We are brought into the confessional in places, as he tells us about his first confession in the poem, St. Macker takes us through mornings as night becoming light and mornings of memory. Our odyssey begins with Indian Summer, “Autumn as much a notion as it is / warm day, wind-drawn red crayon / moon above the canyon in slow motion, / a crisp yellow leaf afloat in its singularity / flows down a shadowed stream / into the Roaring Fork, is peace” I am an archaeologist of morning.” -Charles Olson. Each one needs to be read, cogitated, chewed, swallowed, and digested, starting from the books’ epigraph, “That is my profession. I don’t mean the poems take up physical space, they take up brain space. But at what cost?Ī small book, filled with large poems. Her grandmother was slightly more devious and won that battle. Her grandfather wanted to take her to the back yard and shoot her like he would a sick dog. The book begins in 1948 when Nori, the child of a black American GI and an aristocrat mother is left with her grandparents at the age of 8. There are plenty of reviews and plot synopses on the web. And, just maybe, that elusive HEA ending. (I had to keep reading for the HEA ending.) I did enjoy the characters and find myself hoping for a sequel where Nori finds her long missing relative, how she manages to work with/against the Yakuza.

If you feel better after reading a book where if it can go wrong, it will go wrong, then this is the book for you.Īlas, I want my fiction (it is, after all, make believe) to end Happily Ever After. I think it would depress even the infamous Murphy of various laws.

The bad news: It’s a tragedy to do the Bard proud. So if holding your interest is paramount, then yes, I recommend it. The good news first: It held my interest, I devoured it in one day. Do I recommend this book? Depends on what you want in a novel.

Why, you ask, only 3 Stars? Because it’s the most “neutral” number I can think of, it’s right in the middle.

Lenora tor books