June 2023 MBR The Literary Fiction Shelf

The Literary Fiction Shelf

The Ice Harp
Norman Lock
Bellevue Literary Press
www.blpress.org
9781954276178, $17.99, PB, 240pp

https://www.amazon.com/Ice-Harp-American-Novels/dp/1954276176

Synopsis: In 1879, toward the end of his life, Ralph Waldo Emerson, known throughout as the Sage of Concord, has lost his words. Beset by aphasia and grief, Ralph Waldo Emerson is scarcely recognizable as America's foremost essayist and orator.

To the dismay of his wife, he frequently entertains the specters of his fellow transcendentalists, including Whitman, Thoreau, John Muir, and Margaret Fuller, and frets about the future of humankind and the natural world. Does the present displace the past? Do ideas always precede actions? What responsibility does each of us bear for the downtrodden, the preservation of liberty, and the Earth itself?

These metaphysical concerns become concrete when Emerson meets a Black soldier accused of killing a white man who abused him. The soldier's presence demands a response from Emerson, an action outside the parlors of philosophy and beyond the realm where language and logic hold sway.

"The Ice Harp", the tenth stand-alone book in The American Novels series by author Norman Lock is a poignant portrayal of a literary luminary coming to terms with the loss of memory, the cost of inaction, and the end of life.

Critique: A deftly crafted and inherently fascinating fictional biography featuring American literary legend Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Ice Harp" is a memorable read and unreservedly recommended for personal, community, and academic library Literary Fiction collections. It should be noted for readers with an interest in an intriguing and philosophical work that is as intellectually entertaining as it is memorably thought provoking, "The Ice Harp" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $17.09).

Editorial Note: Norman Lock (https://normanlock.com) is the author of novels, short fiction, and poetry, as well as stage and radio plays. He has won The Dactyl Foundation Literary Fiction Award, The Paris Review Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, and has been longlisted twice for the Simpson/Joyce Carol Oates Prize. He has also received writing fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Second Star
Phillippe Delerm, author
Jody Gladding, translator
Archipelago Books
https://archipelagobooks.org
9781953861542, $18.00, PB, 164pp

https://www.amazon.com/Second-Star-other-reasons-lingering/dp/1953861547

Synopsis: Ably and expertly translated into English for an American readership by Jody Gladding, "Second Star: And Other Reasons for Lingering" by French author Philippe Delerm is an impressive anthology of fourteen succinct short stories offering literary snapshots.

Whether biting into a bitter turnip or savoring a summer evening in June, Philip Delerm's literary snapshots transport us to simple, often overlooked sensations and pleasures, and, pausing, expand a moment or emotion outwards in concentric circles.

These evocative literary vignettes invite us to linger, to "savor the few moments of silence" -- as if each bite of a ripe watermelon, each exhaled breath on a bitterly cold day, each cloudy evening on the beach, were our last.

Critique: A master of the short story format, Philip Delerm pursued literary studies at Nanterre before becoming a teacher himself. In 1975 he taught French Literature at the Marie Curie College (Secondary School) in Bernay. Ironically, the first manuscripts which Delerm submitted for publication from 1976 were refused by publishers. But eventually with success as an author, Delerm ended his teaching career in 2007 in order to concentrate on his writing full-time. With the publication of an English edition of "Second Star: And Other Reasons for Lingering" from Archipelago Books, this literary short story collection is unreservedly recommended for personal, community, college, and university library Contemporary Literary Fiction collections. An inspiring series of lyrical meditations on life's smallest moments, from peeling a clementine, drinking a cold mojito, to washing your window, it should be noted that "Second Star" is also available for students, academia, and the general public in a digital book format (Kindle, $12.99).

Editorial Note #1: Philippe Delerm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Delerm) was born in 1950 in a suburb of Paris. Delerm writes fiction, essays, and children's books. His collection of essays La Premiere gorgee de biere et autres plaisirs minuscules sold more than one million copies in France and became a #1 bestseller. Delerm has published eleven books, including "Autumn" which won the Prix Alain-Fournier in 1990.

