THE QUEEN ANNE FOX – “Life Changing”

The Queen Anne Fox

by Jerol Anderson

Whiskey Creek Press

256 pages, paperback $14.99

This book has affected how I feel about my parents, both dead nearly twenty years, and how I feel about myself. On one hand it is a page-turner who-done-it, on the other it is a profound experience you will never forget. Here is the voice of one of the nurturing principle characters:

I think the secret of growing up is to create a nurturing mother and father inside your own soul. Takes away a lot of the neediness of the child within us. Then you can react to life and those around you as an adult.

I came across this book by accident. My wife had it from the library and read a few pages. Not a fan of crime stories (a young boy and a prostitute are killed months apart and their bodies left in the same Seattle location) she gave it to me. In the first few pages I discovered the narrator had been called in by the police to help solve the murders because of her ESP powers. Give me a break”

A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC – “With Each March, Aldo Leopold Returns”

A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold

Ballantine Paperbacks

226 pages, $6.95

I’m trying to do something different with each of these book reviews. For this one I’ve included some discussion questions I developed for a book club the Wisconsin Academy of Arts and Letters is starting in Madison this coming April. A Sand County Almanac is the first one on the schedule (if you are in the area check out www.AcademyBookClub.com).

RASCAL – “Not What You’d Expect”

Rascal  by Sterling North

Puffin Books,1991

194 pages, $5.99 (soft cover)

I’ve had this book on my shelf for two years, and didn’t read it. Perhaps, because it had been a Disney film or because Wikipedia described it as about a young boy whose mother had died—his father a hopeless dreamer—who becomes best friends with a pet raccoon, Rascal, until “one day the boy realizes things must change…”

Not that the description is wrong, but it the maudlin situation is buried in the subtext of this little masterpiece which is awash in recounting the childhood we all share and Wisconsin small-town life no one has ever come this close to capturing.

We often argue about regional writing, or writing of place, but such questions fly like a scattering of crows when you experience real things. This isn’t a book for kids, parents, Wisconsinites or adults. It is a book that grabs everyone and won’t let go until that final canoe ride. Sterling, these tears are for you. You were a great writer who shows us what great writing is all about.

Order this book directly from Amazon for $5.99. Click: Rascal (PMC) (Puffin Modern Classics)

Acting Lessons

 poetry

 

 

  Acting Lessons 

  by John Lehman

  Parallel Press

  University of Wisconsin-Madison,

  2008, 38 pages    

  ISBN 978-1-934795- 04-0

  $10 (shipping & tax free) = $10   

      

 

Dreaming in Black and White: Wisconsin Noir and the Justified Poem

Here’s the hard-boiled crime genre being worked by Madison area poet John Lehman, who recently published a book of verse noir—Acting Lessons, Parallel Press, 2008.  Filled with murky mazes and existential ambushes, the work is in a short form devised by Lehman a few years ago, called the Wisconsin Justified Poem.

 

Looking like cubes of newspaper column, the poems are defined not just by their form, but also by a noir-ish feel and tone. They usually explore Wisconsin topics, are often rural, and at heart “inspired” by Wisconsin winters.