In a pivotal scene in Tawnysha Greene’s A House Made of Stars (Burlesque Press, 2015), the ten-year-old narrator flips through a children’s illustrated guide to the Bible to find several pages stapled closed.
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Beth Gilstrap’s I Am Barbarella (Twelve Winters Press, 2015) opens with a Carson McCullers quote: “I am not meant to be alone, and without you, who understands.”
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The standards for near-and-post-apocalyptic Americana have risen, not least of which because the past two years have offered a surfeit of quality world’s end fiction with 2014’s bestselling Station Eleven and, this year, the more rarified In the Country of Ice Cream Star and Find Me available for pickup.
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His most recent collection, Chapel of Inadvertent Joy, displays a Jeffrey McDaniel as potent as ever, despite its contending with the various declines of middle-age and a love wrecked by infidelity. The poems in this collection, like in his other books, have a habit of sneaking up and biting you, making for a surprising and invigorating experience.
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There’s nothing like a death to bring the complexities of dysfunctional families into bold relief, and the Barrs of West Virginia are no exception. When Steve, the eldest of three brothers and a diagnosed schizophrenic, dies of a heart attack, Mark, the youngest who’s done some time in Bellevue himself, travels home after a long absence for the funeral.
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Night Surfer is Chuck Prophet’s 13th solo album. Lucky #13. Quite a feat for an artist with a cult following, though not entirely surprising from someone with such a devoted fan base. Regular followers will connect with some of Prophet’s trademarks: semi-spoken lyrics, smoke-and-gravel voice, and riffs that make you want to play air guitar.
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