Editorial Note #2: Jody Gladding (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jody-gladding) has translated the works of Elizabeth Deshays, Herve This, and Jean Giono, among others. She has written several books of poetry, including the spiders my arms (2018). Gladding has been honored with a Whiting Writers' Award, an Academy of American Poets Prize, a Centre National du Livre de France Translation grant and a French-American Foundation Translation Award, along with a MacDowell Colony fellowship, a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford, and a residency at The Frost Place.

Sidle Creek
Jolene McIlwain, author
https://www.jolenemcilwain.com
Melville House
https://www.mhpbooks.com
9781685890414, $17.99, PB, 256pp

https://www.amazon.com/Sidle-Creek-Jolene-McIlwain/dp/1685890415

Synopsis: With the publication of "Sidle Creek" (a compendium of twenty-two short stories), author Jolene McIlwain skillfully interrogates the myths and stereotypes of the mining, mill, and farming towns where she grew up.

Jolene's stories take place in diners and dive bars, town halls and bait shops, In her writing Jolene explores the themes of class, work, health, and trauma, and the unexpected human connections of small, close-knit communities. All the while, the wild beauty of the natural world weaves its way in, a source of the town's livelihood -- and its vulnerable to natural resource exploitation.

Critique: Original and carefully crafted with 'an alchemic blend of taut prose, gorgeous imagery, and deep sensitivity for all of the living beings' "Sidle Creek" each featured short story showcases author Jolene McIlwain's impressive narrative driven storytelling skills. An entertaining, thought-provoking, and memorable read with each story being an extraordinary and memorable literary experience, "Sidle Creek" is especially and particularly recommended for personal, community, and academic library Contemporary Literary Fiction and Short Story Anthology collections. It should be noted that "Sidle Creek" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $10.99).

Editorial Note: Jolene McIlwain (https://www.jolenemcilwain.com) has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appeared in numerous literary journals, and in 2019's Best Small Fictions Anthology. Her work was named finalist for 2018's Best of the Net, Glimmer Train's and River Styx's contests, and was a semifinalist in Nimrod's Katherine Anne Porter Prize. She's taught literary theory/analysis at Duquesne and Chatham Universities.

Home Bodies: Stories
Amy LeBlanc
Great Plains Publications
https://www.greatplains.mb.ca
9781773371016, $17.95, PB, 168pp

https://www.amazon.com/Homebodies-Stories-Amy-Leblanc/dp/1773371010

Synopsis: With the publication of "Homebodies", author Amy LeBlanc showcases a compendium of her uncanny and ghostly stories that provoke dread, abjection, and horror. The tales are intertwined and linked like a chain of dried daisies or butterfly legs: someone you used to know is on trial for murder. You work at a funeral home. Your dead grandmother calls you on the phone. You pin and preserve butterflies on a corkboard as a strange girl knocks on your door. You put a bike lock on the fridge. You sleepwalk. You attend a party. You get sick. You get an IV infusion. You don't get better. The stories in Homebodies show that you don't need a house to be haunted because the body can do that all on its own.

Critique: Original, inherently fascinating, and with a narrative storytelling style that is ideal for Gothic fiction and the short story format, "Home Bodies" by Amy LeBlanc is comprised of sixteen memorable tales organized into three major sections: The Fox; The Fever Dream; The Body. While a highly recommended pick for community and academic library Contemporary Literary Fiction & Short Story Anthology collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "Home Bodies" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $8.99).

Editorial Note: Amy LeBlanc is a PhD student in English and creative writing at the University of Calgary. She is the author of the poetry collection, "I know something you don't know" and the novella, "Unlocking". Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Room, Arc, CV2, Canadian Literature, and the Literary Review of Canada among others. Homebodies is Amy's first short story collection.

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