Rogue Literary Society

"Border Districts" by Gerald Murnane

M Sarki — Wed, 04 Nov 2026 09:00:53 GMT

The promise this book held for me was due to my recent reading of Murnane’s latest, and perhaps last, titled Last Letter to a Reader. It was amazing and inspired me to no end to write again and to read another Murnane title such as this one. After each new reading of the day I always wrote something or other in one of the many projects I seem to have going on concurrently these days. And why that is I haven't a clue.

Border Districts by Gerald Murnane; 132 pages, Hardcover; Published: April 3, 2018 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux; ISBN:9780374115753 (ISBN10: 0374115753); Language: English

…I have learned to trust the promptings of my mind, which urges me sometimes to study in all seriousness matters that another person might dismiss as unworthy, trivial, childish…I intended to ask what had become of the imagined presence or personage who had ruled the life of the young man…

The promise this book held for me was due to my recent reading of Murnane’s latest, and perhaps last, titled Last Letter to a Reader. It was amazing and inspired me to no end to write again and to read another Murnane title such as this one. After each new reading of the day I always wrote something or other in one of the many projects I seem to have going on concurrently these days. And why that is I haven't a clue.

…Since I wrote the previous paragraph, I have traveled to and from the capital city where I lived for most of my life. I traveled there in order to visit my grandson and his parents and the only two friends of mine I still care to visit…

I believed this particular book would hold secrets previously kept at arm’s length away from me. What these secrets were I was in no way privy to but still I desired an experience similar to the one I had while reading his last, and latest, and perhaps in ways similar to Bob Dylan’s so-called Never Ending Tour.

…I have not yet forgotten the period of my life when I read book after book of fiction in the belief that I would learn thereby matters of much importance not to be learned from any other kind of book…

Murnane’s claim above is exactly how it has been for me when I have sought out whatever literature that would occupy my attention and offer either some condolence or promise for my figuring out the truth about what it all means for me in the end. In other words, what in the hell I was even doing here and where to go from this place I sit still in and ruminate almost daily as if I were a cow. But this book, at or near the three-quarter mark, was failing in its offer of an attraction I might want to further look into. It was simply bogging down and not at all what I had expected to achieve by reading it. And then I came upon a passage near the end of the book in which Murnane was detailing a recommended experience while reading something or other written by Richard Jeffries. Failing to connect with the writing that seemed to be going nowhere Murnane explains the process in which he quit reading Jeffries and went on to other things more pressing in his head. The absence of images being the main reason for abandoning Jeffries. And now I am, and have been for the last several pages, not enjoying my reading of Murnane for the same reason. There is a lack of interest on my part and mostly due to having no interest really in anything Murnane is saying and I am finding it difficult to carry on my reading of this book. But as I do with other cumbersome pieces, I trudge on and liken it to finishing an assignment delegated by a certain make-believe authority that I willfully obey as if the instruction in the long run will be good for me.

Gerald Murnane

***A free subscription to the Rogue Literary Society affords the pleasure of reading important and creative book reviews, digressions of every stripe, and an original poem at least twice a week. Posts remain free for the initial two weeks before requiring a paid subscription. We appreciate your ongoing support but please help us out a bit and buy a book! You’ll be glad you did.

To gain total access to our complete archived posts here in the Rogue Literary Society (now numbering nearly a 800) please consider a paid subscription. At just $30.00 per year a paid subscription amounts to only about $0.08 per day. Your help will be very much appreciated. And it will enable us to keep this site alive and thriving.

"Nails Lined the Bottom Shelf" by M Sarki

M Sarki — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 09:00:38 GMT

Twelve years later, looking back, I think it is my best work.

In 2014 I published Stamped Against the Night. When I wrote it I wasn't sure what exactly it was, but I knew it was something. Ten years later, looking back, I believe it was some sort of narrative poetry. I also think it is my best work, though much different from anything I have previously, or since, written. Today I share with you one of the many chapters found in this book.

You can kindly purchase the book here.

A House, a Stone, a Leaf in the Wind

M Sarki — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 09:01:53 GMT

A House, a Stone, a Leaf in the Wind

For the longest time my fucking thumbnail refused to heal properly. It was an inconvenience that has proven to be disappointing. Since November of last year I have trimmed and filed and done much to encourage that nail to grow back properly. But it hasn’t. And all because of one errant and misjudged swipe at a branch of our largest Mulberry tree while I was pruning the wild growths sprouting from it over the summer. It was one of the first very cold days that November and I believed it would be a perfect occasion to remove the untamed limbs. The problem was my choice of cutting tool being an old crosscut bowsaw with very sharp teeth and my historically aggressive and violent nature every time I engaged myself in physical labor. And grasping the offshoot growth with my left hand, and in my right the teeth of the saw being too closely adjacent, resulted in the blade slipping with a bloodthirsty glancing blow that nearly took my thumb off. Luckily the teeth of the saw cut fairly deeply on an angle just below the seat of my thumbnail instead slicing the entire way through. I knew I would likely lose a good part of the nail, or at the very least it would grow back unsightly.

