This Month's Articles
REVIEWING
Too Smart for His Own Good
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
by Manning Marable
Reviewed by Fred Beauford
“To be a Negro living in America, and to be consciously aware, is to be in a state of constant outrage.” James Baldwin
As I look back on the history of this country, no one fit’s Baldwin’s observation better than Malcolm Little (aka Malcolm X).
As he slowly emerges in Manning Marable’s sometimes overwhelming, richly researched, 594 page book, he is an often perplexing combination of incredibly high intelligence, abject ignorance, a profound awareness and an unbending anger at America’s mistreatment of blacks; all of which guide him, and tears him apart, leading him to become one of the most famous of Americans, the angry, revenge seeking Malcolm X.
The seeds for this transformation, which Professor Marable outlines with considerable skill and scholarship--were planted early.
Both of Malcolm’s parents were.....Read More
PORTFOLIO
Portfolio
by Kara Fox
FROM CORPORATE TO COWBOY
Sitting across from Robert Adams one senses the grace of a man who truly 'feels' the splendor of nature. He exudes an elegant quietness as he talks of his life-long commitment to photography. His desire for a private life is suddenly destroyed as one views his etheral landscapes. In this 'other worldly' beauty he reveals so much of who he is and what he values...words are unecessary.
Bob's mother, coming from a large family, provided the inspiration that was to serve as his guide throughout his life. An uncle through marriage lived the life Bob dreamed of having as an adult. This uncle was Bob's hero. If he liked something, Bob liked it. As it happened, his uncle embraced.....Read More
REVIEWING
The Man in the Rockefeller Suit:
The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Impostor
by Mark Seal
Reviewed by Michael Carey
Mark Seal, a veteran journalist with several works of nonfiction on his resume, has embellished and elaborated his article, “The Man in the Rockefeller Suit” (Vanity Fair,January 2009) in his latest book, The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Impostor.
Through over 200 interviews, Seal constructs a story of the enigmatic man known most famously as Clark Rockefeller.
From his humble beginnings as Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, the son of an artist in Bergen, Germany, to his life as the royal Christopher Mountbatten Chichester, in San Marino, CA and beyond, the man most widely known as Clark Rockefeller, honed his .....Read More
A WRITER'S WORLD
What’s the story, Morning Glory?
by Molly Moynahan
Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman's name out of a satire, then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to be a writer--and if so, why?
- Bennett Cerf
I’m going to write about how writers tend to tell the same story, but since the two famous writers I contacted for this column failed to return my e-mails, despite their previous kindness in providing blurbs and being generally nice, I’m going to just interview myself. Artists remind me of cats sometimes. If you rattle the treats they come galloping but then they get all furtive and spiky.
Anyway, I wondered if these writers thought I was suggesting they tended to write the same book over and over, or that they had no imagination. Nothing could be further from the truth. But let’s face it, there are only so many stories out there unless you decide to incorporate tsunamis, .....Read More
REVIEWING
The Girl in the Garden
by Kamala Nair
Reviewed by Sally Cobau
The Girl in the Garden is a lush, lovely first novel by Kamala Nair. Set in the southern tip of India, the story is a part fairy tale, and part coming-of-age novel that combines elements of myth and gothic romance, in a combination that is deliciously compelling. It is a taut book that still manages to have many overlapping stories and mysteries. The threads of these stories are beautifully woven by Nair, who traces the past, while rendering the present.
Rakhee Singh is the heroine of The Girl in the Garden. Her story begins in Minnesota where she feels like a misfit with her dark skin, thick glasses, and toothpick-skinny legs. As many pre-teens—she is eleven—she longs to fit in. At the same time, she is drawn to and curious about her "exotic" mother's past.
Her mother, Chitri, has never revealed why she left India and came to the United States. Rakhee is both intrigued and disgusted by the flashes of the unfamiliar side of her mother that she witnesses from time to time. While her mother remains mysterious, her father—a scientist also from India—remains as steadfast as a sturdy oak. To complicate matters,.....Read More
REVIEWING
Southern Exposure
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
by Tom Franklin
Reviewed by Loretta H. Campbell
What is more courageous, vulnerable, or deadly than a Southern white man? Maybe the answer is a southern black man. Author Tom Franklin, (Smonk, and Hell at the Breech), himself a white southerner, speaks to these questions in this novel. His work exemplifies the inner workings and connections of blacks and whites via the fictional town of Chabot, Mississippi.
The novel's title, taken from the nursery rhyme that teaches children how to spell Mississippi, is a metaphor for the two men who alternately narrate the story. Both of them are physically and emotionally misshapen by tragedy. Franklin deftly works the novel using flashbacks from the 1970s and .....Read More
NOVEL
The African Gentleman
…and The Plot to Re-establish The New World Order
A Novel by Fred Beauford
Chapters 24-25
24
And wow, what a work in progress it was, as I slowly made my way through it.
Gladys was up to her old tricks again, only this time “The Person” not only had no name, but also wasn’t identified as either male or female, which took considerable writing skills on her part to successfully pull off.
It seemed that this person had spent an entire life overwhelmingly consumed with a single concern: what happens to us when we die, if anything.
The person, whose age it was.....Read More
ART BEAT
Art Beat- May 2011
by Lindsey Peckham
“Echo,” Jaume Plensa
I was convinced that after Jim Campbell’s gorgeous “Scattered Lights” exhibit in Madison Square Park this winter that there was no better way to utilize the public space as a large gallery, but I have (wonderfully) been proven wrong. Spanish artist Jaume Plensa’s immense sculpture “Echo” is a 44-foot head of ambiguous gender and ethnicity that appears warped, though not beyond distinction. It is impressive, and seems at odds with its surroundings. The bizarre and strikingly white figure emphasizes the dichotomy that already exists between the arching buildings that encircle Madison Square Park and the ancient trees between which the piece stands. It’s as if it were a special effect from a film come to life in the middle of Manhattan, and it imposes an odd.....Read More
REVIEWING
Kamchatka
by Marcelo Figueras
Reviewed by Janet Garber
Desparecidos
A 10 year old boy with a Tintinesque shock of hair standing straight up from his hairline, playing Hangman in class when he’s supposed to be watching an educational film, suddenly is yanked out of school midday by his mother and shuttled with his 5 year old brother to a ramshackle “safe” house, hours outside Buenos Aires. Mama urges the boys to think of this stay as an island vacation.
Their father, who’s joined them, says, that like Batman, they’re going to assume new names and guard their secret identities. They enroll in a Catholic school and start going to mass, but otherwise do not venture far from their “island.” The boy, although very bright, chooses not.....Read More