The Logan Topographies

admin — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 02:42:00 +0000

Alena Hairston’s book of poetry, The Logan Topographies, embraces rural life in the coalmining town of Logan just as Faulkner encompassed Yoknapatawpha Country, or Welty composed Morgana. Like her predecessors, Hairston is inspired by the foibles of small town life. It is through Hairston’s feminine viewpoint that the reader is first introduced to Logan:

Pregnant belly of coneflower and larkspur. coalcaves of lupine and barberry.
where shale grows up and bumps into the sun. breathes across the moon.

The rich landscape is distinctly female, bringing forth life. In this world Mother Earth is kind and benevolent, unlike its inhabitants. Underlying the natural beauty of the landscape is the darkness of the coalmines and the men who work within them. Hairston writes:

The fathers worked their hands to meat, side by side, tarry matter lining throats.
This one, and early man, alabastered, avowed, helmed by immigrant arrogance,
A willful ignorance…
The other, brailed believer, mafic and refined by the quiet bootstraps mobility,
this too, a willful ignorance, a necessary erasure of plantation prologues,
bred long and deep in Alabaman fields.

Racial tension between the “early men” and the “brailed believers” is continually present, even when a “brailed believer” rescues the “early man” from a cave-in. The tension continues when a disapproving parent rejects young interracial love.

It seems as if the descent of the men into the dark Earth, not only blackens their faces with coal dust, it also blackens their souls. From its metaphoric birth to its death as a coalmining town, Logan becomes a place we know intimately through Hairston’s writing. This collection of poetry is the winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Prize, which is a collaborative gift between Persea Books and The Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Project. It is a book of lyrical beauty – well worth reading.

Written by: Teresa Y. Raines, March 15th 2007

The Vanishing Point

admin — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 12:30:00 +0000

By Mary Sharratt

Mariner Books

The Vanishing Point is the story of two sisters living at the end of the 17th century. The title comes from the point on the horizon where an object disappears from view. In this case, the sisters, May and Hannah have been separated by distance and marriage. May, the eldest daughter is beautiful and willful. From the age of 15 she has taken many lovers, earning her the reputation as a slut. Hannah, raised like a son by her physician father, is educated in medicine, but little else. The sisters are “as different as night and day.” When May is forced to leave their English village to marry an unknown distant American cousin, her sister Hannah is bereft. There is little correspondence between the sisters. However, by earlier agreement, Hannah is to travel to America to reside with May and her new husband, when their father dies.

A tiny mystery ensues when Hannah arrives and discovers that her sister has died along with her newborn daughter. Her sister’s widower, Gabriel, will not tell Hannah how her death occurred. Locked together in grief, Hannah and Gabriel fall in love. They have a son, and live alone on a rundown tobacco plantation in the wilderness. Trouble ensues for the two when questions arise from the townspeople concerning May’s death. There is a rumor circulating that Gabriel is her murderer. Hannah is driven to discover the truth to the detriment of her family. Unfortunately, the promised mystery can be solved midway by any reader.

The novel is well researched. However, some portions are clumsy. While the conversations are written in colloquial English, the written correspondence between the sisters is written in old English. Instead of becoming an insight into 17th century life, the passages are confusing. While attempting to alleviate questions and conflicts within the storyline the author resorts to cliché. Each of the sisters dreams about the other, while the housekeeper, Joan (and later, Adele), reads tarot cards (or bones) to uncover missing information.

The novel takes many genres and dumps them into a single work. It seems to have trouble deciding if it should be a history, a mystery, or a gothic romance. Still, if you want to read a story about women living unusual lives outside of mainstream society you may enjoy The Vanishing Point.

Written by: Teresa Y. Raines, February 25th 2007