Days later, as the nail began to emerge from out of the skin below the cut, a portion of it resulted in exposing raw flesh. And because of the angle of the cut the nail began its vertical climb covering only half the area where the nail was supposed to be. It took several months for the nail to even begin forming a hardened shell over the sensitive and fleshy half adjacent to my forefinger. It wasn’t until the following June that the nail finally began its proper ascent. The thumb remained quite ugly for several months but it was hoped that one day it would return to being the handsome appendage I was accustomed to having. It was rather astounding to me how often one uses the very end of a thumbnail when prying open a stubborn lid or unraveling a knot in a string. And staring at this broken digit did not help the situation but instead caused me some distress over which I was already exhausted. But it did become a symbol of where my life has led me, for good or for worse.

"In My Difficulties with Direction" by M Sarki

M Sarki — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 08:01:14 GMT

a poem taken from my first book Zimble Zamble Zumble published in 2000 by elimae books.

“Ritz of the Bayou” by Nancy Lemann

M Sarki — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 08:01:07 GMT

…In the South, you tend your own garden, in your corner of the world. You have to cultivate your own garden, and this is why, as it is well known, Southerners are eccentric…

Ritz of the Bayou by Nancy Lemann; 163 pages, Hardcover; Published August 12, 1987 by Knopf; ISBN: 9780394560373 (ISBN10: 039456037X); Language: English

…These born-again Christians seem to be pretty dim bulbs. The elevator isn’t going to the penthouse level, you might say…

This is not an easy book to review. Charming, yes. Clever, yes. Smidgens of a story, yes. Character development? Not so much. It’s more about the reporter covering the trial and her relationship to New Orleans and New York and what it is she sees and hears and decides what it is, and what it hilariously is all about. But like I said, it isn’t easy.

… “So you’re from Princeton?” said the Governor.”Well, what’s the matter, you couldn’t get into the schools in Louisiana?”

I particularly liked that bit. The dialogue leads us through the entire meaning of the piece, and I’m not really sure it has anything to do with the court case Lemann’s covering. And the meaning I am thinking has everything to do with connecting somehow, and being made to believe you belong. Buit where that idea ever came from is anybody’s guess.

…dead silence in the elevator, while I tell the Governor my entire family tree. I said I was Buddy’s cousin. “You’re too cute to be Buddy’s cousin,” said the Governor…

That southern charm, just dripping with bullshit. I imagine a fake tan. And it must help that the Governor is handsome in light of the glare off those Hollywood lights. Obviously impressed by the wrong coastline. Still, imported and cheap.

…In the South, you tend your own garden, in your corner of the world. You have to cultivate your own garden, and this is why, as it is well known, Southerners are eccentric…

Nancy Lemann is a hard writer to categorize, so I will not attempt to do so. Leave it to say that I am moving on to another of her novels, this one titled Malaise. Perhaps after reading everything she’s written I’ll eventually get what it is she’s doing. And perhaps it’s as simple as having a good time.

"Rubble, and the Lammikin" by M Sarki

M Sarki — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 08:01:16 GMT

a poem taken from my first book Zimble Zamble Zumble published in 2000 by elimae books.

"The Traveling Feast" by Rick Bass

M Sarki — Sun, 25 Oct 2026 08:01:40 GMT

...One of his (Gordon Lish) dictums was to write the one story you are most afraid or ashamed of. (A variation on this assignment was to write the one story you’d write if you knew you could write only one more in your life.)...

The Traveling Feast: On the Road and at the Table with My Heroes by Rick Bass; Kindle Edition, 289 pages; Published June 5th 2018 by Little, Brown and Company; ASIN: B0763LHF9Y

...I was trailing a stream of heart’s blood wherever I went, but I had to keep moving...I wanted to learn, relearn, how to go after seconds, and then dessert, too: not just to survive, but to feast. And after a long time of not eating, I did begin to eat again...

