notanotherbookreview

  The SECOND CHANCE CONVENIENCE STORE is a novel about a convenience store that's a million-copy international bestseller from Korea. Unless a Noble-winner, books from Asia aren't often translated for our audiences. Because of the bestseller status, I cynically expected this story to be simple, sentimental, outside our sophisticated book culture of ideas and bestselling romantasy novels. Yet the characters and setting are so unexpected, real and heart-rending, it nullifies our western cultural expectations. Stories of  "second chances" are rare, especially if failure involves "cliches"--addictive behaviors, homelessness, mental illness or other misfortunes better left to the Salvation Army. We may be subconsciously superstitious; a "cross-your heart "prayer (there but for the grace of God/chance go I), when we pass unfortunates in the street or drop a dollar in a plastic cup. Korea isn't all that different. Like us, they are believers in the ro...

Is "Happily Ever After" a destination, a phantom or beside the point of life?  Carla Malden's My Two and Only  (Rare Bird Books)and Ashley Griffin's The Spindle   (Oaklea Books) address this question from points of view human and otherworldly.  Carla Malden's novel is a deceptively quiet book about adults in Los Angeles' middle class, distanced from the media drumbeats of apocalypse--climate disaster, homelessness, nuclear war. (There is no mention of AI).  The environment, business are topics but the real concern is family--what makes one?  How do you keep the heart, that most essential pulse of people's lives, beating when your most essential human dies?  Dysfunction here is less about psychology, than the crucial adjustment a human being makes when their "One and Only" dies. When it happens in an accident both everyday and strange, it leaves much to the imagination. For twelve years Charlotte lives with the "what ifs." Yet she's ...

REVOLUTIONS WITHIN COUNTRIES, FAMILIES AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT--What's the price and who pays? Intense passions fuel revolutions within countries, families and people. Whether destructive or significant breakthroughs (or both), the costs of such challenges are huge and who pays is significant. 2017's Trumpian  revolution began a spectacle of  "disruption" of government fueled by a populist uprising yet funded by conservative elites. This revolution expanded the privilege of wealthy backers, while targeting the health and financial benefits of poor and working class supporters. Strangely, supporters rallied for fairness and an end to  corruption did not seem to be fazed by this reality.  Was  emotional release, the approval of a powerful figure, satisfaction enough? Personality cults aside, fairness and an end to corruption are eternal cries by revolutionaries seeking to topple the status quo, sometimes with a violence that  destroys civilized life. Does anythi...

A LOSS TOO GREAT (Elevation Books, May) begins with Tom's arrival home to discover his beloved Mary dead on the floor.   How she got there and what happened to the "happily ever after" of this attractive hardworking couple is a kind of parable for men about the fantasy of romance vs. real-life love.  Lonz Cook unfolds a story that reminded me of Erich Segal's iconic "Love Story,” but  shows how loss changes the man. This husband and father is tested and his strength changes his connection to life. in profound ways In the beginning, Tom and Mary, a happily married couple, are looking forward to "empty Nester" status. Tom eagerly looks forward to   exploring new places, bike trips in nature, concerts and ,m ost of all, hot  romance with Mary,  his ideal soul-mate. He's smitten with  her incredible beauty, undimmed by the years, her intelligence and intuitive understanding. His fantasies are a glossy brochure of "the good life," b...

The Anarchist's Girlfriend- Mysticism, Anarchy, business cults, love, art make this a tale of the churning now of our time (Pelekinesis) Small Press Distribution  recommends  The Anarchist's Girlfriend ,  New Edition by Susan I. Weinstein http://www.spdbooks.org/…/97…/the-anarchists-girlfriend.aspx "Somewhere along the Bowery the Anarchist's Girlfriend walks herself, her spirit taking her body. She wants to see the sunrise..."  This New Edition has significant new material. It's released by Pelekinesis at  http://pelekinesis.com/catalog/susan_...   http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-a... and at Amazon but do make sure it's New Edition! FROM: The Anarchist's Girlfriend free reading at Dixon Place, Dec.8th It was 4 P.M. when the dreamy blonde crossed to Cooper Square. She was dressed Rangerette style; white boots with pom-poms, a red satin cowgirl mini and vest, a silver belt, and a gray pull-string hat. One cur, a...

FINGERLESS, a novel by Ian Donnell Arbuckle (Pelekinesis Press, January 12). is unlike many stories about transgender protagonists in that Lita’s life, in the small town in which she grew up, is surprisingly normal. Some distance from Spokane, where family values do count, along with civic virtues, Lita has a steady job transcribing medical reports. In fact, when she takes vacation time to officially come out as a female, her boss and co-workers are mostly supportive. At the worst, there's raised eyebrows that first week she’s back but people don’t want to be obvious. Lita’s highschool sweetheart, Shasta, comes to lunch with their 3-year old daughter, Jilly, and she could not be more supportive. Still, Lita’s introduced as Aunt Lita, as per their agreement to give her a normal life. Most amazing is that Lita’s father, who’s missing some fingers, obviously loves and respects her no matter what her gender!  Lita’s world is in tumult over this normalcy, which is in contrast to t...

The Lowlands by Jhumpa Lahiri (Knopf) In Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Lowlands, Gauri, Subhash, and Udayan, form a triangle of love, politics and circumstance in an India unfamiliar to many westerners. It’s part of Lahiri's art that you warm to her fondness for a familiar place and people, an idyll of domesticity and the comfort of tradition. Of course it’s a set-up for the wrenching unthinkable change to come.  But she’s such pleasant company you are willing to go where she takes you. Her words describing a huge crowd, a bird singing, a young woman in a sari or rooftop view, are perfect miniatures of a moment in flight to the next. Yet, what seem inconsequential, passing, adds up. They are the substance of a huge generational shift that begins with two brothers growing up in the 1960’s in the outskirts of an Indian city.  Cautious Subhash, the older by 15 months, shares a small room with Udayan, his unpredictable brother. Though he's dutiful, wanting to pleases his pa...

SUPERZELDA by Tiziana Lo Porto and Daniele Marotta published by One Peace Books It took two Italians, journalist Tiziana Lo Porto and cartoonist Daniele Marotta, to animate that quintessential American creation, Zelda Fitzgerald. Her ecstatic pursuit of life; joy, love, pleasure, is the romance of the Flapper, immortalized by Scott Fitzgerald. Yet this telling adds the dimension of literature from Zelda's journals, letters exchanged, stories both published, his novels, as well as her vast readings from philosophy to poets. Much analysis of Zelda begins and ends with tragic beauty, brilliant and unstable. There are also questions about whether Scott exploited her, not just her archetype but her actual writings, which appear in his novels. Opposed are Fitzgerald fans,who believe she destroyed a great writer, driven to alcohol from her madness. A philosopher quoted that the search for truth often leads to its "bastard substitute" anesthesia. This may be closer than me...