An Accidental Stumble
Taking Stock of two decades of work by Tom Bissell. In 2022, Peace Corps Writers recognized him as the Writer of the Year. By Steven Boyd Saum Tom Bissell photo courtesy Penguin Random House It was at the Downtown Bookfest in Los Angeles that I met Tom Bissell half a dozen years ago. Along with celebrating “Literary LA: Places, Spaces, and Faces” and the independent book scene, some of us read tributes to writers the community had lost in the past year—poets and fictioneers, tellers of true stories and writers of screenplays. I found myself talking with Bissell about a living...
Intimate and Lyrical Poetry by Ukrainian Poet Natalka Bilotserkivets. Her Work Has a New Resonance and Urgency.
Eccentric Days Of Hope And Sorrow By Natalka Bilotserkivets Translated from the Ukrainian by Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky Lost Horse Press Reviewed by Steven Boyd Saum Prologue to this collection spanning four decades is the poem “ДІТИ,” or “Children.” It’s a word that readers have seen in photos from Ukraine scores of times since February. Usually it is rendered in Russian, for the benefit of the invaders. Spray-painted on gates to a yard in a village house. In pen on a sign taped to the inside window of a car fleeing rocket fire and shelling. Spelled out in enormous letters...
A Biography of Writer Michael Gold Traces an Anti-Democratic Thread in American Life
Michael Gold: The People’s Writer By Patrick Chura SUNY Press Reviewed by Marnie Mueller In the very last pages of his story of the life of Michael Gold, Patrick Chura writes: “Gold managed the challenge of proving the existence of another America, and how difficult it made his life.” An avowed and uncompromising Marxist, Gold has fallen from the literary canon and political history of America, despite his major contributions. In writing of him, Chura has also told the story of my parents and people like them, who dedicated their lives to making a better, more equitable nation, and...
Ten Hidden Heroes
A conversation with author Mark K. Shriver By Steven Boyd Saum Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Mark K. Shriver teamed up with illustrator Laura Watson on 10 Hidden Heroes, published by Loyola Press, which aims to help children develop counting skills while learning ways to make the world a better place. It shows how acts of kindness and generosity can be found all around us. Shriver has served as president of Save the Children Action Network and now leads Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School in Maryland as its first lay president. He is the author of Pilgrimage: My Search for the...
His Family Fled the Nazis. In Ecuador, He Grows up Changing Names and Identities to Navigate an Uncertain Fate.
The Boy with Four Names By Doris Rubenstein IUniverse Reviewed by Nathalie Vadnais In Germany in 1935, just after the Nuremberg Laws were passed, a young Jewish man named Abie is confronted by Nazi soldiers while walking with his Aryan girlfriend in public. In self-defense, Abie attacks one soldier and, believing him dead, flees to relatives in Holland. They equip him with their son’s identification and he takes a train to Milan, where he finds an old friend — and refuge. So begins Doris Rubenstein’s historical novel The Boy with Four Names. In the story, Abie meets a young Jewish...
Giving Voice to Refugees: Firsthand Accounts from Children and Teenagers — Some Many Years Later
Finding Refuge REAL-LIFE IMMIGRATION STORIES FROM YOUNG PEOPLE By Victorya Rouse Zest Books Reviewed by Nathalie Vadnais In the Newcomers Center at Ferris High School in Spokane, Washington, Victorya Rouse teaches immigrants from all over the world how to speak English. It’s work she has done for three decades, after she served as an education Volunteer with the Peace Corps in eSwatini (formerly Swaziland) 1981–84. For Finding Refuge, she has put together firsthand accounts of kids’ and teenagers’ experiences — some recounted many years later — to help young readers understand war, conflict, and what it means to be a...
The Swan Song that Truman Capote Did Not Intend to Write
Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era By Laurence Leamer G.P. Putnam’s Sons Reviewed by Steven Boyd Saum “For years, Truman Capote had been proudly telling anyone within hearing that he was writing ‘the greatest novel of the age,’” begins Laurence Leamer’s latest biography, a tale of the literati and glitterati. Capote’s book “was about a group of the richest, most elegant women in the world. They were fictional, of course … but everyone knew these characters were based on his closest friends, the coterie of gorgeous, witty, and fabulously rich...
Andy Warhol’s Cats, a Floating Subway Map, and More NYC Delights
Art Hiding in New York AN ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO THE CITY’S SECRET MASTERPIECES By Lori Zimmer | Illustrated by Maria Krasinski Running Press Reviewed by Steven Boyd Saum In this compendium of delight, illustrator Maria Krasinski brings playful color and a lightness of touch to an exploration of art and artists whose work populates dedicated spaces and so much more in Manhattan. She teams up with writer Lori Zimmer to traverse unexpected places and limn faces of the artists. Works range from Alexander Calder’s “Janey Waney” in Gramercy Park to Francoise Schein’s “Subway Map Floating on a New...
Afghanistan: For an Educator, a Journey Back to a Time of Peace
Afghanistan at a Time of Peace By Robin Varnum Peace Corps Writers Reviewed by Jordan Simmons Friends en route to a provincial school. Photo courtesy Robin Varnum Afghanistan at a Time of Peace traces Robin Varnum’s years as a Peace Corps Volunteer, 1971–73. Varnum chronicles her journey into learning the place she came to call home: adapting to the chilly weather in Ghazni, southwest of Kabul, and understanding why she and other foreigners are mocked as “Mister Kachaloo” (literally, “Mr. Potato” in Dari), and traversing the length and breadth of the country — from Jalalabad to Mazar-i-sharif. As a Volunteer...
Two Years in Afghanistan with the Peace Corps for Parents. And Two Deployments in Afghanistan for their Son.
A Few Minor Adjustments TWO YEARS IN AFGHANISTAN: A PEACE CORPS ODYSSEY By Elana Hohl Independently Published Reviewed by Jordan Simmons Before Elana Hohl and her husband, Mike, traveled to Afghanistan to serve with the Peace Corps 1971–73, she had only been beyond her native Midwest a handful of times. The journey filled her with constant amazement — at the smells and tastes of foods, the splendor and beauty of the land in which she found herself. That includes her first trip north with an Afghan friend, Faiz, to the Salaang Pass in the heart of the...