There is no doubt in my mind that this book is the best writing Rick Bass has ever produced. Not that his previous efforts were at all wasted. Bass is a splendid writer. Important. Relevant. He has a great manner of speaking to his readers. But there are many reasons I believe this is his best writing ever, and for beginners I will list just a few of them:

This is a great adventure tale.
The devastating sadnesses of his divorce are inherently revealed, and his attempts at moving on with his life by dealing with it are met in relative, and not to mention, helpful detail.
Almost every chapter leads to revealing more things about writers I thought I knew and others I have never met.
What it means to be a writer of note, and why.
And finally how important food is, who you share it with, and the love involved in its preparation.

...make the measurements level; be attentive to moisture; refrigerate the dough before rolling it out. Most of all, though, don’t handle it too much, because the heat from your hands can destroy the potential for flakiness; as if there lies buried within you some curse that will ruin anything you try to hold on to for too long…

Traveling to visit his favorite writers, some of them mentors, others associates met along the way, and hauling along frozen wild meat he had harvested in Montana and other delectables in order to cook a meal for the people he appreciates and one they will never forget. The risks involved in this exercise do not remain unacknowledged as cooking in one’s own kitchen is one thing and doing it in an unknown and thus strange environment is purely another. It is a recipe for failure.

...I walk alongside him like a peer but I do not feel like a peer, I feel like a wounded comrade who is hiding his wounds and is not calling out for help. Who is pretending all is well…(I) failed at my marriage. I tried as hard as I could but failed nonetheless. And the fact that the standards were high does not diminish the heart-wrenching feeling of not reaching them.

For any reader to confuse self-pity with devastating sadness is out of touch with their feelings. And most likely fashioned from a life of denial or lack of experience with love, family, and even commitment. Rick Bass carries grief and sadness with him in these journeys that surpasses any degree of misery he may have suffered in the past. His wife of many years has divorced him, and the divorce is obviously something he never wanted and is attempting to come to grips with. Bass does not shirk away from these sad feelings, his shame and guilt for what may have been his own greatest acts of omission, and the loneliness ever present within her every absence along the way. Pretty much every story of each artist visited includes a reflection for what was, and still might have been between them, especially when tales include one of his two children with his beloved Elizabeth. Or when he visits with couples whose marriages have survived their many years together his pain lengthens into the longest days.

...One of his (Gordon Lish) dictums was to write the one story you are most afraid or ashamed of. (A variation on this assignment was to write the one story you’d write if you knew you could write only one more in your life.)...

By reading this book I have learned a few things about some people I thought I knew more, or even enough about. One is Gordon Lish. I had no idea he was ever married to Amy Hempel. That was a surprise. Bass claims Lish was. I did know Lish and Hempel were in a long-term sexual relationship. He often touted his fondness for her promiscuity and adulterous behavior with him while married to another. Through more than twenty years of friendship I understood that Gordon seemed to crave sexual relationships with married women. I came to understand it was a sort of Lish power move, and more about making the man back at home into a cuckold than anything else. Sex was admittedly the driving force behind Lish’s writing and teaching. Everything Lish seemed to be involved with in my over twenty year friendship with him had to basically do with desire, be it sex, writing, food, or drink. Yes, according to Lish, Hempel and he were great friends, but they were lovers too. And then one day he announced to me their relationship was over. According to Bass’s accounting they returned to being friends and a deeper love remains and is shared between them. But who knows what is ever true regarding something Gordon Lish says? He lies a lot in his fiction. But throughout my long relationship with him I never found him to tell me something not true, however far-fetched it might seem. He did at times refrain from sharing too much, but he told me things I bet he never told others, careful to never spill the beans over something he may have still coveted.

...The best thing about being a writer is the isolation; the hardest thing about being a writer is the isolation…

Writing is a solitary endeavor. Sedentary if you are not careful. Unhealthy in many regards. Selfish for sure. Obsessively compulsive. A balance must be made. Priorities established. Boundaries made clear. Relationships nurtured.

...John (Berger) then—in a sedan outside a restaurant, smoking a cigarette, or on a motorcycle on a county lane in the fall—one understands why he is still as powerful as he is. Such a light can never go completely out...What is the nature of greatness?...

Greatness lies in incorporating all facets of good living into a lifetime of service to a muse or calling. Timeless expressions on the page do help to extend the possibilities for being historically remembered. The revered American author Jim Harrison's ultimate sign of literary recognition was his wish for his literary works to remain always in print, and so far so good. In addition to producing good books, I think also to be historically thought of kindly requires a personality like Harrison’s that is both interesting and attractive.

