Book with No Author
Brent RobisonRecital Publishing, 2023, $15
Woodstock surrealist Robison begins this tale with the arrival of a manuscript sent by someone, from somewhere, that may or may not have some connection to his own life and invites us into tales of interlocking events that may or may not have happened, but to whom, exactly? Who is it that remembers these moments, and who wrote about them? Robison's gift for a well-paced, vivid narrative makes these telescopic layers of mystery into an outrageously enjoyable romp through the meaning of story and authorship and the nature of reality itself.
The Lifer: Rock Climbing Adventures in the Gunks and Beyond
Russ Clune
Diangelo Publications, 2023, $25
People come from across the world to climb in the Shawangunk Ridge (aka the Gunks). Russ Clune began climbing in the Gunks and then took his remarkable skillset everywhere, adventuring all over the planet among the early aficionados of what was considered a decidedly odd "dirtbag" obsession that became an Olympic sport in 2020. The destinations and characters make for an epic, insightful, and action-packed memoir that anyone who's been or loved a climber will devour with relish, and help nonclimbers fully comprehend what the obsession's all about.
Mrs. Lowe-Porter
Jo Salas
JackLeg Press, 2024, $17
Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter was a multilingual wordsmith who helped her scholarly husband make it through Oxford before becoming, as H. T. Lowe-Porter, English translator to German novelist Thomas Mann as he rose in stature to win his Nobel Prize for Literature. Salas, co-founder of Hudson River Playback Theater, was introduced to Porter through the translator's grandson, whom she married. Salas reads between the lines of early 20th century history and family archives to breathe life into Lowe-Porter's reality as a woman who bent her formidable gifts to the service of others in this deeply researched, vividly imagined novelization.
I Heard Her Call My Name
Lucy Sante
Penguin Random House, 2024, $27
What is it like to begin living as one's true gender in the seventh decade of life? Bard professor Sante did just that in 2021, and this scrupulously honest record of her experience sheds enormous light on one human being growing into gender authenticity and on much else as well. An immigrant child, a creative immersed in the fiery firmament of downtown Manhattan through punk and AIDS to commodification, and a human being struggling desperately for decades to remain in denial of her core, Sante's got perfect pitch in this scrupulously sincere memoir.
Half-Lives
Lynn Schmeidler
Autumn House Press, 2024, $19.95
The terrain of marriage, motherhood, aging and other core female experiences is revealed afresh in this short story collection from Hudson Valley resident Schmeidler, whose gift for bending the constraints of reality into pretzels is matched only by the precision-tuned prose that transports us into her premise. She ups the ante with strings of surprises, taking us to entirely new destinations dripping with hilarity and horror. "InventEd," in which a woman believes she's imagining her husband, won the 2023 BOMB Fiction Prize.
