Livingston Press

The Cosmopolitans

gwen — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:00:00 +0000

The Cosmopolitans by Nadia Kalman is the story of a family of Russian immigrants reconciling their illusions of America with the reality of life in Stamford, Connecticut. Osip and Stalina are the patriarchs of the Molochnik clan, holding sway over a house of three daughters—Milla, Yana, and Katya—and Pratik, an exchange student from Bangladesh. The novel works almost like a series of short stories, revolving around vignettes wherein each character is given his or her turn to be featured as the centerpiece of the marriage. The reader is guided through the years, watching as the family expands and contracts in a halting, non-linear manner, almost as in a time lapse movie: there are marriages, births, departures, and reunions as the Molochniks struggle individually and collectively to align their real-life trajectories with their American dreams. Throughout, Kalman conjures comic and tragic scenes that are authentic and universal in their emotion but are simultaneously particular and novel in their portrayal.

For instance, Milla’s well-meaning but resoundingly immature husband, Malcom, awakes the day after his wedding and “felt around for his doubts, which he’d discussed at such length with his family, professor, this Buddhist guy who hung around New Haven selling stemless carnations, his dentist, and this girl from high school he’d run into at the drugstore. Miraculously, they’d disappeared... His love for Milla was a stable, growing love, a love like moss.”

The story is also shot through with surrealist, or perhaps magic-realist, qualities. Stalina is in possession of an heirloom handkerchief that speaks to her as the Russian Soul, chastising her when she strays too far from the ideals of Mother Russia. There is also the fact that Katya, the youngest Molochnik daughter, tends to involuntary quote the decidedly masculine voice of Leonid Brezhnev, much to her dismay. The family members’ reactions to her channeling of the Communist leader reveal much about their characters: Osip believes it is a habit of Katya’s that reveals her good mood; Stalina is sure it is a curse she brought upon her daughter because of a long buried secret; Katya herself tries to escape the voice in any way possible. It’s amazing how believable these fantastical turns are in the capable hands of Kalman, who admits that, “as I wrote, I heard the voices of my immigrant family, who spin happy stories out of sad histories and create cautionary tales out of seeming triumphs, and who taught me not to take anything at face value.”

In fact, reading The Cosmopolitans feels a bit like meeting a rambunctious group of strangers for the first time. First impressions may inspire skepticism, as their quirks stand out as oddities that are jarring and unfamiliar. However, with time and proximity, these characters become beloved, their quirks endearing and indulged. Indeed, they come to feel like family.

Written by: Jo Ristow, March 21st 2011

Cuba On My Mind

emily — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000

By Katie Wainwright

Livingston Press

Cuba, in my mind: cigars, Fidel Castro’s beard, Elian Gonzalez, and a very murky high school level comprehension of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Let’s get more specific and, arguably, more self-incriminating. What comes to mind when I think of pre-Castro Cuba? The Godfather: Part II. That lavish New Year’s Eve party where Michael discovers Fredo’s betrayal. Oh yes, and the actual history: Fulgencio Batista stepping down (read: fleeing), leaving Cuba to Castro.

Clearly, I am not the most informed. But seriously, as an American who was born and educated well into Castro’s rule, how much objectivity, let alone compassion, has informed my understanding of Cuba’s people and culture? With this question, and the sincere hope of expanding my mental impression, I cracked the spine of Katie Wainwright’s first novel, Cuba on My Mind.

The novel begins as Gramma Catalina is waking up, her hand being held by her grandson, Wayne Olaf. In the present, Catalina is dying; receiving hospice care in her daughter’s mansion, paid for by her indifferent son-in-law. Feeling her body shut down, and uncomfortable with the medicines and contraptions unnaturally keeping her alive, Catalina longs for her final freedom. Unsure of how much time she has left, her grandson Wayne Olaf is there, wishing to record as much of her life story as he can. And of course, Wayne has issues of his own to overcome—a twenty-one-year-old Tulane law student, buckling under his parents’ pressuring control over his professional and romantic future. Turning to one another, grandmother and grandson forge a bond that bridges their fragmented family, and allows them both to grow.

Carried largely by Catalina’s narrative of her own life, Cuba on My Mind transitions between her childhood in Banes, Cuba and the present in New Orleans. Growing up, she is the only daughter of Scotsman McAuley, who is the Administrator for the U.S. Sugar Company, and Cuban mother, called Santa Caridad (Charity) by the people. From this position of privilege, Catalina’s memories allow the reader insight into the tensions between the gringos and the Cuban people. Divided by the Banes River Bridge, under which the most destitute and dying live, Catalina’s worldview is consistently influenced by the stark difference between the pueblo civil and the American company’s private land.

