New England

Angel and Apostle

admin — Thu, 27 May 2010 00:01:00 +0000

Deborah Noyes’s Angel and Apostle, styled as a sequel to The Scarlet Letter, is a fascinating journey and an interesting effort to flesh out the life of a child attempting to live under the shadow of shame, guilt, and community exile. Set shortly after the ostracism of Hester Prynne we see the common adage that the “sins of [in this case the mother] shall be visited upon her children” is a fatalistic axiom that can be made real and that hangs heavy over the heads of Hester and Pearl her precocious and earlier-than-normal world-weary daughter.

Even as the townsfolk lay upon Pearl, the dubious title of “the child of the temptress”, and as much as the other characters of the small New England town would have it otherwise, she appears to lead a life where the consequences of her mother’s supposed social transgression are at the margins of her world. Pearl finds work within house of the sickly mother of a small blind boy, Simon, who she has befriended, and like the child of any time period, sees enthralling mystery and adventure in the countryside. This, for me, is a significant point of the book, the disallowing of the community and previous circumstances through which Pearl, first in New England and then in the “motherland,” seeks her own path and an ultimate sense of individual freedom.

Noyes does a remarkable job of weaving rich depictions of puritanical New England society as the backdrop for the affairs of a strong woman, her bold progeny and the lives of the sordid people that orbit in challenge. Angel and Apostle is a fulfilling next chapter in the darkly romantic or perhaps bittersweet tale of Ms. Prynne and Pearl. Upon finishing every good book, your heart sinks a little at the conclusion of such a wonderful tale but Noyes can rest assured that the humbling task that she assumed in writing a professed sequel to The Scarlet Letter was a riveting success. I am sure that, as I did, Nathaniel Hawthorne would find Angel and Apostle a delightful extrapolation on a master’s work built upon by another master in deliciously page-turning form.

Written by: Brandon Copeland, May 26th 2010

The Winter Sun: Notes on a Vocation

admin — Wed, 20 May 2009 10:46:00 +0000

By Fanny Howe

Graywolf Press

Fanny Howe’s ostensible concern in The Winter Sun: Notes on a Vocation is the origin and nature of her writing life. Poet, novelist, and essayist of distinction, Howe also engages her familiar themes of mysticism, art making, and social justice, as well as her familiar backdrops of Boston and Ireland, with her signature catholicity.

In the two anchoring essays of the collection, which is Howe’s second work of lyrical nonfiction, she explores the origins of her work through bits of straight autobiography (childhood and adolescence in “Branches,” adolescence and adulthood in “Person, Place, Time”) interwoven with meditations on the works and (often famous) friendships that have influenced her. These two lengthy essays are refreshingly offset by several brief pieces, including the terse, brilliant “America,” a meditation on social injustice and spirituality (two pages); the glitteringly weird “The Land of Dreams,” a meditation on Jesus (one-and-a-half pages); and the gorgeous “Evocation,” a tiny slice of memoir made more sensuous by its subtle, tannic bite (four pages).

A mid-length essay, "Waters Wide," brings us from narrative of Howe's history into her present tense and recent past, moving with an easy clarity through meditations on the natures of time and language, writing as work as prayer, and qualities of transreligeous experience. There is an intimacy in this piece that is often lacking in "Branches" and "Person, Place, Time" which have their strengths in reading as cultural and political histories as well as personal ones.

Throughout The Winter Sun, Howe employs a prose form that has drawn accurate comparisons to collage. While these essays are rich in content, readers new to Howe may find her idiom taxing in the collection’s two longest pieces, where her narrative can become so broadly associative as to suggest evasion. Fortunately, neophytes to Howe have her extensive canon from which to draw if __The Winter Sun_ proves a mixed first meeting, while veteran converts will likely find it a fluid addition to her body of work.

Written by: Kaja Katamay, May 20th 2009

Never Tell a Lie

admin — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:26:00 +0000

By Hallie Ephron

Harper Collins

In a suburban area in Massachusetts, David and Ivy Rose host a yard sale as a way of getting rid of items left in the attic by previous owners of their recently purchased Victorian home. During the sale, a woman named Melinda, whom they both knew in high school, informs David and Ivy that as a child she played in the house they now own and would like to see the inside again. When David offers to take Melinda inside for a tour, he leaves her alone for a brief moment and unbeknownst to him, this is the last time he or anyone else will see Melinda.

When Melinda disappears and her car is found nearby with the newspaper ad for the Rose’s yard sale circled, Detective Blanchard traces her last known steps to the yard sale. No one, including David, remembers seeing her leave, yet detective Blanchard discovers her bloody clothes among the leftover items of the sale. The police take the Roses in for questioning, and Ivy discovers that David hasn't been entirely truthful.

As the evidence mounts and clues are uncovered, David is charged with murder and placed under arrest, which leaves Ivy to find the truth. In Ivy’s search to find out what really happened to Melinda, she discovers some unexpected secrets leading back to their high school years.

Never Tell a Lie is a very quick and easy read. A surprise toward the end provides the perfect twist to this tale of suspense. Hallie Ephron introduces the perfect suburban couple, and then turns their lives into deception, danger and unraveling the truth. This mystery is a page turner and you will not be able to put it down until the very last sentence is read.

Written by: LaToya Rogers, March 9th 2009