An erudite and sensual meditation on desire and a relationship’s demise.
A collection of poetry explores matters of the heart.
This brief but weighty volume of poems circles around themes of love, loss, grief, and nostalgia. Whitley begins with “How To Talk Your Way Through Abandonment,” using repetition of the command “Say” to put readers in an introspective trance. In “Piazza San Marco, 1996,” the poet describes a photograph of a couple feeding pigeons in Italy and “the chaos of so many eager wings.” He writes of the irresistible temptation to look back on the past in “Retrospective.” In “Souvenir,” the speaker wonders if he can alter the course of his relationship history after the fact. “Thirteen Ways To Deny an Ending” imagines clever ways to prevent a breakup. The poet contemplates the power (or lack thereof) of talismans in the face of grief in “Here.” He makes a stilted attempt at moving on in “Stop Me If You Think.” In “Contemplative,” he acknowledges the struggle of letting go: “The slipknot that is the heart / doggedly thumps out its plea, / release, release.” A delightful, drunken, and laughter-filled night is the focus of “Reflection of Little to No Consequence.” Throughout, Whitley deftly draws on biblical, mythical, and literary references to flesh out his text. The author is a talented wordsmith. His language is mellifluous, as when he writes of “unstoppable slippage,” “indiscretion’s dusty carcass,” and a “sucrose and cinnamon girl.” He paints vivid scenes with lines like “Overhead, the blasé moon hangs / like a luminous wrecking ball.” Whitley accurately captures the deliciousness of longing; remembering a lover, he admits to “adding salt and lemon to my morning coffee / so as not to lose my taste for you completely.” The collection loses its way when the poet experiments with an aubade, a calendelle, and journal excerpts. But Whitley soon finds his way back to the intimate, tender musings of a heartbroken man: “This is just the music / of never-forgetting-her, / the score of the rest of your life.”
An erudite and sensual meditation on desire and a relationship’s demise.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-952204-06-7
Page Count: 68
Publisher: Red Mountain Press
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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