...Tom (McGuane), who has been sober almost four decades, is without a drink, but possesses what is surely just as much gaiety as was ever present in days of yore, giving the impression that the mirth is surely what has sustained him, and those nearest to him, in the hard times…

I discovered Tom McGuane in 1984 in an article published by the Detroit Free Press in which his newfound sobriety was being profiled along with his latest novel Something to Be Desired. From McGuane I discovered Jim Harrison, both Michigan-born writers (as I am as well) who attended Michigan State University together (which I avoided) and spent a lifetime as friends and fellow cohorts in all types of adventures beginning with the decadent and then moving into more mature indulgences mostly involved with food. Of course, segueing into reading Rick Bass came directly from reading these two icons who were instrumental in promoting the writing of their young protege. This also resulted in my introduction to Gordon Lish who first edited Rick Bass. And for a time after becoming a student of Gordon Lish I abandoned Harrison and McGuane due to Lish’s unfavorable projection of their literary merits. Over the last couple of years however I have rediscovered the importance of both of these fine writers and have rejected the Lish premise wholeheartedly and now consider the premise perhaps resentful and definitely ill-advised.

…Instead of seeing us off, Tom (McGuane) takes us down and shows us his writing space, a stone’s long throw from the main house. It’s a refurbished old homesteader’s cabin made of big logs that are well chinked...pass through the double-paned glass French doors and into a world of books. The one-room cabin is all bookshelves, all of them filled with hardbacks. In the corner closest to the water is an old desk...

I write anywhere, and whenever I can. Occasionally, in some of our remodeled homes, I have had a so-called office or studio, but nothing fancy. When available, just a spare room with a desk and my books. A few paintings on the walls perhaps, or photographs I have taken. Like me, artists such as Patti Smith also write anywhere and whenever they can. No need for the trappings of the writers profiled in this book. Even the author Rick Bass has a writing cabin of his own nestled out in the woods. Not that I wouldn’t appreciate having a defined studio of my own, but I might find it too distracting for the typical work at hand. I have always been a bricoleur at heart, in my homes, my constructions, and in my artistic endeavors. And I intend to stay that way. During a long-ago study of the British painter Francis Bacon it was amusing to me that he basically worked in a long and narrow closet, his paintings trampled as they lay on the floor, paint splatters everywhere, and complete chaos. But Francis Bacon produced some of the greatest art expressions the world has ever known. Monkeying around with a notebook tucked under your arm seems to me the best way to go. I remember reading about Jim Harrison writing his first novel Wolf while in traction recuperating after breaking his back from a great fall. Of course, Harrison eventually got his own studio or writing space and in the end actually died in one, hovered over his desk while writing a poem. Of course, the most famous writer’s den I have ever personally been in was Ernest Hemingway’s nest down in Florida’s Key West. My guess is that even if I were one day a commercial success I would still write as I do, anywhere and whenever I can.

...I have lost my edge, and the realization not just of how hard it is to go onto the page every morning and make something new in each sentence, but of how hard it is to keep that edge. To view the world always like a hawk…

The loneliness and shame connected with divorce and having your life upended is sometimes too much to bear. Energy is often zapped and reserves spent. Cathartic measures such as this traveling feast can do much to repair the wounded psyche and shake off the dust from standing vacantly still, frozen in time, reliving the past, and feeling the pain poignant in its own revealing. Rick Bass will emerge as all good heroes do, and gallantly get on his horse again.

...When she (Joyce Carol Oates) mentions Richard Ford, I ask if she’s heard of his dead-rabbit-swerve philosophy—of how, if one is to review books, there’s no sense in reviewing a book one doesn’t like. It’s akin to driving down the road and swerving the car in order to run over a rabbit…

Finally something I can wholeheartedly disagree with. Reading a poorly written book, even a bad book, deserves more than silence. If nobody rated any book they did not like every book would have a rating of four or five stars and not be a true analysis of what is and is not good literature. Opinions do matter. And, in fairness, it does not take long to find out which reviewers we do not need to hear from or read their words of wisdom regarding writing. Richard Ford, it is gathered, only wants to read reviews about books people like. This is another reason I haven’t completely read anything by Ford since his last great book The Sportswriter. One negative review of the traveling feast pertains to Bass’s inclusion of his marital failures and feelings, and how it doesn’t seem to go along with what the book was supposedly about. So, as important as his negative review is for people like him, he was obviously wrong on its merits, but that doesn’t mean his opinion does not matter and the negative review should never have been written. The travel feast was about Bass getting his appetite back, saying thanks, observing how others age as they live and get by, and feeling grateful and blessed to have known these people along life’s way.

