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A Chat with E. Christopher Clark, author of the Stains of Time series

In the first book of his Stains of Time series, E.Christopher Clark pulls in magical realism, a hearty dose of nineties’ nostalgia, and family drama to tell Veronica’s story. Pregnant at sixteen, Veronica marries the baby’s father to appease a father who might never be happy with her, but really won’t be happy with her if she follows her heart and dates women as she wants to. Clark kindly answered About a Book’s questions about The Piano of Death , the series as it stands now, and his plans for its future. About a Book : How/when did you conceive of The Piano of Death ? Clark : The book that people can read today really started to come together in September 2011. I met with my friend, the actor/director Crystal Lisbon…to plan a benefit for the arts organization she was starting. Another friend of Crystal’s, the musician Mary Casiello [joined us for that meeting]. We were trying to put together an evening of theater and music, and I was tasked with writing the scrip...
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Five Books to Escape into while Social Distancing

Maybe one day soon a headline will read, “Out of Netflix Content, More People Turn to Books for Relief.” If you’re already ready for some literary escapism, check out these five books I read and loved in 2019. Hopefully they help you in this difficult time: The Storm King , Brendan Duffy. This book has many things that would make me not choose it as a Top Five: a straight male hero; not many strong female leads; privileged men acting out their privilege. Alas, it sucked me in with a short, strong opening chapter that set the tone and the mystery for the rest of the book. Duffy’s writing is a bit dramatic at times, but that’s also what kept the pages quickly turning. You can check out my review here . The Soul of an Octopus , Sy Montgomery. Montgomery ’s beautiful work in The Soul of an Octopus gives us hope about the connectivity between living creatures. Introducing the reader to several octopuses she met at the New England Aqua...
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Almost Too Much Covered in The Tradition

In his third book of poetry, The Tradition , Jericho Brown covers much ground: he grapples with myth, media, racism, his own mortality, and still manages to push past established forms of poetry. It’s impressive in scope, but the breadth can leave the reader forgetting the ground covered because there was too much of it. Brown conveys a disdain for the world around him that embraces and encourages racism and violence, but also exudes a confidence about his own abilities to navigate the terrain. This is a book from a grown, tired man, and is filled with the heartbreak and the fortitude he’s earned. He introduces, too, the “Duplex” form in his poetry, described by Jeannine Hall Gailey in her Barrelhouse review of The Tradition as “a sonnet-like series of couplets that include repetition.” The repetition accomplishes a layering of experiences and voices, making his experiences feel that much more echoed in the lives of others, as though he is not alone. These stories are from a...
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Admirable Research, Compelling Storytelling in Flawless

Scott Selby and Greg Campbell created a quietly cinematic depiction of the largest jewel heist in history in Flawless . In 2003, the Diamond Center in Antwerp , Belgium , was robbed of an estimated $500 million in jewels that still has not been recovered. Selby and Campbell do compact work here, packing the relatively short narrative with a creative take on how the “ School of Turin ,” a band of skilled thieves, came together to pull off the robbery. They focus on Leonardo Notabartolo, the inside man for the school, who rented office space in the Diamond Center, posed as a businessman, while he cased the area and reported back to his colleagues. By focusing on Notabartolo, the authors provide a lens for the reader to walk through the entirety of the scheme. The particulars of how he figured out the alarms, guards, and cameras are so detailed, it’s like watching Notabartolo while he works. Thanks to Strider Teague for recommending Flawless . I expect we’ll see a movi...
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Growing up Hip Hop in Rap Dad

Juan Vidal writes of his burgeoning rap career in Rap Dad , his ambitions shifting with the birth of his children. The now music journalist explores his early success in the music industry and his even earlier disappointment in his own father for his infidelity and drug addiction. Vidal does an interesting job of showing the world of Hip Hop in Miami in the eighties and nineties, educating his reader about the intersections of music, graffiti, and skateboarding. All of these are thrown into a different context once Vidal has his own children, and Hip Hop pioneers like Nas, Jay-Z, and Will Smith are given credit for their influence in his own child-rearing. Without a strong role model for fatherhood in his real life, the author points to these Hip Hop giants as guide posts for his own role as dad. While the anecdotes Vidal shares can feel repetitive at times, he’s giving voice to a subculture of men who were raised by Hip Hop, then used its lessons in parenting their own kid...
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Nature and the Personal in Tremulous Hinge

Adam Giannelli has always been a fascinating writer to this reader. The author was one of my closest friends upon graduating from Oberlin in 2001, and our friendship reached its peak during our shared years living in Virginia getting our MFA's. It is a true pleasure watching him continue to shine as a poet, and I am totally bias in this review. Giannelli’s particular brand of friendship and communication is not always as verbally progressive as his poetry. It seems he saves some of his best lines for the page, evidenced in Tremulous Hinge . Gianelli starts off strong here, with a near mic drop of a poem, as “Stutter” addressed the author’s life long speech impediment, his verbal work-arounds to some more difficult words (“Since I couldn’t say Cleveland , I said Ohio ”) and his insecurity about his stutter. Kudos to Giannelli for embracing his stutter. I heard him read this in Boston several years ago, and he wisely read the poem first, so that all other stutters th...
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Wanting More of Jerry in Echoes of Jerry

At age 50, Judah Leblang experimented with a series of assistive devices to find a hearing aid best suited to his hearing loss. The experience kicked him into an exploration of his Uncle Jerry’s life as a deaf man growing up in Ohio in the 30’s and 40’s. The two men shared both a physical disability and a place as the outsider: Jerry as the deaf athlete and disabled student at a high school attended by predominantly hearing students, Leblang as a gay man struggling with his sexuality, born some 20 years after his uncle. Echoes of Jerry is an even-paced narrative of Leblang’s early life in Ohio , his grappling with his sexuality in his twenties and thirties, his limited but impactful interactions with his uncle, his own experiences within the deaf community as a teacher, and his eventual work as a writer in Boston . While Leblang’s story is fleshed out here, Jerry’s is not as much, used instead as a spring board for Leblang to tell his own tale. This reader was eager t...
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