Enemies
in Love by Alexis Clark
A
German POW, a Black Nurse, and an Unlikely Romance
Non-fiction biography, sociopolitical and
military history
The
New Press May 2018
Decades
before Loving v. Virginia, African-American U.S. Army nurse Elinor Powell and
German POW Frederick Albert defied the military, Jim Crow, society’s
expectations, and many other challenging circumstances in order to love each
other. Enemies in Love tells their
harrowing personal tale in the global context of the aftermath of World War I,
Hitler’s rise to power, and illogical racial contradictions in everyday
civilian life and in the U.S. military during World War II and afterward.
Elinor
and Frederick’s story reads like an exquisitely researched historical novel.
Family drama, personal demons, war, forbidden attraction, clandestine meetings,
and a constant struggle to find a safe place for their superficially
unconventional family to settle and to thrive are woven among rarely promoted
facts such as the following: The transfer of hundreds of thousands of Axis
prisoners of war to American soil is one of the great untold stories of World
War II. [page 73]
Eyewitness
accounts and impressions shared by family and friends infuse a sense of
emotional intimacy in the revelations about Elinor and Frederick as individuals
and as a couple. The complexity of their personalities and their strategies for
coping with setbacks highlight the daily grind of living in institutionally
discriminatory environments.
Generational
differences in dealing with racism are also compared and contrasted.
Substantial end notes and a detailed index combined with several pages of black
and white family photos offer a clear picture of two human beings who
negotiated the treacherous and often arbitrary nature of racially segregated
society to achieve the ultimate victory of remaining together in love.
Song
of Blood & Stone by L. Penelope
Earthsinger
Chronicles, Book 1
SciFi
fantasy
St.
Martin’s Griffin July 2019
Blending
the wisdom of ancient parables, anthropomorphic fables, and the sacredness of
organized religious philosophies with recurring themes in the endless cycles of
human conflict, L. Penelope has composed a symphony that resonates across time
and space with its essential truths. Song
of Blood & Stone evokes the emotional gravitas of Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, Stephen R. Donaldson’s
Thomas Covenant, and Tanya Huff’s Four Quarters stories while projecting its
own distinctive voice. Toss in some magical realism, a spin on Sleeping Beauty, and a little steampunk.
Age-wise
Jasminda, the struggling farmer, and Jack, the military commander, are young
adults, but the story threads weave a mature tale of political intrigue,
personal betrayals, misdirection, and complicated romantic entanglements—along
with unexpected consequences. Singers versus the Silent. Elsira versus Lagrimar.
The Sleeping Queen versus the True Father. Each chapter begins with a parable
that sets the tone for the next movement in this beautifully orchestrated work
about the haves and the have-nots.
The
U.S. or Venezuela or Darfur—anyplace where there’s currently a battle raging
about equitable access to resources and opportunities to thrive could stand in
for the fictional nations of Elsira and Lagrimar.
On
page 292 one of the main characters thinks, “It was as if history and myth had
intertwined somehow, and vital facts had been lost or obscured.” With the
modern environment of Fake News in mind, the author reminds readers of the
cascading impacts of information filtered through assorted biases across
generations and around the world. It can generate results like playing a global
game of Telephone/Chinese Whispers.
Song of Blood & Stone launches the
Earthsinger Chronicles into its own stratosphere of energetic storytelling.
Fingers crossed that the second entry in this series reveals more about the
mysterious catalyst characters who make pivotal cameos.
Reading
Sideways by Dana Seitler
The
Queer Politics of Art in Modern American Fiction
Non-fiction
Fordham
University Press July 2019
Dana
Seitler invites readers of Reading
Sideways to engage in dynamic conversation about the scope and depth of
intersectionality in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. In the subtitle, “queer” is applied in its broadest definition of
differing in some odd way from what is usual or normal [Webster’s Dictionary]
including, but not limited to, sexual orientation. The author sets up the focus
of this text early in the introduction by describing the intersection of
gender, sexuality, and ethnicity as directly influencing art forms in American
literary fiction leading into the 20th century.
Each
of the four substantial chapters is also summarized with a paragraph or two to
provide an accurate overview of this ambitious study about art that demands conscious
participation from its viewers and readers. Page 2 outlines the author’s
methodology: “To track these practices, I enact an interpretive method that I
call ‘lateral reading’ or reading sideways, a mode of interpretation that moves
horizontally through various historical entanglements…” The shaping of the
author’s approach continues on page 7:
…I
am suggesting that the late nineteenth and early twentieth century designates
[sic] a moment in history, though not the only one, in which we can see the
transformation of the question of the aesthetic in relation to political and
social practice.
A
survey of literary theory using pivotal works of the fin de siècle period
begins. Specific fiction authors and titles are exhaustively examined through
isolated elements and themes relative to sociopolitical contexts in geography,
social class, gender, age, ethnicity, and relationship status. The tone of
genuine curiosity and thinking aloud makes the academically dense and
intellectually engaging content accessible for the general public. Reading Sideways drills as deep as it
spans wide while also presenting concepts of art in various forms as the
Russian nesting dolls of human expression.
The
author uses the deconstruction of context, voice, and point of view to parse recognition
of current social imperatives while critiquing and reimagining them. Each
chapter applies a different angle of approach to ask how the status quo shifts
and evolves to include and exclude individuals and communities. Recurring
themes of personhood generate friction against the limitations of the English
literary canon. Aesthetic philosophy, social ideology, political implications,
and literary theory overlap and diverge supported by plentiful quotes and
notations.
“…over
the course of this book, we have witnessed the emergence , in Chapter 1, of an
aesthetics of the interrogative, the subjunctive, and the unfinished; in
Chapter 2, an aesthetics of the small and the low; in Chapter 3, of doubt; and
finally, in Chapter 4, of allusion.” [page 160]
Reading
a few pages at a time over several days or weeks may offer the most enjoyable
way to digest this cerebrally layered content. Illustrations, end notes, and an
index provide a treasure trove of intellectual gems worthy of further study.
****This review contains sexually explicit content****
Super
Fun Sexy Times, Vol. 1 by Meredith McClaren
Erotica
graphic novel
Oni
Press and Limerence Press August 2019
Everyone
needs love—even super heroes, archnemeses, super villains, mercenaries, mad
scientists, assassins, interstellar beings, non-binary, and gender fluid
people. In Super Fun Sexy Times
Meredith McClaren’s nuanced characters explore the kink spectrum with humor,
compassion, and without judgement. Volume one of what promises to be a
titillating series with as much emotional depth as sexual heat is sure to hook
adult readers into getting to know more about these intriguing characters.
These initial thumbnail biographies and vignettes are effective teasers.
The
sexually explicit illustrations are mostly anatomically correct with the
exception of one black female’s genitalia. Black box is slang for a black woman’s
vagina, but the inner flesh is actually in shades of pink. The attempt made to
render that contrast falls a bit short. Generally, humans and other character
species are drawn with strong feline and anime influences rendered in a
predominately pastel and gray scale palette. Skin colors for the black
characters sometimes translate with a grayish undertone that remains common in
comics even though it’s not a shade found naturally in real flesh (severely dry
and unmoisturized skin included). This challenge in producing truly brown
shades to represent people of color continues throughout the industry. Cosmetics
manufacturers finally solved their brown pigment issues. Comics will, too. (Eventually?)
And in a refreshing switch, almost all of the simply human characters are
people of color.
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