A thoughtful and evocative collection of tales and poems.
This varied collection of short stories and sonnets delves into themes of life, death, love, and war.
Morrissey opens his thoughtfully crafted book with an introduction recounting the trials and tribulations of self-publishing a book of collected works at a time when streaming platforms are grabbing potential readers’ attention. After plans to traditionally publish a collection fell through, Morrissey was inspired to create Twelve Winters, a press that focuses on innovative stories for avid readers. He stresses that “the worlds created through fictive imagination…will always come…to their fullest fruition via the participation of the reader.” This opens the door to allow readers to bring their own interpretations, and their own inspirations, to the stories and sonnets that follow. The collection is divided into three sections of short stories (“Crowsong Stories,” “Transitional Stories,” and “Early Stories”) and one of sonnets. The first two parts, especially “Transitional Stories,” contain deeply descriptive, imaginative, and sometimes haunting tales; the author excels in setting an atmospheric and natural scene, namely in the evocative stories “A Wintering Place” and “Communion With the Dead,” which wrestle with ideas of life and death in vivid, descriptive prose: “He had the mad notion this was not Angela at all but a stranger staging a malignant prank, or even some otherworld demon toying with his soul.” In the third part, he turns the spotlight toward characters; often, the narrators are flawed men living ordinary lives, and though some rely on tired tropes (such as attractive, empty young women), the stories are short, powerful, and simply written, making the reader’s interpretation an important contribution. The sonnets embrace similar themes of growth and change (“Seedlings,” “Obsolescence”), death (“Shroud,” “Pilgrim,” “Acts,” “Dignity”), and the beauty found in everyday life (“Ingots,” “Symmetry”). Morrissey does an excellent job of blending vastly different stories and sonnets together to create one cohesive color—and then places the paintbrush in the reader’s hand.
A thoughtful and evocative collection of tales and poems.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2023
ISBN: 9781733194990
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Twelve Winters Press
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.
Many years after her older brother, Bear, went missing, Barbara Van Laar vanishes from the same sleepaway camp he did, leading to dark, bitter truths about her wealthy family.
One morning in 1975 at Camp Emerson—an Adirondacks summer camp owned by her family—it's discovered that 13-year-old Barbara isn't in her bed. A problem case whose unhappily married parents disdain her goth appearance and "stormy" temperament, Barbara is secretly known by one bunkmate to have slipped out every night after bedtime. But no one has a clue where's she permanently disappeared to, firing speculation that she was taken by a local serial killer known as Slitter. As Jacob Sluiter, he was convicted of 11 murders in the 1960s and recently broke out of prison. He's the one, people say, who should have been prosecuted for Bear's abduction, not a gardener who was framed. Leave it to the young and unproven assistant investigator, Judy Luptack, to press forward in uncovering the truth, unswayed by her bullying father and male colleagues who question whether women are "cut out for this work." An unsavory group portrait of the Van Laars emerges in which the children's father cruelly abuses their submissive mother, who is so traumatized by the loss of Bear—and the possible role she played in it—that she has no love left for her daughter. Picking up on the themes of families in search of themselves she explored in Long Bright River (2020), Moore draws sympathy to characters who have been subjected to spousal, parental, psychological, and physical abuse. As rich in background detail and secondary mysteries as it is, this ever-expansive, intricate, emotionally engaging novel never seems overplotted. Every piece falls skillfully into place and every character, major and minor, leaves an imprint.
"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593418918
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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