joyous occasion for the family, Katherine
doesn’t seem especially overjoyed at his
return. In succeeding years, Katherine
gives birth to his two sons, and their marriage seems less troubled. But when Jane
unintentionally reveals to Edward the
knowledge of her father’s poetry to Katherine, Edward makes some startling discoveries that threaten to disrupt the happiness of the entire Seymour household.
Dunn brings a fresh voice to historical fiction, embracing the humanity of her
characters in modern language. Yet it is
her exposure of the innermost secrets of
the nobility that will resonate most with
historical fiction fans. (Oct.)
Who Is Martha?
Marjana Gaponenko, trans. from the German
by Arabella Spencer. New Vessel, $15.99
trade paper (217p) ISBN 978-1-939931-13-9
Gaponenko’s novel is a mostly successful portrayal of a terminally ill nonagenarian who decides to leave life with a
bang. Luka Levadski, a 96-year-old
world-renowned ornithologist, looks at
his past with perspicacity, trying to understand his father’s early suicide and his
own youthful fascination for birds and
passion for classical music. When he is diagnosed with lung cancer, he resists his
doctor’s recommendation for treatment
and buys sharp new clothes and a silver-handled walking stick instead. With the
intention to die, checks into a suite at the
grand Hotel Imperial in Vienna—bills be
damned. Problems arise when the effects
of his disease and a penchant for alcohol
kick in, resulting in puzzling hallucinations including the appearance—it’s unclear whether it’s real or imaginary—of a
young woman from the Soviet Union.
These fantasies muddy the latter part of
the narrative a bit, but the inclusion of
Levadski’s new friends, the hotel butler
and another elderly guest, elevate this
story of joie de vivre in the face of death.
(Oct.)
Schrodinger’s Dachshund
Petronius Jablonski. Chandelier Press, $2.99
(277p) ASIN B00K5A0F6Y
Jablonski’s first novel reads like a surre-
al existentialist crisis, a stream-of-con-
sciousness narrative that employs secrets
and intrigue as a driving, page-turning
force. We follow blogger Zelda Alpizar,
who occupies her time decoding and re-
searching the latest cultural memes and
viral sensations. She becomes embroiled in
a scheme to turn humans into storage de-
vices for code. Also wrapped up in the plot
are two test subjects: security guards Alex
Jitney, whose “milky pallor and nonde-
script features might instigate regrets that
humans aren’t reptilian,” and “too nice for
his own good” Travis Olkeshevski. And
then there’s Maestoso, the titular dachs-
hund, who moves “like some sausage hov-
ercraft.” These characters go through pri-
vate trials and tribulations, discussing
matters of sex, memes, and science, as they
move inexorably toward the endgame.
Jablonski’s writing is difficult, at times
stilted, hovering between lucidity and ob-
tuseness: “This remorseless decomposi-
tion, land of nostalgia and déjà vu, idyllic
for football and hunting and lakefront
bonfires at night, it calls from a place be-
yond instinct, one primal or mystical and
ineptly mapped by our concepts.” The
characters and plot are interesting, but are
often obscured by the prose. At his best,
Jablonski is able to inject a sense of imme-
diacy and intensity in the story by using
sparse description that suggests more than
it tells. While the book shows glimmers
Let Me Be Frank with You
Richard Ford. Ecco, $27.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-06-169206-2
Frank Bascombe, the protagonist of The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land, continues to reflect on the meaning of existence in these four absorbing, funny, and often profound novellas. The
collection is set in New Jersey in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, in the weeks leading up to Christmas 2012.
Frank considers the evanescence of life as he travels to the
site of his former home on the shore; has an unsettling experience with a black woman whose family once lived in
his present home in fictional Haddam; visits his prickly
ex-wife, who is suffering from Parkinson’s, in an extended-care institution;
and meets a dying former friend. At 68, Frank feels “old”; his bout with prostate cancer has convinced him that he’s in the “Default Period of life.” Intimations of mortality (“the bad closing in”) permeate his musings, recounted in an
unadorned, profane, vernacular that conveys his witty, cynical voice. Frank’s
cranky comments and free-flowing meditations about current social and political
events are slyly juxtaposed with references to Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Trollope, Emerson, Milton, and others. Despite Frank’s dyspeptic outlook, Ford packs in a
surprising amount of affirmation and redemption. Readers who met Frank in
Ford’s earlier novels will quickly reconnect with his indelible personality. (Nov.)
of an engaging narrative, it never realizes
its full potential. (BookLife)
Poetry
; Citizen: An American Lyric
Claudia Rankine. Graywolf (FSG, dist.), $20
trade paper (160p) ISBN 978-1-55597-690-3
In this trenchant new work about racism in the 21st century, Rankine, recently
appointed chancellor of the American
Academy of Poets and winner of the 2014
Jackson Poetry Prize, extends the innovative formal techniques and painfully
clear-sighted vision she established in her
landmark Don’t Let Me Be Lonely. Accounts of racially charged interactions, insidious and flagrant, transpiring in private and in the public eye, distill the immediate emotional intensity of individual
experience with tremendous precision
while allowing ambiguity, ambivalence,
contradiction, and exhaustion to remain
in all their fraught complexity. Combining poetry, essay, and images from media
and contemporary art, Rankine’s poetics
capture the urgency of her subject matter.
Indeed, much of the book focuses on language: sound bites from cultural commen-