...“The job of the poet is to remain indignant,” Terry (Tempest Williams) says…

It is also, in contrast I might add, important to review in the affirmative, if worthy, books most people seem to despise and reject. I read a lot of books. I feel it is my obligation as a reviewer to be honest and give examples of what I like and do not like. But I go into every book wanting to love what I read. I am disappointed to the nth degree when the book fails because of its own hype, promising to be much more than it is, and relying on lies from blurbs and publisher’s bullshit in order to sell books to a public that gives way too much credence to these protocols. I remember Richard Ford a few years ago being on the wrong side of history, aligned in the vitriolic camp of Tess Gallagher, bitterly accusing her husband Raymond Carver’s original editor Gordon Lish as being too tyrannical in his cutting, and in some cases rewriting, much of what was instrumental in gaining the great fame afforded to Carver as a minimalist writer of short stories. Subsequently Richard Ford has pretty much zero credibility with me. It is with great care and personal honor that today nobody can truly or negatively affect my own work, my reputation, or my thinking for the simple fact that I don’t need them or their approval.

...As we sit at the edge of the field I do not know that in less than three weeks, the one who started it all for me, Jim Harrison, will die from a heart attack on a Saturday night, seated at his desk, working on a poem. A poet’s death...“Death steals everything except our stories,” Jim once wrote…

There is no way in which to express how much I enjoyed this book. The fact of the primary network of Harrison, McGuane, Lish, and Bass is where I really began my serious literary journey was enough to queue my interest and to eventually get down to the business of reading this book. Bass has a lot of writing left to do, and he certainly knows how to live. My bet is he ages gracefully and becomes what he cherishes most in his eldest peers.

...When you have been away for a long time from a thing you love, it feels good to get back to it...

"Animals in the Kill" by M Sarki

M Sarki — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 08:01:05 GMT

Twelve years later, looking back, I think it is my best work.

You can kindly purchase the book here.

"Why It Is I Choose to Be Alien" : Selected Poems of Laura Ulewicz

M Sarki — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 08:01:09 GMT

What astounding good luck that Stephen Vincent cared enough for Laura Ulewicz to preserve her poetry for us. I was aware of her name having come across it in Gordon Lish’s Genesis West magazine published back in the early 1960’s. Jack Gilbert also dedicated his first book of poems Views of Jeopardy to this girlfriend Laura.

book cover

Why It Is I Choose to Be Alien: Selected Poems of Laura Ulewicz by Laura Ulewicz; Paperback; Published October 1, 2022; ISBN: 9780999103777 (ISBN10: 0999103776)

What astounding good luck that Stephen Vincent cared enough for Laura Ulewicz to preserve her poetry for us. I was aware of her name having come across it in Gordon Lish’s Genesis West magazine published back in the early 1960’s. Jack Gilbert also dedicated his first book of poems Views of Jeopardy to this girlfriend Laura. But I did not put together in my mind that she had any influence on Gilbert’s poetry or how connected they were until I read this book. Vincent does a great job in the preface detailing her history and of the time she participated in.

The love relationship between Gilbert and Ulewicz began sometime in the fifties. The Beats were getting recognized and were somewhat popular, but neither Gilbert or Ulewicz ever identified with them, though they were friendly with some including Ginsberg and Kerouac among others. It is obvious in Gilbert’s Views of Jeopardy that Ulewicz had some influence on his poetry, at least in a competitive nature. Both wrote basically narrative poems, though some of Gilbert’s best work can be discovered in his shorter pieces. What is striking to me in Gilbert’s later works is that he never once mentions Ulewicz again though he often repeats the names of three other significant lovers in his lifetime. Vincent writes that Ulewicz failed to get over her love for Gilbert and her feelings sadly turned toxic in her later years.

Laura Ulewicz in Locke, CA. Photo by Janusz Zalewski

Ulewicz died in 2007. She had lived in a little town called Locke since the seventies and instead of writing poetry she concentrated her efforts on other people’s art, social services, the town itself, and gardening. She told Vincent her poems were kept in a box under the house and did not seem to care what was done with them, if anything, after she died.

Etica Goss was the twelve year-old daughter of one of her boyfriends and got to know Ulewicz quite well. Later in life she renewed their friendship, as did her father. Goss wrote an article about Ulewicz and can be read here.

