Reviews

Love Rehab: A Novel in Twelve Steps By Jo Piazza

March 19, 2013 - Jason Rice - 0 Comment

I love it when a publicist knows exactly what I want to read, and just sends it. I told a woman very close to me that I was reading this book, and she laughed, knowing it is at least 180 degrees away from what I normally love. What grabbed me first? This book made me feel like I might die if I didn’t read it right now. Sophie is a disaster; hearts are shooting out of her eyes for the less than interested Eric. He makes nice bank, and lives in a gilded cage on the Upper East Side, in a city where women out number men five to one. With those odds it’s very difficult to imagine relationships not appearing like Chinese menus in everyone’s mail slot.

Mary Coin by Marisa Silver

March 18, 2013 - Scott Spinelli - 2 Comments

Marisa Silver’s Mary Coin, based off the famous “Migrant Mother” photograph, proves this analogy doesn’t necessarily extend to literature. Expertly, Silver weaves the stories of three seemingly disconnected characters. Of course, there’s the titular Mary Coin, there’s modern day professor Walker Dodge, and Depression-era photographer Vera Dare. Upon first glance, based solely on timing, you could see how the first and last of that group may interact but it’s the true joy of this novel to discover the ways in which all three characters are tied together.

Interview With Todd Robinson

March 14, 2013 - Joseph Rakowski - 0 Comment

Christ, I haven’t been to a bar in Boston in waaaay too many years. I’ve lived in New York for almost 2 decades and my family all live on the south coast of Massachusetts. Sadly, I don’t get into Boston proper too much other than to catch a rare Sox game. As it is, The Cellar is my love letter to a Boston that isn’t there any more. Or if it is, the totems of MY youth are now long gone and the new spots are a mystery to me.

When We Fell In Love – Helen Sedwick

March 13, 2013 - 3G1B - 2 Comments

For years, my parents ran a summer stock theater in the Poconos. It was a family affair. My siblings and I built the sets, scrounged for props, and manned the box office. The plays were light, summer comedies, romances and mysteries, certainly not “art.” Night after night, I watched the audience reactions. Laughter, tears, fear, anticipation, relief, applause. I grew up witnessing the power of a story, even a simple story, to touch an audience and connect a roomful of people to a common experience. That’s when I fell in love.

The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates

March 12, 2013 - Judy Krueger - 0 Comment

I first read JCO in the late 1980s. Languishing in Los Angeles, where I was involved in an attempt to “go straight” after years of rebellion and excess by taking a course in management training, I haunted a used bookstore on Franklin Avenue and picked up Marya: A Life (1986). Plunged into a world of impoverished grit and abuse that shocked my soul, I began to suffer from delusions of being followed by creepy people. I even managed to get mugged one evening. The novel reawakened all my deepest childhood fears.

Total Chaos by Jean-Claude Izzo

March 11, 2013 - Dennis Haritou - 0 Comment

My favorite part of these crime sprees are when the guys get together to burn cash. They’re a wolf pack of marauders, wearing beautiful clothes, driving cool cars, eating in great restaurants. Tasting all the luxe material treasures that their training, education and professional skills don’t entitle them to. Instead of peering through the glass at what society’s insiders have, they’ve broken through the glass.