Book Review: New Jack Rabbit City: Starring the Chicago Hares

New Jack Rabbit City: Starring the Chicago Hares. Mike Evanouski and Gail Galvan. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Charleston, SC, June 6, 2013. 174 pages. Listen to ten original songs by the authors and Dan O’Connor at www.newjackrabbitcity.podomatic.com, voice by Gail Galvan.

Reviewed by Caryl Barnes.

On the title page, the reader meets two rabbits, both with enormous ears cocked. One rabbit is doleful, apparently hearing nothing despite those big ears. The other, a super rabbit and no doubt a resident of the idyllic New Jack Rabbit City, wears earphones and appears transfixed by the vibes he’s picking up from the stratosphere.

Beneath this sketch of the two rabbits are three enigmatic words in capital letters: “IT’S THE FREQUENCY.”

That phrase appears throughout the book. The “frequency,” as well as an unexpected artesian well with a will of its own are what make New Jack Rabbit City possible. 

Over many decades, jack rabbits had migrated to scrubland at the edge of a huge sand dune outside Bruneau, Idaho.  Life was hard in the original Jack Rabbit City: food was scarce, and the water supply unpredictable.  The ranchers, whose large herds of cattle overgrazed the area, moved on, leaving the land in ruins. A few jack rabbits barely survived.

Then a miracle occurred, changing everything for the rabbits.  An artesian well sprang from the ground, the rabbits drank and grew large, some as tall as six feet, and all were suddenly able to blend into the landscape, invisible if they wanted to be. New Jack City, comprising fifty acres of land, a 470 foot sand dune, two lakes, and a mini-mall, is protected by dense vegetation which ”gives the impression of a maze to the uninvited.” As the Mayor of New Jack City explains to three humans and two dogs he admits to the city, its residents can maintain one hundred percent visibility or invisibility whenever they choose.

Another miraculous event soon occurred.  When the world began to switch from analog to digital frequencies, the rabbits, whose two-antenna ears are “wired like no other animal,” began to pick up images, sounds, scenes from strange places and visions. As the Mayor says, “We tuned in, caught on . . . Within months we were up to speed with the human race.”

Rumors of the good life in New Jack City began to spread.  The authors, one of whom lives in suburban Chicago, focus on Chicago rabbits to illustrate the story of rabbits emigrating in droves to find their hearts’ desire in New Jack City.  The balance of the book is about what happens to the “good” rabbit settlers when some Southside Chicago gangster rabbits visit New Jack City so they can double or triple in size and win gang wars back home. Greedy humans find out about the artesian well and plot to steal the water in tanker trucks. The story unfolds in an exciting, fun to read way, with a convincing magical realism that gives it the quality of a fable. The subtext is the story of immigrants everywhere, with some rabbits working constructively for a better future, a few becoming criminals in their new home, and a few who already live there exploiting the newbies.

Mature readers need not worry that the book might be too cutesy; it isn’t cute at all. The authors convey spiritual wisdom without getting preachy or didactic, and the nuggets sprinkled throughout the book are real gems.

For instance: The wise Mayor invites the gangster rabbits to stay in New Jack City, knowing they will change. After all, he says, the Southsiders “began losing their way many years ago, due to one heartbreak or another.”

A visitor to New Jack Rabbit City reflects: “It was magical, this moment, the last step before turning back, the dawn that’s always rising, the sun that never sets. A spin of reality, the glimpse of what can be—a tunnel into the open mind.”

There are also some wonderful lines in the lyrics of the songs that accompany the book: “If the cards are stacked against you/Buy another deck of cards….” and “Chase life fast, chase life slow/But chase it hard, chase it long/It’s the only way to go.”

Although the style of much of the book is sheer narrative, moving us from one episode to another, there are some beautiful passages.  For instance:  “Morning breaks early in the desert. Dancing waves of red light race across the horizon as the sun slowly rises. With the sky clear as a mountain stream, the day started fast and furious.”

One criticism of the book – and, for this reviewer, a major flaw - is haphazard copy editing, especially in the last half of the book. A common error is omitting commas before names when one character is addressing another, e.g., “Stay back Rush’ and “No Sis no.” There are spelling errors: “you lousy….I ougta” and “staring out with a peak at the springhouse.”  Mistakes like these are frequent enough to become irritating.

All in all, though, New Jack Rabbit City is an enjoyable book with a multimedia approach. The book is available as both a high-quality paperback and an e-book. The original art and graphics are appealing, especially the color portrait of the Mayor on the cover of the paperback; and the ten songs from the book are available on a podcast.  

NOTE: Based upon this review, the authors made revisions to the book and the new, revised Kindle version is available on 11/1/13.

Book Review: DADspirations - The 1st 100 Days of Fatherhood. Tips for Parenting Every New Dad and Dad-To-Be-Should Know

DADspirations - The 1st 100 Days of Fatherhood. Tips for Parenting Every New Dad and Dad-To-Be-Should Know. Pete Densmore. Published by DADspirations, Chicago, August 1, 2012, 176 pp.