A few years before she died, I asked Laura over a Wimpy’s burger to tell me what poetry meant to her. She waited for a long moment before she replied, “It’s been the focus of my life. So many times I started revising, and before I knew it the sun was coming up because I’d been writing all night.” I heard the unspoken statement – that this precarious existence she’d led, dressing herself from the thrift store, living hand-to-mouth most of her life – had been the price she paid for poetry, and that it had all been worth it…Laura told me that she had sent a poem out just once in her entire life, and it was rejected. From then on, she never submitted again, only offering poems if requested.__Erica Goss

The poem "TE DEUM" by Laura Ulewicz

Because of this book I searched my google machine for anything I could find on Laura Ulewicz. There isn’t much, but what I did discover was interesting. As for her poetry, Ulewicz put together a few memorable lines but I never could find more than one entire poem that moved me to remember her work. It is her strong personality that really interests me. I learned she got quite sick at the end and was hospitalized. She escaped from the hospital and I suppose went home to die.

Laura’s smoking finally took its toll. She had always been a sturdy, robust woman who consumed quantities of her own home-grown vegetables, but in her seventies she developed emphysema and heart disease. In September of 2007, Laura landed in the hospital, but after a short stay insisted on returning home, against her doctor’s orders. In October, a neighbor found Laura’s body slumped in a corner of her beloved house, under a bookshelf crammed with clay pots, papers, spider webs, dust and books.__Erica Goss

"In a Garden of Comestibles" by M Sarki

M Sarki — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 08:01:22 GMT

a poem taken from my first book Zimble Zamble Zumble published in 2000 by elimae books.

"A Good Day to Die" by Jim Harrison

M Sarki — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 08:01:03 GMT

...My life might be a loathsome mess to an outsider but I cherished the notion that it was honest…

A Good Day to Die by Jim Harrison; Kindle Edition, 176 pages; Published May 3rd 2016 by Grove Press (first published 1973); ASINL: B01FT81SBC

...I WENT BACK to my room and lolled around naked…

Never surprised with an opening like this in a Jim Harrison work of art. I cannot imagine what he was actually like in real life. Perhaps one day we’ll get a closer look at the man. I do know he was much softer than the hardness his work pretends to be. He for sure was a well-read intellect and lover of almost anything fine be it literature, wine, women, food, and any number of things.

...My own wife had driven me to the airport in addition to loaning me the fare, an emotionless process that followed months of talk where no one was really wrong because no one had ever been right…

Let’s forgive his unrevised use of the noun “loan” as a verb. Harrison claims he never revised, wrote longhand, and his oldest daughter transcribed. Not a great way of working as far as limiting mistakes in punctuation or meaning. But let’s segue and focus instead on the fact that most Jim Harrison characters are divorced or going through a divorce. Most are hard drinkers who overeat and indulge in as many vices as possible. Some of these characters begin to get tiring and become retreads due to how many books Harrison has written. But regardless, these reminders of bad behavior are generally good for us recovering fools. And some anecdotes are quite laughable. Generally, at least in his later works, there are characters we can like, or get to know, or feel like we know them. This novel fails to have any characters attractive and interesting enough to be worth knowing.

...My life might be a loathsome mess to an outsider but I cherished the notion that it was honest…

The most redeeming quality of this second-rate novel is the superb title. Hardly a better one in my opinion. Countless options to discover or venture out into with a title as all-consuming as this one. But a good title does not make a good novel. Hardly the case. To think I enjoyed this novel the first time I read it many years ago is some indication on how much I have changed, or grown, or it is hoped, evolved in both my character and discernment of great literature. This book is hardly even good entertainment. As Harrison aged and gained additional friends and life experiences his writing changed as well. As it should. But he had to begin here to get there. And I am grateful he never gave up the pen.

...If I did any good at all it might be to let a few miserable fish swim to that higher, cleaner water where they were surely meant to spawn, as surely anyway as we are meant to die or vote or drink or screw out our torpid days…

Harrison puts his own stamp on what I read. And it was hardly worth the effort to painfully slog my way to the end. But I did. And even in this book’s woeful inadequacies there is every reason to continue to explore all facets of Harrison’s writing. There are rewards aplenty for those of us with staying power.

"Death is a Room" by M Sarki

M Sarki — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 08:01:00 GMT

Twelve years later, looking back, I think it is my best work.

You can kindly purchase the book here.

"Foursome: Stieglitz, O'Keeffe, Strand, Salsbury" by Carolyn Burke

M Sarki — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 08:00:39 GMT

...this narrative traces the relations of these four strong people over several decades, in the hope of depicting the sometimes joyful, sometimes exasperated intermingling of their lives as artists, lovers, and friends…

Foursome: Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, Paul Strand, Rebecca Salsbury by Carolyn Burke; Hardcover, 432 pages; Published March 5th 2019 by Knopf Publishing Group; ISBN: 0307957292 (ISBN13: 9780307957290)

I came to this review copy because of my interest in all four of the principals. Previous individual studies afforded me an insight relative to this book. But my supreme interest was in Georgia O’Keeffe, enough so that my partner and I engaged in a subsequent summer adventure to her New Mexico stomping grounds, particularly Santa Fe, Taos, Abiquiu, and the Ghost Ranch.

