ForeWord Magazine Review-a-day

Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It: And Other Cooking Projects

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 03:00:00 EST

Cooking is skilled labor, blue-collar, and always a fine opportunity to get your hands dirty. Before the advent of celebrity chefs, the work of the kitchen felt closer to masonry than artistry. In days of yore, putting food up for use in later weeks or months required a real understanding of bacterial processes, preservation, sanitation, and storage options. Mistakes might greatly affect how one survived the winter. This very fine book also reminds us that crackers, chips, dips, jams, jellies, dressings, pickles, olives, pastas, smoked and cured fish, and meat, all taste wonderful. And as kitchen projects go, they provide a great deal of satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. A playful and exuberant writer,.... Reviewer: Matt Sutherland

The Safety of Deeper Water

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 03:00:00 EST

Tim Polands The Safety of Deeper Water (Vandalia Press, 978-1-933202-32-7) IS MORE OF A NOVEL WITH SUSPENSE THAN A SUSPENSE NOVEL. In fact, its a fishing novel with suspense-and a first-rate writing job. The story centers on a woman with an unusual pursuit: Sandy Holston is addicted to fly fishing. She lives in rural Appalachia and receives occasional letters from her ex-husband whos in prison for bashing in a mans head. He promises to track her down and kill her when he gets out.

What makes this original if offbeat story work is Polands writing skill, honed on shorter fiction (hes an English professor at Radford University). His love of nature and fishing and his understanding of the characters shine through. Theres a neat twist at the end, foretold in the excellent title..... Reviewer: Dick Cady

A Democracy of Ghosts

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 03:00:00 EST

"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, heavy for the vintage." Steinbeck's quote is the farmworkers' equivalent to what brews in A Democracy of Ghosts, John Griswold's fictional depiction of the Herrin Massacre of 1922, a bloody battle between miners and strikebreakers that caused the deaths of twenty-one men-nineteen of them scabs-and cast a dark shadow of shame over Illinois.

Griswold explores the tense moments before the massacre and its aftermath through the lives of four couples: James and Mercy ORourke, Bullyrag and Sally Greathouse, William and Cora Sneed, as well as Sneed and his mistress, Shelly Brown. The novel is drawn from historical documentation, news accounts, and eye-witness sources,.... Reviewer: Lee Gooden

Knife Music

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 03:00:00 EST

Impressive is the debut of David Carnoy with the surprisingly complex and sophisticated Knife Music (ParkMadison Press, 978-0-615-24325-2). Its a combination legal/medical novel, so neatly plotted it seems the first-timer might have over-reached. Yet Carnoy resolves everything with enough originality to deliver a satisfying jolt.

The main character is a doctor accused of having sex with a teenage girl who commits suicide. Credit the author not only for making the medical stuff believable, but for writing convincingly of the teenager and others in and around her generation. If the police detectives and their routines aren't quite as convincing, it doesn't detract from the narrative.

Reviewer: Dick Cady

The Bottom of the Sky

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:00:00 EST

The corrupting influence of big money is just one dark force at work in this story of an abused brother and sister and their futile attempts to rise above their pasts.

Levi Monroe and his sister Lam have known beatings and worse at the hands of their father. Lam was sexually abused on a regular basis and has become a magnet for rape and seduction. Their mother, Virginia, put them through another kind of hell with her cancer and inability to deal with her husbands behavior. Poverty has dealt yet another blow, overlaying Levis troubled mind with humiliation. He seeks to rise above and leave behind everything hes ever known, abandoning his family and hometown of Roundup, Montana, in search of prosperity and respect..... Reviewer: Marlene Satter