Reviewed by Nikolas Mavreas

An out-of-the-box murder mystery with some seriously intriguing twists

The Last Case is an unconventional but wholly satisfying specimen of the murder mystery form. Set in a coastal town in New England during the early 1980s, this novel opens with a body: a man in a Dungeons and Dragons costume found beheaded on the beach. This brings the lighthouse-dwelling detective Joseph Tey out of his isolation and back into the game. As he works at solving the case, Tey also works on himself, battling identity issues and a sense of mental deterioration.

Our protagonist’s inner conflict, his doubts about his past and his capabilities, are a constant presence in the book. This is accomplished with an ingeniously selected alternative to inner monologue: interjections of passages from Joseph Tey’s journal. In addition to fresh approaches to the genre, the plot is sprinkled with familiar mystery tropes as well, like annoying police colleagues, Cold War rhetoric, and a large corporation of unclear morality.

Every single character in this book, however minor, feels alive and breathing. Manners of speech, contents of speech, and little actions meticulously described all work toward the painting of people who feel vibrantly real, accentuated with sparse brushstrokes of the caricatural.

The attention to detail and resulting characterization is in every nook and cranny of this book, and it defines every aspect of the writing. Through particular, descriptive, and expressive detail, this novel is both fully excavated and polished like a jewel.

“The journal may tell him, if he dared read it. Something made him reluctant. Something made those memories unpleasant. He’d written them down as though putting them on paper removed them from his mind, making room for other things. His curiosity pulled and his apprehension pushed, so the diary remained on the coffee table.”

The novel rises to real thrills but also plunges to profound psychological depths. At its center, it is concerned with why people do what they do, the senselessness of bad actions, and redemption. It’s a thought-provoking thriller—and a strong one at that.

Some readers will notice that the protagonist’s name is taken from the pen name of an older mystery author. The reference doesn’t seem to carry more meaning than just being a simple homage to Josephine Tey, and it has no connection to another popular book series which has a fictional Josephine Tey. Delauder may have gone tongue-in-cheek with titling this novel, The Last Case: A Joseph Tey Mystery, but he also could be leveraging for a sequel or prequel to follow. DeLauder admits in the back matter of the book that this is his first foray into the murder mystery genre, but he writes with enough skill and expertise to make it feel like he couldn’t have done a better job. Until next time, I hope.

Thank you for reading Nikolas Mavreas’s book review of The Last Case by Sean DeLauder! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: The Last Case by Sean DeLauder appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Joelene Pynnonen

A beautifully written book that explores the soul of an artist struggling to be seen

The Body Is a Temporary Gathering Place is a collection of personal essays exploring the inner life of Andrew Bertaina, a divorced father who is torn in too many directions at once. He’s simultaneously a philosopher, a writer, a university lecturer, a father, a photographer, a history buff. In this collection, he captures the struggles of trying to balance responsibilities with personal aspirations.

Part one gives the deep sense of an artist whose art is consistently being ripped away from him by life’s myriad of distractions. Part two explores the minutiae of domestic life: the experience of kissing, bathing, aging, and among other things that look at universal human experiences through a personal lens. Part three, perhaps the more pensive, is about everything: parenthood, life, death, our place in the world, and more. It looks at the outward world in a desperate attempt to understand the inner experience.

The endeavors of an artist are consistently thwarted by familial duties, social media, work, or—perhaps most relatable of all—procrastination. This is a tale that has been told countless times before and will be told at least as often again. Bertaina has a way of digging to the heart of what I assume innumerable writers, painters, and photographers must feel daily. Passages like the following cut through the excuses we tell ourselves, right to the crux of the problem:

“Oh, what a waste I make of time. I’ll sit by the window for longer than I intended, whittling down the minutes and hours of the day, dreaming of writing.”

Poignant in his self-deprecating self-awareness, Bertaina is acutely conscious of his foibles but equally unable to change them. A predicament most people could sympathize with.

A point Bertaina returns to again and again is his passion for the aesthetic. He is a connoisseur of the beauty in life. The way the light falls against a tree or the sound of birdsong. He has an eye, an ear, and a feel for the loveliness of the world around us. This very much reflects in the prose. While there are some phenomenal lines and observations in these essays, it can be hard to find a cohesive narrative in each one. They lean more toward snippets of memory, collected bits of beautiful writing, deeply personal self-reflections; but the bits collect in the slowly built-up sense that by the time the forest has grown, all you can see is the trees. 