Though a bit long in the tooth, this extensive biography of this foursome serves the reader with abundant curiosity and titillation. Even with Stieglitz often leading the way, and his reluctance to exit the stage, the other three characters contribute enough to make their lives remarkable. Always the tension of sexuality in the foreground, masked or shaded, and even full-frontal when least expected.

..Steiglitz was on a crusade to convert those colleagues whose work he deemed “technically perfect, pictorially rotten.” He told a friend, “I would rather be a first-class photographer in a community of first-class photographers than the greatest photographer in a community of nonentities.”...Steiglitz believed that his mission was to teach Americans to seek vitality in art as in life…

This book is obviously about expression. Each character dealing with their own inadequacies and attempting to find their way into the art they individually craved and needed in order to live. What begins as basically two couples sharing their world together devolves into a singular artistic mission of each individual.

...Judging by the shots of Beck cradling her ample breasts, she understood his desire for women to seem complicitous in the “taking” of their likeness. Steiglitz would always appreciate how easily she gave herself to his camera, and to his fantasies…

Interesting to note how Rebecca Strand missed being photographed when her husband was away on a shoot, and Alfred and Georgia were nowhere in the vicinity. The competition previously created by Alfred between he and Paul Strand to shoot nude photographs of Rebecca was not surprising at all. The tension and playfulness behind the seduction of a camera, from both ends, is exhilarating and can be likened to withdrawal from a drug when not used regularly and in full measure. Alfred suffered from his apart-ness from Rebecca and her ample breasts as much as Beck yearned to be naked and naughty in front of his camera. Ultimately the resulting jealousy ruined the relationship between Stieglitz and Strand.

...In Georgia’s view, one had to face the shadows in order to carry on: “The vision ahead may seem a bit bleak but my feeling about life is a curious kind of triumphant feeling about —seeing it black—knowing it is so and walking into it fearlessly because one has no choice.”...

O’Keeffe went through dark periods in her life, especially when Alfred was having his long-term affair with his married assistant Dorothy Norman. Georgia attempted to “win” Alfred back and lost, which sent her into a dismal place she struggled for eighteen months or so to get out of. While recovering back east she was not happy with the lushness.

...Everything is so soft here. I do not work...I walk much and endure the green.”...

Rebecca also suffered in her later years. Aging, and the ailments that can come with it, was proving to be a challenge.

...pain is my constant companion...a rather bitter ‘swap’ for what we thought would be some wonderful last years together—they have been blasted and we must face whatever lies ahead. But if I am to eventually become bed-ridden I don’t want to live.”...

With Alfred Stieglitz dead, and O’Keeffe free to live as she wanted, she purchased a small home to renovate and expand in Abiquiu, and four years later moved there full-time, still spending summers at her adobe home in Ghost Ranch about twelve miles to the north. She was free to also travel a bit, but always glad to come home.

…”Most of what I see traveling are people unsatisfied—hunting the unknown that they will never find. Maybe I am queer that I am so singularly pleased with the life I have in N.M.”...”I have been working,” she told Anita, “trying to work my garden into a kind of permanent shape—so that if I live for twenty-five years it will be pleasant to walk about in by the time I am too old to do anything else.”...

O’Keeffe’s friend Anita Politzer worked on a biography with her approval. When Politzer sent O’Keeffe the finished manuscript she received a letter of rejection. Georgia offered to pay for her time but Anita never recovered from the shock.

...She disdained Politzer’s view of her as happy: “I do not like the idea of happyness [sic>]—it is too momentary—I would say that I was always busy and interested in something—interest has more meaning to me than the idea of happyness.”...

As a precursor to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and their own sociological struggles resulting in song and protest, O’Keeffe broached the subject of the inequality of women.

...On the subject of her experience as a female artist, O’Keeffe said that the men she knew all “made it very plain that as a woman I couldn’t make it.” Then, with a “liberated smile,” she added, ”women have always been treated like Negroes in this country and they don’t know it.”...

It is not surprising that Georgia was the last one to go. Her independent spirit and love for creative endeavors kept her engaged in life. As much as the other three characters all brought to the table, O’Keeffe was the magnificent centerpiece.