Reviewed by Opal Freeman.

DADspirations: The 1st 100 Days of Fatherhood is a lively book written by Pete Densmore, who has willingly provided personal experiences and worthwhile tips to new and existing fathers. His approach to providing assistance to new fathers is to combine realistic, but practical, applications to ensure the journey of fatherhood is a memorable one. He also makes sure he is attentive to the mother; after all, she has nurtured the internal growth of the baby for the previous nine months. He includes a manageable blend of fun comments and creative tips that will be used not only today, but also throughout the lifespan of the parents and the child. DADspirations is designed to encourage and support new fathers, while helping to diminish the fears and anxieties of fatherhood, and recommends creative steps to give guidance and direction to fathers throughout the growth and development of their children.

The style of the book allows the reader to visualize—through the eyes of the father, mother, and the child—various stages that occur after leaving the hospital and getting settled into a solid routine at home. The book also covers the normalcy of the baby eating, sleeping, cooing, smiling, crying, and getting adjusted to a new world outside of the mother's womb. What's encouraging are the recommended “dadspirations” for what to do for the first 100 days of the baby's life. The rationale in providing positive and interactive activities within the first 100 days is that this specific time period will have an impact on the life of the child for the rest of his or her life.

The writing of DADspirations is a reflection of experiences of fatherhood, as well as preparation for the children's future. While the author is not an expert, he has excellent observations about several ways to improve your methods with a second child. All parents have the intent on providing the best for their children. The way it is expressed may be quite different, but the constant theme is providing a foundation of love and good well-being for the child.

Densmore successfully provides a quick, conservative read for fathers, but mothers and family members can benefit from the book as well. The book is an easy read; it's funny, and it provides a view of a newborn’s first 100 days that many people take for granted, or are just unaware of. I would go on to say that Densmore did a fantastic job in answering the who, what, when, where, and how of fatherhood for the first 100 days. I not only learned a few things from the book, I really enjoyed it.

Book Review: Friend Grief and Anger: When Your Friend Dies and No One Gives a Damn

Friend Grief and Anger: When Your Friend Dies and No One Gives a Damn. Victoria Noe. King Company Publishing, May 3, 2013, Paperback and Kindle, 46 pages.

Reviewed by Kristina Winters

The loss of a friend is not always perceived as a respected or profound loss. Victoria Noe challenges that notion in Friend Grief and Anger: When Your Friend Dies and No One Gives a Damn by discussing “disenfranchised grief” that is often not validated or given the same social credence as the loss of a relative when, in fact, it arguably warrants the same level of attention.

Friend Grief and Anger is a somber read centered on the raw, angry emotion often felt when one loses a close friend. Noe focuses on various relationships and losses throughout her life as well as stories of loss experienced by individuals she knows. These examples allow the reader a different lens through which to view varying stages of grief, whether an individual’s departure is sudden, gradual, or perplexing in nature.

In one particular example, Noe highlights her own experience with losing her friend Delle Chatman to ovarian cancer, using this as an impetus to frame her personal anger at seeing Chatman shut out loved ones as she neared the end of her life. In the aftermath of Chatman’s death, the anger didn’t arise at the circumstances that took her life, but with the deceased herself, for not allowing close friends and family to support her through the end of her journey. Other stories focus on anger at incurable diseases or viruses, rage at incidents such as 9/11, or resentment toward perceived negligence, as was evident in the famous death of actor Vic Morrow who lost his life while filming Twilight Zone: The Movie. Director John Landis not only faced a manslaughter charge in Vic Morrow’s wrongful death case, but also faced the warranted wrath of mourners when he appeared at Vic Morrow’s funeral to deliver an unwelcome eulogy. These stories serve to validate the grieving process and provide insight into how the death of a friend rightfully merits anger, sadness, and appropriate time for healing.

What this book does well is allow the reader to understand that there is nothing wrong with experiencing grief in ways that are natural to the individual­—whether that grief is for someone close or a popular celebrity in the news, no one can dictate a socially acceptable response, or demand that one grieve in a way that is largely perceived as appropriate. Although it is not necessarily meant to be constructive, Friend Grief and Anger takes the reader for a walk in someone else’s shoes by exploring the concept that grief is real, regardless of its form, and that we are not alone in our feelings of anger, sadness, and disappointment when working to embrace the loss of a friend.

Book Review: The Englishman and the Butterfly

The Englishman and the Butterfly. Ryan Asmussen. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, October 1, 2012. Kindle edition, 255 pages.

Reviewed by Marie Becker.

The Englishman and the Butterfly is an undeniably ambitious book, firmly enmeshed not only in literary references, but also in a distinct aesthetic sensibility. Asmussen is a published poet and English teacher, and the heft of this book comes primarily from the loving use of language and the deeply felt respect for the literary canon. The novel follows Henry Fell, a lonely and anxiety-ridden Oxford professor newly relocated to Boston on an academic fellowship. Henry soon falls in with the popular professor Geoffrey Hearne, the awkward and lumbering professor Christopher Moberley, and Julia, a PhD student who serves as the center of a erotic matrix which quickly turns dark and layered with envy, lust and grief, and from which no one will emerge unscathed, if at all. Throughout, these academics and poets (at least aspiring ones) quote, allude, and meditate as they attempt to make sense of what surrounds them, even as it shifts from everyday foibles and neuroses into overt horror. Throughout the book, the language is thoughtful and deliberate, creating its own kind of introspective lull. It’s easy to fall into the lyrical language of this book, a dream-like state that both depicts and recreates the temptations of seeing life through too distant a lens.

