Author: annsepstein@att.net

My Amazon and Goodreads review of A Plan in Case of Morning by Phill Provance (Rating 5) – Master of Intensity. In A Plan in Case of Morning, Phill Provance wields words, minces memories, and excavates emotions with agility. His amalgam of poems, prose, epigrams, and enigmas is filled with dreams and questions about youth, manhood, and the final accounting. Bubbling up from the flow of words is the push-pull of human relationships; anger bumps into love, tough rubs against tender, and hope flickers in the face of disaster. Provance has a gift for imagery. As a writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I savored creations such as “teeth a perfect replica of Nebraska” and “crow’s feet [that] cinch like drawstring bags.” This collection is intense; take it one entry at a time. Do NOT plan when you’ll read the next piece, just grab and wrestle with this roiling and rollicking volume when you will.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Rating 5) – A Father’s Caution and Pride. For years, I felt guilty that I delayed reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates after it came out in 2015. Now I’m glad I waited until 2020, when America is confronting its embedded racism with unprecedented intensity. The book’s impact on me was jarringly powerful in the aftermath of the recent deaths of so many Blacks at the hands of police, their disproportionate number of COVID-19 cases and mortality attributable to inadequate health care, the children unable to “attend” school virtually because they lacked access to the necessary technology, and countless other injustices. The statistics are long-standing, but awareness of their enormity by non-Blacks is new. I am among them. As the mother of an adult daughter, I have been especially haunted by the murder of Breonna Taylor. When her mother, Tamika Parker, described Breonna’s death as a slap in the face, I felt the blow. During my forty-year career in early education, I worked with Black children a decade younger than the son who Coates writes to, but I saw the same hope and fear in their faces. As a fiction writer (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I portray characters of diverse backgrounds, including Blacks, imagining the ever-present threats they face. Coates cautions his son, but also imbues him with pride and courage. This honest, painful-to-read book reminds me that I, that we as a society, have barely scratched the surface understanding the insidious effects of racism. We need to dig deep within ourselves and our systems to root it out.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler (Rating 4) – Methodical Man Edges Toward Human Mess. Meet methodical, meticulous Micah Mortimer, the protagonist of Anne Tyler’s Redhead by the Side of the Road. Tyler has a knack for making off-putting and slightly off-kilter characters sympathetic. Micah is not unlikeable, just not particularly endearing, until you find yourself liking this earnest but clueless forty-something computer tech a lot. Micah is the neat, reserved member of a large, messy, and affectionate family. His search for the right woman is plagued by bugs he cannot detect, let alone solve. Tyler is herself meticulous rendering Micah’s routine-driven life from his early morning runs to which day of the week he assigns to each housekeeping chore. She assigns him quirky traits: an imaginary internal traffic cop (rather like a lonely child’s imaginary friend) who pats him on the back for nicely executed driving maneuvers; talking to himself using “zee Franch acksant” when he cooks his simple meals. As a fiction writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire Tyler’s ability to create a total life for her characters. I suspect that she, like me, moves in with them while she settles them on the page. Above all, Tyler is adept at taking a small life and finding its universal measure, in Micah’s case the search for human connection. At a time when readers are satiated on Zoom and hungry for in-person contact, Redhead by the Side of Road is a satisfying and lively companion.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey (Rating 5) – Re-Dreaming a Nightmare in Order to Awake. Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir did not initially draw me in. Author Natasha Trethewey employs her skills as a Pulitzer prize-winning poet to circle at a distance rather than directly confront her mother’s death at the hands of Trethewey’s abusive stepfather, three decades ago, when Trethewey was nineteen. As a prose writer (see my Amazon author page) and Goodreads author page), I craved more narrative. Yet, once the story became more personal and engaging, I realized the style of writing mirrored the author’s reluctant journey into the past, finally summoning the courage to face a horror she long avoided. Only by re-dreaming the nightmare can she wake up to her loss. More moving than the facts of the murder itself are Trethewey’s reminiscences of her bond with her mother. Although these held special resonance for me, any reader can relate to the push and pull, longing and guilt, that passed between them. Having seen, Trethewey can never unsee, but she can remain awake.

My Amazon and Goodreads review of American Dirt: A Novel by Jeanine Cummins (Rating 5) – A Flight From Terror Into Horror. As a writer (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I bristle at the charge of cultural appropriation levied against Jeanine Cummins for American Dirt. Authors have the right to address any topic from any POV they want; it’s called empathy. With that right comes an obligation to research and write an engaging story about believable characters. Applying those criteria, Cummins fully meets this obligation. In her suspenseful story, a mother fleeing el norte with her young son faces dilemmas anyone, anywhere, can recognize: how we feel when someone we thought we knew turns out not to be who we thought; the lengths a parent will go to in order to protect their child; how terror simultaneously clouds and clarifies our thoughts; the sense of community that develops among threatened people; the unspeakable horrors we inflict upon one another; and the unexpected acts of kindness that restore our faith in humanity. Although a disappointingly brief epilogue glosses over what fresh horrors await once migrants arrive in the U.S., the novel vividly details the perils of their journey to get here.