Fiction
Breakfast with the Dirt Cult
Samuel Finlay. The Red Dirt Syndicate,
$11.99 Paper (318p) ISBN 978-0-615-62299-6
Rude, raw, and rambunctious, this tour
of duty into the no man’s land of sex, pol-
itics, and societal expectations gleefully
bashes politically correct gospels. Army
solider Tom Walton’s life is altered by a
chance meeting with ex-stripper Amy,
who promises him “a passionate affair” if
he returns from
Afghanistan. Amy
is a sensuous met-
aphor for Tom’s
evolving love-hate
relationship with
the human condi-
tion; her sensuali-
ty is a ghost
haunting him,
from the evoca-
tively captured misery of military train-
ing to the terror of deployment. But, if
Tom makes it back to Amy, is he facing
another battle in her arms? Finaly creates
in Tom a contradiction of good humor
and angst, parading instead of disguising
his emotional warts. Occasionally over-
written and erratic in structure, this in-
tense semiautobiographical novel is as
much a sobering examination of a man’s
maturity as it is a righteous condemna-
tion of self-serving cultural roles. Fiction
as it should be: dangerous, hurtful, and
cathartic.
Calves in the Mud Room
Jerome O. Brown. Tetonwolf, $6.49 paper
(96p) ISBN 978-0-615-96750-9
Brown presents an intimate portrait of
the modern-day rural life of teenagers
that deftly combines
text-messaging jar-
gon and the complex-
ities of cattle farming.
Brown’s protagonist
is Wade Summers,
who longs to escape
his smalltown life of
pickup trucks and
cows and is—to his
surprise—asked to the school dance by
the beautiful and rich Glory Schoonover.
Of course, nothing goes according to
plan: Wade is forced to deliver a calf on
his way to the dance and has a disastrous
evening with Glory. With this novella,
Brown offers an engaging exploration of a
young person’s search for his sense of self
in a seemingly (but not altogether) bleak
landscape.
I’m Still Here
Potter Wickware. Rolling Circle Press, $14.99
paper (382p) ISBN 978-1-4949-7506-7
Wickware’s urban fable of Central
American refugees suffering political hy-
pocrisy and cultural persecution suffers
from scant dramatic tension. Taken in by
guerillas after surviving a death squad
killing in El Salvador, young Eliazar (aka
Loco) finds refuge in a brothel and then
an old school before catching a train to
L.A., where he becomes an ambitious
gang leader. Sparks fly and cultures col-
lide when Loco meets Rosanna Castaneda,
the deputy district attorney’s daughter,
who eventually fol-
lows him to El Sal-
vador after he is de-
ported. Waickware’s
narrative is lethargic,
with static charac-
ters—many of whom
are little more than
caricatures. Rich de-
scriptions and appro-
priate details reflect the author’s research
into gang life in El Salvador and Los An-
geles, but accuracy isn’t enough to enliv-
en the otherwise torpid plot.
Smoke and Mirrors:
The Suspicious Deaths of the
Bioweaponeers
C.R. Harris. Lennox Books, $19.99 paper
(380p) ISBN 978-0-9926497-3-9
In Harris’s thriller, biological warfare,
political intrigue, and international terrorism surround a resourceful young
woman’s struggle to climb the professional ranks as a journalist and fix a fractured
marriage while staying ahead of the various secret service organizations that want
her dead. Reporter Chloe Moreau is attacked shortly after investigating the
mysterious deaths of several scientists.
But against a backdrop
of murder and multi-
national terrorists, can
Chloe stay alive long enough to expose a
horrific conspiracy?
Harris has written a
solid and suspenseful
thriller, full of laby-
rinthine plot twists
and solid character-
ization. And despite
occasional problems
with narrative flow,
fans of the genre will
enjoy this straightforward tale of espio-
nage and intrigue.
Tanya
Rebecca Rogers Maher. Promised Land
Books, $1.99 e-book (65p) ISBN 978-1-62921-
006-3
Jack has just returned from a stint in
the Peace Corps in Guyana to attend
brother Henry’s wedding. At a roadside
stop, on the night before the ceremony, he
meets a mysterious woman with whom he
shares a night of passion. The next day, he
meets her again and learns she is the
bride’s sister, Tanya. But Tanya is full of
self-loathing about her past and relation-
ship with sister Christa—and this threat-
ens her burgeoning relationship with
Jack. This sequel to The Bridge and final
installment in Maher’s Class Acts Trilogy
reunites readers
with Henry and
Christa (the protag-
onists of the previ-
ous volume), with
Jack and Tanya’s
story serving as a
clever follow-up
and an entertaining
tale in its own
right. Tanya’s feelings of self-revulsion
drive the narrative and readers with expe-
rience of addiction will recognize her
complex emotions. And while Jack’s char-
acter is less well developed, readers (par-
ticularly those of Maher’s previous work)
will enjoy watching these two fall in love,
almost in spite of themselves.
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