In her eighties, Georgia reflected that her relationship with Alfred had been “really very good, because it was based on something more than just emotional needs.” She added, “Both of us were very interested in what the other was doing...Of course, you do your best to destroy each other without knowing it.”...

"Of Levigations and Cascarilla" by M Sarki

M Sarki — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 08:01:04 GMT

a poem taken from my first book Zimble Zamble Zumble published in 2000 by elimae books.

“Big Brother” by Lionel Shriver

M Sarki — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 08:01:43 GMT

Big Brother by Lionel Shriver; 384 pages, Hardcover; Published June 4, 2013 by Harper Collins; ISBN: 9780061458576 (ISBN10: 0061458570); ASIN: 0061458570; Language: English

This book was a long and ha…

"Once, a Fascicle" by M Sarki

M Sarki — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 08:01:01 GMT

a poem taken from my first book Zimble Zamble Zumble published in 2000 by elimae books.

"Naked Without Intent" by Jack Gilbert

M Sarki — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 08:01:51 GMT

…He calls me a whore, a slut, he says I’m his only love, and that’s what he ought to say, and what you do say when you just let things say themselves, when you let the body alone, to seek and find and take what it likes, and then everything is right, and nothing’s wasted, the waste covered over and all is swept away in the torrent, in the force of desire…__from The Lover by Marguerite Duras

Poem by Jack Gilbert

Beverly Lane outside Actors Theater, Louisville, KY

"The Sky is Dead Leaf" by M Sarki

M Sarki — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 08:00:58 GMT

Twelve years later, looking back, I think it is my best work.

You can kindly purchase the book here.

"Lives of the Saints: A Novel" by Nancy Lemann

M Sarki — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 08:03:11 GMT

Lives of the Saints: A Novel by Nancy Lemann; Paperback; Published May 1, 1997 by LSU Press; ISBN: 9780807121627 (ISBN10: 0807121622); Language: English

…people should be elated by the small things in life, by society at a wedding party in the garden, or just by sitting on the porch while looking at the rain slash into the azalea. If you are elated by the small things in life, I’d judge it means that you are truly happy…

Sort of a quirky book with a host of silly characters overtly emphasized. I was reminded of my own thirty-one years living in Louisville, Kentucky and their vast contingents of Southern-made blue-bloods and wannabes. Of course, New Orleans is far more entrenched within the culture of the deep south. And Lemann celebrates these eccentricities with a deft hand and a cleverness that is surely a major element of her character and charming personality.

…Nuts made life worth living…

I have never been a fan of unrealistic fiction. Made-up characters, plot, and bizarre events typically turn me off. But little phrases such as the one above force a chuckle inside and I persist in my reading in hopes of further examples of her brilliance and originality. Never exactly sure where Lemann is going in this novel but I am committed to be carried along for the ride. And not to mention knowing full well that Lemann’s words on 144 pages are indeed being written upon me. Which is somewhat scary.

…They were off on a frolic of their own…

And I don’t know many writers like this who say what she says and in the way she says it. You know, like they were off on a frolic of their own. I like that. And so I stay on, reading a few pages a day, not many, but just enough to eventually finish this latest assignment, hoping for something perhaps profound within her pages, or one day feeling immensely grateful for my efforts. But that hasn't happened yet.

…We were eating pathetic wilted cheese sandwiches. The lettuce was wilted and it was so pathetic somehow, my pathetic love for him, sitting with him being so alone and pathetic. That’s what I thought love was, being in the most pathetic part of someone’s solitude…

And paragraphs like the above example is why I persist. Lemann is often remarkable in her composition. Hitting notes of truth rarely seen in contemporary fiction.

…My heart was not trained to love anyone but him. I could only love one person. This was my innate principle. It would disrupt the nervous system to be otherwise. It goes against nature to be otherwise. I cannot just transfer my affections, for they are carved in stone, and were decreed three billion years before the ocean rolled…

It’s a cross some of us will bear together. A securely fastened yoke, locked and loaded, and a quicksand trudge through a fairly miserable life. Unless, of course, your love eventually becomes requited. Comic in a way. Sad in another.

…“Cat mighty dignified till the dog walk by,” he said…

Based on this book Lemann is worthy of another look. Ritz of the Bayou came next, after this first novel, and it awaits me on my bookshelf. I am somewhat curious if she becomes a more serious writer because she certainly has the talent to be whatever she wishes for herself.

"A Barn Burns Down" by M Sarki

M Sarki — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 08:01:31 GMT

Twelve years later, looking back, I think it is my best work.

You can kindly purchase the book here.