for the gangbang.” Although some comments don’t take the song seriously as others do, they still illustrate that “Night Moves” brought a dizzying array of people to the same website. Teenagers as well as adults back up their “Night Moves” devotion by spilling memories and defining what “music” truly is. According to Barber’s collection of comments, music has the magical ability to time travel, make a man remember his first lust, and evoke grammatically incorrect heated opinions.
Stephanie Barber closely studies these interactions between of a group of people who have been affected by Seger’s “Night Moves” in some way or another. In her experiment, readers can find poetry in lines such as: “More than 20 years later, nobody has ever kissed me like that,” or simply the juxtaposition between crass and longing quips. Utilizing social media as the focus of her project, Barber illuminates the beauty of candid, anonymous conversation over the Internet.
Allegiance and Betrayal
Stories by Peter Makuck
Syracuse UP, March 2013
ISBN-13: 9780815610151
$19.95; 196pp.
Reviewed by Renée K. Nicholson
“How do friends of twenty-two years sell their house, move to Florida, and not say goodbye, leave an address, phone number, anything?” Rick, of “Friends” in Peter Makuck’s collection, Allegiance and Betrayal, asks a question at the heart of this story collection: what do relationships ultimately mean? How, when they go wrong, do they veer so far afield? The characters in these twelve stories probe the gamut of relationships—those between lovers, friends, colleagues, spouses, family members, and beyond—revealing each from the perspective of how they support or undermine each other.
Although not specifically linked across all twelve stories, some stories chart the progression of a character across a short series. An example is Tim, off to college at a small, remote school on the coast of Maine, leaving his love—a restored ’49 Ford—to fulfill his parents’ wish for him to receive higher education. In three stories that feature Tim, he picks his way through complicated romantic entanglements, an outing with a friend and rebellious schoolmate, and a new understanding of a somewhat revered Uncle. In each, he grapples with his parent’s goals and expectations for him. Ultimately, Tim’s journey leads him to understand better why his parents wish for a brighter future and ambitions for their son. In “Allegiances” Tim, as the narrator, tells us, “St. Anthony’s College was the only college to give me a chance. I felt guilty and lucky by turns. I now had good grades, something to lose…” Here, Tim recognizes his new chance, even as he potentially jeopardizes it. Later, in an exchange with his Uncle Jarek, Tim is reminded again of his father’s sacrifices:
“Let me tell you something. You’ve got to work hard to get good at something. Work. Study hard, get good, and it will pay off. Too bad I never did.”
“I don’t know.”
“Your mother and father’ll be hurt. My brother’s not working two jobs for his health, ya know.”
Another character we see more than once is Mark, a PhD who alternates between liberal- mindedness and a cranky, sometimes sarcastic and often jaded view toward the world. Mark is thrust back into the orbit of his extended family, frustrated with family members who don’t share his worldview. Later, he finds redemption in a 20-minute traffic hang up with a multicultural group of strangers.
Whether we see characters in multiple stories or simply get a piece of their lives, Makuck’s characters find themselves in constant movement. They drive, boat, or, in the case of Tim, sneak out on foot. Many of these characters have physically moved from the place they’ve grown up. New Englanders are thrust into the South, Europeans live in America, or, in “Lights at Skipper’s Cove,” a character from New Jersey presides over an informal club at a Carolina marina. In this way, many of the characters are transplants from one place to another.
The idea of both allegiances and betrayals evoked in the title plays out across the stories and characters. Men and women cheat on each other, and family members act rotten toward one another. Gin and tonics are sipped while grousing over other people’s wrongs. But from time to time, redemption is found in unlikely characters, like the good ol’ boy Booger, in “Booger’s Gift,” who offers friendship to a down and out divorced man as he purchases a used car from him. Makuck’s collection skillfully shows how human relationships are hardly ever straightforward, complicated by circumstance and bias, convoluted with overblown beliefs, and ultimately redeemed through silence and subtle moments of perfect empathy.
Setting also plays an important role in this collection. Charting his stories up and down the East Coast, Makuck’s locales are nuanced and pitch-perfect. As Tim and his schoolmate, J.C., sneak off their college’s grounds, they encounter rugged, costal Maine. “The path became a gully of white sand that climbed steeply and topped out in dune grass.” On a boat in the Atlantic waters off the Carolina shores, a character shows us the ocean’s natural beauty: “The water was light turquoise, and clear to sixty feet down. Looking like iridescent parachutes, jellyfish drifted below us, a visual echo of the small puffy clouds overhead.” Even driving to Connecticut not far outside New York City takes on an arresting scene: “The western sky was turning the color of blood. The road, flanked by tall trees, was a tunnel of shadows until we came to Rogers Lake, a wide expanse of water.” Clearly evoking a strong sense of place, Makuck creates locales as arresting as the characters—and their exquisitely rendered shortcomings.
Reviewer Bios:
Michael Luke Benedetto hails from New England but currently lives and writes in San Diego. His work has appeared in the Long River Review and The Essay Connection.
Ann Beman is LAR’s nonfiction editor.
Lori A. May writes across the genres and drinks copious amounts of coffee. Her essays and reviews have been published in Brevity, Passages North, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus Magazine, and New Orleans Review. Her fifth book, Square Feet, is forthcoming from Accents Publishing in January 2014. Canadian by birth and disposition, she now calls Michigan home. Visit her online at www.loriamay.com.
Gina Vaynshteyn is currently studying poetry in San Diego and has work published or forthcoming in PANK, Treehouse, Milksugar, and The California Journal of Women Writers. She regularly writes for Hellogiggles and The Rumpus. You should read her thoughts on breakfast cereal and quasi-politics on Twitter @ginainterrupted.
Natalie Sypolt lives and writes in West Virginia. She received her MFA in fiction from West Virginia University and currently teaches creative writing, literature, and composition. Her fiction and book reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Glimmer Train, r.kv.r.y., Superstition Review, Paste, Willow Springs Review, and The Kenyon Review Online, among others. Natalie is the winner of the Glimmer Train New Writers Contest, the West Virginia Fiction Award, and the Betty Gabehart Prize. She also serves as a literary editor for the Anthology of Appalachian Writers; is co-host of SummerBooks, a literary podcast; and is currently the special guest prose editor for Banango Street Review.
Renée K. Nicholson lives in Morgantown, WV, splitting her artistic pursuits between writing and dance. A former professional dancer, Renée earned teaching certification from American Ballet Theatre and an MFA in Creative Writing at West Virginia University. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Chelsea, Mid-American Review, Perigee: A Journal of the Arts, Paste, Moon City Review, Fiction Writers Review, Redux, Cleaver Magazine, Poets & Writers, Dossier, Linden Avenue, Blue Lyra Review, Switchback, The Superstition Review, The Gettysburg Review and elsewhere. She serves as Assistant to the Director of the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop, and was the 2011 Emerging Writer-in-Residence at Penn State-Altoona. She is a member of the book review staff at Los Angeles Review, as well as a member of The National Books Critics Circle and of the Dance Critics Association. Renée co-hosts the literary podcast SummerBooks and co-founded Souvenir: A Journal. Her website is www.reneenicholson.com.