Given these juxtaposing realities, and the many anecdotes from her past, I wish Wainwright would have more forcibly commented on the clear economic and social inequalities within her Banes community. Almost all Catalina recounts alludes to these discrepancies, but I believe more evocative language could have made these instances more powerful to the reader. Further, I would have loved more about the strong Cuban women in her life. Loyally cared for and protected by her fierce Nanny Carmen, “an ornery creature…peasant from the hills, a square woman strong as any man,” and her mother, Santa Caridad, who has the compassion and courage to aid the rebels, even with Batista’s knowledge. To me, these women, and the other housemaids who gossip about and care for their colonizing employers are the novel’s backbone.

Although Castro’s revolution is the novel’s historical anchor, as I read, I realized the story is much more poignantly about family—from nuclear to national. In the present, the familial moments resonated. Having lost all but one of my grandparents in recent years, I have seen their deterioration and understood the tough decisions that come with properly caring for a dying loved one. It is taxing on any family, and again, although I wish she would have delved more, I commend Wainwright for taking this on as well.

The novel’s shortcomings stem from Wainwright's attempting to do too much. As much as I can quibble about the plot being too neat at times, and characters that are a bit underdeveloped, it is clear Cuba on My Mind is a work of love and nostalgia for the author's birthplace. And for a self-proclaimed hobby writer, Wainwright didn't do all that bad.

Written by: Alison Veith, November 3rd 2010

Small Displacements

admin — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Vanessa Furse Jackson

Livingston Press

This tiny, obscure (I am the only person as of this writing to add and review it on Goodreads) volume of short stories by England native and Ohio resident writer Vanessa Furse Jackson ties together eleven tales into a loose theme: sudden changes in someone's life, whether major or minor, and the resulting shift felt afterward. Most of the stories are overtly sad, with others having just undercurrents of a sort of foreshadowed melancholy with abrupt endings. These lead the reader to hunt backwards over what was just read, looking for further clues to piece together some sort of denouement other than the insidious daylight gloom at story's end.

The titular “displacements” experienced by the stories' characters range from the prolonged deaths of spouses, the growing apart of spouses, and the chance meeting of unhappy strangers with something to offer the other. Children are not spared these wounds and scarifications of life, and instead seem to fare the worst in Jackson's stories. Prankster adolescents are thrust from their childhoods by a strange, menacing adult, a fourteen-year-old girl waits with her mother in an abortion clinic, and two young siblings are faced for the first time with the death of a friend and their uncertainty at how to grieve. Though all the stories are brief and the characters necessarily sketched as concisely, the reader can't help but feel emotionally invested in them nonetheless.

I think Vanessa Furse Jackson shows skill as a character artist; her detail and language is sparse, but it doesn't hurt her storytelling and writing prowess. She just doesn't engage in overly flowery or purple prose, preferring to concentrate instead on her characters and the situations and actions in which they find themselves. At 155 pages, Small Displacements is a quick, needle-sharp, and gut-punching read.

Written by: Natalie Ballard, August 21st 2010

The Prospect of Magic

admin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By M.O. Walsh

Livingston Press

The Prospect of Magic, a collection of ten stories, sets up a wonderful world where the real and magical live side by side. It’s enchanting. Some of the stories are hopeful, some are tragic, and some are sad, just like real life. All of them feature flights of fancy, just like the best magic trick.

The story centers around Fluker, Louisiana, where the World Famous Ploofop Travelling Circus decides to stay after its owner, Abidail Ploofop, dies. Margo the Mind Reader gives a eulogy, “a speech that, legend has it, wrapped a hopeful message around the mind of every person in attendance.” Soon, the townsfolk are playing poker on their roof with giants, receiving lions in the mail, and angry clown gangs roam the streets, making trouble. These delightful images of a circus gone to seed populate the stories, but never pull away from Walsh's general message of good will and that people can be accepted no matter what.

In "The Cat Who Ate The Boy," the young narrator receives a lion named Big Kitty mailed to the carnival, and after attempting to care for it, takes the beast to his grandfather. The story is told through the boy’s eyes, and Big Kitty that lurks in and out of the story soon becomes a metaphor for his parent’s relationship – an element that is in many ways big, strong and beyond the boy's control.

The title story tells of a teenage boy learning to deal with the magic he has, and how to reconcile it with the reality of the world. "The Dream Tow" tells of a fortune telling machine that reminds the characters to savour what they have in life, whether it’s a musical skill with a trombone or a happy marriage. The final story, "The Ploofop Refugees," follows Margo the Mind Reader’s husband as he deals with her impending death, and the possibility of the circus folks leaving Fluker.

All of these stories deal with the people from the circus and the Fluker townspeople as both everyday people, and people filled with magic. The ease the characters and stories show with the idea of giraffes eating leaves off the trees in the town square in the same story as the death of wife is remarkable, and is what sets these stories apart from other short stories in their sense of fun and community. The prospect of magic indeed.

