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Blindspot: By a Gentleman in Exile & a Lady in Disguise
Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore
Spiegel and Grau
Division of Random House
1745 Broadway, New York NY 10019
9780385526197 $24.95
Reviewed by Laurel Johnson
What a delightful book! Sometimes it's difficult to craft historical fiction in an accurate, interesting way, but these two authors had no such problem. The plot, two main characters, and supporting characters fascinated me from beginning to end. Kamensky and Lepore transported this reader back in time and held me there, a captive to their storytelling skill.
Scotsman Stewart Jameson is a card playing, womanizing libertine and gifted artist escaped to the Colonies to avoid jail for non-payment of a loan. Boston in 1764 is the outback of America, just beginning to establish itself as a center of learning and patriotism. Accompanied by his great mastiff Gulliver, Jameson tries to blend in and earn a living. It's a fine line he walks at first: avoiding the sort of publicity that might attract interest in England while advertising himself as a painter of fine portraits.
Frances Easton is a fallen woman, desperate for freedom and playing a dangerous game. When Jameson advertises for a young lad to be his assistant/apprentice, she binds her breasts and masquerades as a boy. Life on the streets of Boston has not been kind to her. She comes to Jameson's home a half starved, filthy waif with no options left to her. As the young lad Francis Weston, she finds shelter and kindness with Jameson. Her artistic abilities are considerable and immediately obvious to her master. Jameson calls his young apprentice Weston.
Their story unfolds through Jameson's thoughts shared with readers and Weston's letters to a childhood friend. Jameson is a long time lover of women, bewildered by his powerful attraction to this ragtag apprentice. Weston finds her master to be a man of great compassion and kindness, a skillful painter who sees into the very heart of the wealthy citizens he paints. Neither knows the other's true story until Jameson's friend and runaway slave arrives on their doorstep. Fortune, aka Dr. Ignatius Alexander, is the catalyst that shatters every blindspot to reveal truths neither Jameson nor Weston could see.
What a fine novel these authors have wrought! Love and murder, greed and alchemy, tyranny and fledgling patriotism, all play a part in Blindspot. This well-written novel has my highest recommendation.
Brief Cases Short Spans
Tom Sheehan
Press53
P.O. Box 30314, Winston-Salem NC 27130
9780981628059, $16.00, www.press53.com
Reviewed by Laurel Johnson
Tom Sheehan's publishers eagerly await each new manuscript. Some journal editors enthusiastically publish any new Sheehan poem or short story sight unseen because they know anything he writes will be exceptional. These editors and publishers describe Sheehan's work in glowing terms: "…a national treasure…;" "…one of the finest authors and best story tellers in the language…." So far he's been nominated for a dozen Pushcart Prizes, won the 2006 Ippy Award, the Silver Rose Award for Excellence in the Art of the Short Story, and the Georges Simenon Award for Excellence in Fiction. So why isn't he internationally famous?
Readers can't skip read their way through Tom Sheehan's stories if they want to know the truth. The full impact of his work comes with savoring each word and turn of phrase, lingering in those intimate moments that bring Sheehan's real or fictional characters to life. Consider, for example, this excerpt from "The Storekeeper," where even a minor character and moment shines with typical Sheehan vibrancy:
"The hard words came one evening just as supper hit the table and twilight was still holding sway, the shadows soft, day dwindling down to its knees: her husband Harry had been declared missing, lost at sea from a destroyer in the Mediterranean, half a world away, a lifetime away. Shadows joined with shadows, loss atop loss. George Drew, the fire chief, brought the word. He was the self-appointed dispenser of the awful tasks in his snappy uniform, black gloves, white hat, pants pressed so that the creases were like sheet metal lines, and all blue, the length of him all blue. When he tucked his white hat under his blue arm, every person on the street knew it was not an inspection of the premises being approached, the slow walk into a front yard, the unhurried climb to the porch, the soft tap on the door. And nothing followed that first announcement of the loss of Harry. No whispers. No rumors. Loss settled on us, heavy as one could imagine."
In this latest book, Tom Sheehan's diverse library of lives include numbers runners, farmers, cops, children, parents, lovers, soldiers and shipyard workers. His heroes are forged from simple folk who come from tenements and side street shacks, boatyards and battlefields. Within these pages, readers will find murder, trampled innocence, redemption, and the endurance marks of shattered lives restored by time. And always, tucked inside each of these 17 stories like a gift, Sheehan buries slow blurs of beauty, sly humor, sensual joy, stabs of unearthly silence, and words carried on wings of excruciating tenderness.
Tom Sheehan is the sort of writer who comes along once in a reader's lifetime. He's one of the best five living writers in the world, in my opinion. His work is stunning, powerful, humorous, shattering, and highly recommended.
In the Shadow of a Burning Bush
Poems on Exodus
By Yakov Azriel
ISBN 978-1-156809122-8
125 pages at 15.95 paperback
Time Being Books
10411 Clayton Rd.
St. Louis MO 63131
Reviewed by Laurel Johnson
This is the second poetic biblical study by respected Judaica scholar and award winning poet, Yakov Azriel. Threads From a Coat of Many Colors focused on the Book of Genesis. In this latest release, through the Book of Exodus, Azriel brings ancient history out of time's shadow and into the modern era. With a powerful but tender eloquence, he creates each poem from the sacred portions, potions, and portents God granted His chosen people, Israel.
The skill reflected here is breathtaking, regardless of which poetic style Azriel uses. I read and reread "Haikus From Jacob's Garden" for example. Each of the thirteen children of Israel is represented individually, in haiku. The future fruits of these unique personalities shine through in simple verse. I'm particularly fond of "Levi:"
From his tree's resin,
The fragrance of frankincense
Will fill the Temple.
Azriel weaves together the ancient and modern eras with such haunting beauty I often had goose bumps while reading. Just as Moses questioned God's lack of mercy for his people during their Egyptian enslavement, Azriel searches for evidence of God's mercy during the Holocaust. In the title poem, the poet looks from the past to the future to find a sliver of hope:
In the shadow of a burning bush, and in
Its light, we gaze beyond the desert dunes,
Beyond the desecrated Temple ruins
Where Temple priests had once atoned our sin.
In the bush's shadow, and its light, a thin
Unbroken thread of grace is seen, which moons
Had woven here on sunless afternoons
To be a string for David's violin.
Through Azriel's imagination, the Old Testament patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob share the miraculous vision, music and touch of God. The trials and triumphs of Moses come alive, from the plagues of Egypt to the crossing of the Red Sea to God's Ten Commandments. History lives vibrantly in the words of this exceptional poet and scholar. He is part and parcel of his primeval predecessors:
From these, my teachers, I learn -- measure meter; let repetition pound;
Allow alliteration and allusion to flow, consonance and assonance
To ascend; steep it all in image and metaphor, simile and symbol; behold,
The poem is ready.
This study on Exodus, like the one on Genesis before it, is a poetic masterpiece and highly recommended.
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