Read this for the prose. There are fragments of writing here that shine so bright you’ll want to commit them to memory. Most of these essays explore the author’s life, emotions, and experiences through the lens of someone who is far too aware of their own shortcomings, and there’s a fractured beauty in how true to life it will feel to so many.

Thank you for reading Joelene Pynnonen’s book review of The Body Is a Temporary Gathering Place by Andrew Bertaina! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: The Body Is a Temporary Gathering Place appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Melissa Suggitt

Louise Krug writes with a voice so raw, it feels like she’s handed you her heart.

Reading How to Explain feels like sitting down with a friend who doesn’t shy away from telling you the messy, complicated, and achingly beautiful truth of her life. 

This memoir in essays pulls you into Louise’s world post-brain surgery, where partial facial paralysis becomes both the least and most defining part of her identity. It’s not a polished “I overcame it all” memoir, but rather an honest, vulnerable, and even funny look at what it means to live with visible and invisible scars. From explaining her condition to a curious neighbor kid to managing the tender complexities of marriage, motherhood, and self-image, Louise opens up in a way that hits you right in the feels.

My favorite thread throughout this unique narrative is the therapy sessions. As someone deeply familiar with the relationship between therapist and patient, and as someone working through self-esteem and executive functioning challenges myself, I felt an almost immediate connection to Louise’s stories. With each therapy session she described, I found myself nodding along, her words cutting close to my own experiences. Many of us know the struggle of finding the right therapist or of sitting in that room and not having the mental capacity to accept what we’re being told about ourselves. It’s easy to fall into a spiral of self-pity, wanting nothing more than validation that it’s okay to feel this way. Louise’s writing captures that so perfectly—the push and pull of wanting to stay in the safety of that narrative versus finding the strength to put in the work and change how you see yourself and the world around you.

For anyone juggling the chaos of work, kids, and just trying to keep it together, Louise’s words land like a lifeline. Her essays explore the weight of self-doubt and the ache of wanting to be seen as whole, and they do it with such candor that you can’t help but feel your heart cracking open a little. She doesn’t just write about living with challenges—she writes about living, period, in all its messy, vulnerable, beautiful imperfection.

And the way she tells her story? Completely, wholly her own. Each essay is a world—sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes deeply introspective, always engaging. There’s a transparency in her writing that feels like sitting in on a conversation she’s having with herself, and you’re just lucky enough to listen in.

Reading this book made me feel seen, like someone else gets the quiet struggles of trying to explain yourself to a world that loves tidy resolutions and simple stories. Louise doesn’t give you that. Instead, she offers you something better: a look at the unresolvable, the messy middle, the beauty in imperfection.

How to Explain isn’t just a moving book—it’s a hug for anyone who’s ever felt different, lost, or broken and is learning to find their way. It’s a reminder that being vulnerable is its own kind of strength. 

Thank you for reading Melissa Suggitt’s book review of How to Explain by Louise Krug! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: How to Explain by Louise Krug appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Lola Lee

A delicious glimpse into the murder that rocked Pine Cove and the detective turned B&B owner who’s got more than murder on her mind

Framed for Murder is the story of Emmeline “Mel” O’Rourke, a former police officer who left her past behind in order to team up with her grandmother and brother and run the the Babbling Brook Inn in the peaceful town of Pine Cove.

But Mel’s new beginning is disrupted when a murder shakes the small town. To complicate matters, her old nemesis—Poppy, a former cat burglar—reappears in her life, both as a suspect and a new employee at the inn. As Mel investigates the crime on her own, she must confront her complicated past with Poppy, her growing feelings for her neighbor Jackson, her fears, and the challenges of running a business. Dealing with everything at the same time, Mel embodies the idea that life rarely goes as planned.

“You broke into this guy’s office, stole the necklace, and someone started shooting at you. What happened next?”

On the day of the murder in Pine Cove, Poppy is hired to steal a valuable necklace, but things spiral out of control when she discovers a dead body in the room she’s robbing and is nearly shot by the true murderer while escaping. 

As Mel and Poppy work together to solve this case, they have to reconsider their former identities and discover new aspects of themselves. During this process, Mel is forced to reconsider her preconceived notions about Poppy, struggling with the question of whether she can truly trust her former adversary. 

A central point of Framed for Murder is the evolving relationship between Mel and Poppy. Since they were once adversaries—one a cop, the other a thief—Mel’s interactions are initially marked by tension and mistrust. But also in their past, Poppy saved Mel from a near-fatal fall during a chase. It still haunts the protagonist, leaving her with a fear of heights that resurfaces throughout the story.