The same passion for literary language can also be seen in plot, which veers from satirical takes on self-absorbed academics to a woman in peril to moments of stylized noir to meditations on Zen Buddhism. These shifts in tone, while demonstrating Asmussen’s breadth of interest, also at times lead to some disconnect in pacing. Much as Henry Fell’s literary training has both trapped him and given him succor, The Englishman and the Butterfly sometimes stumbles under its own impressive scope and pedigree. Rather than illuminate, it can obfuscate. At one point, Asmussen slyly presents us with a transcribed interview between Henry and a frustrated police officer, who has no patience with Henry’s allusive—and elusive—answers to his questions, and the investigator’s frustration is not only palpable, but sympathetic, slicing through the indulgences of wit and meta-references that both the book and Henry so rely on. It’s a powerful moment in the text, but almost immediately falls away, leaving the roots of Henry’s eventual epiphanies that much more ephemeral.   

Asmussen likens the book to a parable or fairy tale and in that sense, the language and imagery take significant emphasis over plot. Despite some twists that border on the sensational, the novel remains insular, deeply committed to Henry’s belated coming of age story, sometimes at the expense of clarity. In particular, the characterization of Julia was somewhat frustrating; despite being given point-of-view passages, she ultimately seems to function as a catalyst for the acts of the men around her, rather than a fully-realized character in her own right. The book struggled to solidly connect its plot points of intrigue with Henry’s emotional evolution, making his growth less satisfying and more solipsistic than it might have been. What does shine through, however, is a deep and passionate love for literature, and an earnest questioning of how we navigate between its comforts and its shortfalls. Even if Henry Fell’s epiphanies may be less than satisfying, the writer’s pursuit of them is an admirable one. Asmussen’s passion and intelligence make him a writer well worth watching.

Book Review: Still Having Fun

Still Having Fun: A Portrait of the Military Marriage of Rex and Bettie George 1941-2007. Candace George Thompson. Published: Westview, Inc., Kingston Springs, TN, 2012, 305 pp.

Reviewed by Vicky Edwards.

Writing a memoir is a tricky business. If you’re not famous, you have to make strangers care about you or your family. If you’re writing about events that happened when you weren’t present, you have to breathe life into the facts. Ultimately, you have to disconnect enough from the dramatic events of your own life to share uncomfortable truths in a way that is both passionate and dispassionate.           

Candace George Thompson succeeds to some degree on all these levels in “Still Having Fun: A Portrait of the Military Marriage of Rex and Bettie George 1941-2007.”

Thompson’s father, Rex, was a career Air Force officer who began service on D-Day. His courtship with the popular Bettie Gibson is reminiscent of Amanda Wingfield’s memories of her “gentlemen callers” in “The Glass Menagerie”: the interested parties were lined up on Bettie’s front porch as she came in from one date and changed clothes to go on the next one. In fact, she was engaged to someone else when Rex won her heart.

The opening sections of the book, however, suffer from their archival quality. Events are noted, personal family letters are shared, and her father’s tape-recorded memories are included, verbatim, but it seldom rises above the level of a documentation of family ancestry and into the level of compelling reading. The endnotes do a neat job of putting Rex’s service into the larger historical context, but perhaps that information would be better integrated into the text.

A notable exception is the heartbreaking story of Bettie giving birth to a stillborn baby in 1942. The stunning insensitivity with which medical personnel treated the event is a throwback to an era of “Just don’t talk about it and it will go away,” with the hospital staff routinely taking the baby from a sedated mother who never gets to hold her own child.  Grief unacknowledged is grief that lingers, as Bettie’s does throughout her life.

Once the story enters the 1950s, the narrative picks up with the author’s ability to remember the events she is describing. If you have ever wondered, as I have, that children can be unaware of their own father’s alcoholism, Candace’s surprise and her growing understanding that her father has a problem is convincing; his dysfunction is quietly kept in the shadows and Bettie’s distress has been kept to herself. It may not have been easy for the author to “out” her father to the public, but it was a necessary admission and aided reader understanding of the path addiction sometimes takes.

The final chapters focusing on Bettie’s cognitive decline are also heartbreakingly honest, and the author does a remarkable job of making us understand Bettie’s denial and frustrations, as well as the immense job that Rex undertook as her unfailing caretaker.

Overall, this memoir does a credible job of blending historical perspective with the personal story of two people that the reader feels he or she would like to have met.

Candace George Thompson spent her childhood moving around the country, and served in Venezuela as a Peace Corps volunteer, before settling down in Chicago, where she has lived for over 30 years.