Have Words–Will Write 'Em

On Books, Writers, Most Things Written, Including My Light Verse.

Archive for June, 2015

I Review Kate Walbert’s “Sunken Cathedral”

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The title of this brilliant allegory comes from Claude Debussy’s prelude for piano “La Cathédrale Engloutie,” which he based on a mythological city in Brittany that was consumed by the sea. When Helen, an art historian, was a young girl, her father told her Debussy’s “?‘The Sunken Cathedral’ is the musical version of Impressionism.” Debussy was Cézanne’s musical counterpart, and as if it were borrowing techniques from the two, Walbert’s novel nudges the reader “to see in the way one must see to be alive” as they try to prepare for The Surge.

You can read my review of Kate Walbert’s Sunken Cathedral in the June 21 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch by clicking the image below.
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You can buy Kate Walbert’s Sunken Cathedral at Barnes and Noble.

Written by Joe Peschel

June 20th, 2015 at 11:21 am

Posted in Light Verse

I Review Kent Haruf’s “Our Souls At Night”

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You hear a lot about the power of Haruf’s “spare” prose, and rightly so. Of his own writing, Haruf, in a final interview with the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, said, “I have written as close to the bone as I could. By that I mean that I was trying to get down to the fundamental, irreducible structure of life, and of our lives with one another.”

You can read my review of Kent Haruf’s final novel Our Souls At Night in the June 14 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch by clicking the image below.

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You can buy Kent Haruf’s Our Souls At Night at Barnes and Noble.

Written by Joe Peschel

June 13th, 2015 at 2:57 pm

Posted in Light Verse

I Review “How Sweet It Is!,” by Thane Rosenbaum

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He’s in the hospital because it turns out the Surgeon General was right about smoking four packs of cigarettes a day. Sophie Posner, a Jewish gangster and a survivor of the Nazis, resides on the same floor. The fat man’s equal and confidante, she’s a hilarious and pitiable character who’s so tough that when the doctor tells her she has cancer, she says, “You think this is the worst news I’ve ever heard?”

You can read my review of Thane Rosenbaum’s How Sweet It Is! in the June 7 edition of the Washington Post by clicking the image below.

You can buy Rosenbaum’s How Sweet It Is!” at Barnes and Noble.

Written by Joe Peschel

June 5th, 2015 at 1:52 pm