Books

WE ALL DIE IN THE END by Elizabeth Merry – A Review

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BOOK | FICTION | SHORT STORIES
WE ALL DIE IN THE END by Elizabeth Merry
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

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If Joyce, Faulkner, and Kafka were to collaborate…

The result would be Elizabeth Merry’s We All Die in the End.

Merry’s is some of the best writing I’ve read in a while. Like Faulkner, she creates a fictional world unto its own, Faulkner’s set as a struggling Mississippi town, Merry’s as a struggling seaside town in Ireland, both populated with struggling characters with thick dialects common to their region.

However, regarding dialect, where Faulkner reveals his characters’ through heavy (and at times disruptive) word alteration and accent marks, Merry reveals her characters’ distinctive brogue (seemingly) effortlessly and without hardly a notice through beautiful setting descriptions and strategic use of words uncommon to those not of her world.

The effect of her writing to me is powerful…

And surreal…

Kafkaesque.

Merry’s nineteen interwoven stories, or scenes as identified in the book, often misled me into letting my guard down – getting me lost in the cold ocean spray or in the delectable odors stewing from the stove or in the broguish din of the local pub – lulling me into thinking all’s well (how could it not be in such a quaint little town with waves pounding the shore like a mesmerizing lullaby) until it slowly dawns upon me that all is not well in Merry’s little corner of the world. In fact, not until it’s too late do I realize that just about everything beneath the quaint veneer she has laid for us is in fact quite dark and bleak, and at times… quite deadly.

We All Die in the End has left me with a haunting literary hangover.

And for that, I am grateful…

For, as rare as it is, it is that exact aftereffect I yearn for in every book I read.

EMBOOKSTUFF.WORDPRESS.COM

RAINY SEASON – A Review by Gina Rae Mitchell

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Review excerpt:

Kurt Brindley has written an excellent book in the noir romance genre. This author continues to astound me with his grasp of descriptive words. In Rainy Season, he portrays his scenes so well you will swear you can hear the rain, smell the smoke drifting from the Tokyo jazz club, and breathe in the melancholy saturating the air…

– Gina Rae Mitchell, Book Reviewer Extraordinaire*

Read the complete five-star review at Gina’s website:

GINARAEMITCHELL.COM

RAINY SEASON – A Review by Elizabeth Merry

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Review excerpt:

This book is called “Rainy Season” and rain permeates the whole novel, as if the whole story was contained inside the rain – and I loved this. Here’s a picture of Rich, leaning over his balcony as usual:

“He leaned against the rail and smoked and watched the shadowed, glistening city as it slept within the downpour.”

I found the writing lyrical and rhythmic; words repeated making the prose like music. Indeed, I thought at one time, if I had a tune I could sing this book:

“Candlelight shimmered off her black sequin dress like the promise of a million stars.”

Elizabeth Merry, Author of WE ALL DIE IN THE END

Check out the full five-star review at Elizabeth’s website:

embookstuff.wordpress.com

In Appreciation of a Photograph

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Except for THE GOOD KILL, of which I contracted out to Extended Imagery, for better or worse, you decide, I’ve created all my book covers, including the one for my latest novella RAINY SEASON.

It’s a fun process creating book covers, one that allows me to escape the writing process tedium for a while and become creative through other mediums. I like to create the cover early on in the story development process so I can refer to it for inspiration similar to the way I refer to the logline.

The covers I created are mostly designed around photographs I took, except for HOW NOT TO DIE, which you’ll see if you look closely, is designed around a photograph of me in a hospital bed flashing my middle finger in defiance as I’m being treated for heart failure, which was the result of a freak side effect of the chemo drug I was taking at the time (I was speedily switched to a different drug which has yet to cause my heart to fail, fingers crossed), and except for HERCULES GONE MAD, which is designed from a drawing of mine.

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Starbucks and Mocha

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The New York Times’ recent piece Melville’s Whale Was a Warning We Failed to Heed is actually a quite serious look at human nature, racism, the environment… but here is a fun selection from it that belies its erudition:

Melville had read Jeremiah Reynolds’s violent account of a sperm whale “white as wool,” named — for his haunt near Mocha Island, off the coast of Chile — Mocha Dick. It’s unknown what led Melville to tweak Mocha to “Moby.” Good thing he did, and that Starbuck was the name he gave his first mate rather than his captain. Otherwise the novel would follow Starbuck’s obsession with a Mocha.

Courtesy the New York Times

#whosaidseriousnesscantbefun
#nowbacktobeingserious

An American Pope by Paul Xylinides – A Review

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BOOK | FICTION | LITERARY
AN AMERICAN POPE
PAUL XYLINIDES
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★

A modernizing American has assumed the papal throne. One of His first acts is to select a seventeenth century priest for canonization. The Congregation for the Causes of the Saints recoils in horror at the new pontiff’s choice. Against a backdrop of Vatican intrigue and infighting, a long-unsolved crime comes to the attention of a retired detective. The forces that contribute to it reach far back into the distant past. No one can truly fathom the life of the candidate for sainthood including the nun and priest who join forces to prepare the submission to Rome.

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