Written by: Taylor Rhodes, June 1st 2010

Shark Girls

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Jaimee Wriston Colbert

Livingston Press

Shark Girls presents the reader with something horrific, and turns it into something humane. When a shark attacks eight-year-old Willa, her older sister Scat realizes that their lives are about to shift. At school, Scat becomes the one made fun of, because her peers don’t know what to do with the traumatic situation, but they know it would be mean to make fun of the victim of a shark attack. They have to place their confused and scared feelings somewhere, and so Scat becomes the bearer of their vulnerabilities.

As the sisters age, they both respond to the traumatic event in their own ways. Scat becomes a photographer of disasters and a pretty good drunk. Willa becomes more of a mythological force in the novel, as the media and her community label her “Shark Girl,” and believe that she has supernatural powers. While Willa and the shark attack are central to the story, the novel becomes more of a story about dealing with trauma, and learning how it affects all areas of our lives. Disability and the physicality of bodies is beautifully wrestled with throughout all of Shark Girls_, as they create visual reminders of tough emotional realities.

While the aftermath of the shark attack is the main setting to this novel, there is a cursory character development in the story that intrigued me. The girls’ mother, Jaycee, is a woman of her own actions. She has her children call her “Jaycee” because her name is not and never will be “Mom.” After giving birth to each one of her three children, Jaycee allowed herself the space to feel depressed, and didn’t push herself to be a mother until the wave of postpartum depression rolled over her. Jaycee comes off as being harsh and possibly uncaring, but I think there is also something be said here about how a woman can choose her life even in the face of motherhood. How much should a mother have to sacrifice her own identity in order to be viewed as a “good” mother?

Feminism is slowly making its move into the lives of these characters, but in the mix of trying to figure out what that means, the shark attack occurs and finding identity takes on a new path. Shark Girls_ reminds us that we haunted by our own pasts. But more than a story of personal ghosts and tragedy, we are reminded that the fragility of our bodies can become something to be in awe of, something we can be frightened of, and something we can try and forget in order to keep on living. Either path we choose, however, is a path that will always lead back to where we came from.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, January 26th 2010

Picara

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 17:02:00 +0000

By Pat MacEnulty

Livingston Press

Here’s the truth: right up front I judged Picara by its cover. The cover, a photo of a young girl sitting on a rail guard with a sideways gaze and unreadable emotion on her face, conjured up one word in my mind: Angst. Well, two words: Teenage angst. Having lately been exhausted by over-publicized Twi-hard* Sturm und Drang, I was anticipating a broken, lonely adolescent heart coupled with an empty highway metaphor to round out the cliché. Sans vampires, though.

I was wrong—about the angst part, not the “no vampires” part.

Eli Burnes is not your typical hurting heroine. For one, she was raised by her opera singing step-grandmother, Mattie, and their family maid, Miz Johnny. Her parents are not around; Mattie stole Eli away from her alcoholic mother when Eli was only two, and her father, Willie, has started a life as an anti-war activist in Missouri, light years away from the sheltered life Eli lives in Georgia under the doting care of Mattie and her cadre of opera friends. Many nights, she falls asleep under the piano listening to their voices, singing, and laughter.

However, when Mattie succumbs to cancer, Eli is faced with starting over. Unable to imagine life with her father and his other family, Eli takes off with a draft-dodging friend to try her luck in Canada. When plans go awry, Eli has only her insight and instincts to find herself a home.

MacEnulty does a wonderful job of capturing the dichotomous cultural forces at work in Eli’s travels, which are set mainly in the ’70s. She portrays the warmth and hospitality of the South alongside the escalating tension and violence of race relations there. She captures the hippies’ ideals of love and peace, but doesn’t shy from the bitterness of their resistance against the government and the war. Throughout, Eli provides a wide-eyed yet remarkably sage witness to race riots, Woodstock, and political turmoil.

My main qualm with the book is the fact that Eli is so perceptive and mature that it seems to belie her age (and hormones, in the case with her first boyfriend, Zen). In general, though, I welcomed her insight and, at times, marveled at their beauty. For example, when a friend tried unsuccessfully to kill herself, Eli reflects: “I wondered why she wanted to die. True, life was sad, but there was something nice about its sadness, something good enough to make you want to wake up and be sad for a little more.”

Yes, she is an adolescent, and yes, her life is characterized by loneliness and loss, but Eli’s resilience, levelheadedness, and knack for linking up with quirky, interesting folks helps this road trip novel escape most of the truisms associated with the genre.

Don’t hate, Twilight fans. I’ve got nothing against you. I just feel like there has been pale, undead bathos everywhere I turn as of late.

Written by: Jo Ristow, December 5th 2009