The novel balances this atmospheric mystery with humor and plenty of character development. Secondary characters, like Mel’s supportive family and her love interest Jackson, add great depth to the story and enhance its emotional resonance. It’s a book that surprises you and makes you feel.

The book also does a wonderful job of highlighting the small-town dynamics of Pine Cove with its peculiar residents and close community. The town itself provides comfort and conflict as Mel seeks the truth.

“The idea of being friends with the thief she’d chased for so long didn’t seem as outrageous as it should. Huh. Just when she thought nothing could surprise her anymore…”

Framed for Murder is a light and engaging read that offers a balanced blend of mystery and personal growth. The mystery is compelling enough to keep readers flipping pages, but the character’s evolving relationships and interactions are the ones that shine and open the door to explore topics such as second chances, family, change, friendship, and more. A cozy mystery with a dash of humor, a bit of romance, and a surprising plot, Framed for Murder excels.

Thank you for reading Lola Lee’s book review of Framed for Murder by Marla A. White! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Framed for Murder appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Addison Ciuchta

A quiet exploration of solitude, love, and connection in a world where it’s difficult not to damage each other

Infatuated with his new girlfriend Ashley, Joe can’t help but check a text from her while he’s driving, causing him to collide with a homeless man named Ronnie on his bike. In apology, Joe visits Ronnie’s home, an orange tent in a dried-up riverbed and offers to purchase him a new bicycle, forming an odd relationship between them.

At the same time, Joe worries over the text that caused the crash, a text from Ashley saying they needed to talk. Throughout the novel, Joe struggles with finding his footing in the relationship and in his life, working at a cafe by day and impulsively wandering by night, when inspiration strikes writing short narratives stuck somewhere between poetry and fiction.

Each chapter is bookended by one-to-two-page short fictions, presumably written by Joe, that showcase the author’s uniquely lyrical writing style in quick narrative bursts about angels, boyhood, and death. They’re impactful and conceptually unique, sure to stick in my mind for a while to come.

“He felt a tug in his brain, a voice saying, Hey, you were only supposed to live here for playtime. But the mountain lion roared that playtime was over and this was home now and then devoured what was left of the delicate voice.”

The author’s run-on writing style lends a slow, meandering pace to the narrative that matches the main character’s issue, a lack of a sense of urgency or purpose in his life. His sole goal is wooing his new girlfriend, and, only sometimes, he agrees to help Ronnie when he calls, comfortable with working at a cafe by day and not working toward much of anything else by night. The author often starts sentences with “so” or “and,” and Joe references “putting this story down” as if he’s recounting the series of events in a journal, making the rambling an apt and tonally strong choice.

“So I’ll tell you now in case you’re wondering. It’s all important. All this stuff matters. What I’m telling you is: that lipstick was cherry red. I remember its brightness.”

Joe is often introspective, pondering his past relationships, choices in life, and childhood as he goes for walks or swims in the ocean. His reflective nature is contagious, making me wonder about some of his grand questions along with him.

His relationship with Ashley is realistically portrayed, capturing how a relationship might develop in real life as Joe worries over a fourth date, a we-need-to-talk-text, and her hesitation to sleep with him. He worries, too, over what and how to tell her about who he is and the mistakes he’s made, his impulsivity colliding with his want to keep Ashley sometimes leading him to do odd, creepy, or even violent actions.

“Lying there, I was thinking, How much of my life will I tell Ashley? How much about my dwindling friends and family members? How many of my stories will she want to hear?”

Perhaps because of the narrative style, the story sometimes lacks a strong sense of emotionality even during moments that could use more depth and grounding, like when Joe hits Ronnie with his car. Joe does not react with much emotion on the page despite such a shocking, traumatizing event, going to work after and even having a date with Ashley that night.

“So it’s the first morning of spring, and I hit a homeless man. Rammed right into the back of his bike. It’s a miracle he’s alive, Ronnie, the homeless guy I hit, since my car mangled his bike after he’d been thrown to the pavement.”

The events are often described after the fact or are just stated rather than actively happening on the page, veering toward telling rather than showing. Other sometimes brutal or happy events where you’d expect an emotional response are told with a matter-of-fact tone, leaving the reader to feel what Joe ought to.

Whole is a glimpse into one man’s struggle with finding love and satisfaction in a life that often happens to him. The main character’s comfortability to stay exactly where he is is, at times, a direct pushback against modern society’s insistence that everyone has a goal they must always be working toward. The style is rambling but lyrical, and the short fictions woven between chapters gleam. Whole is great for readers seeking an introspective reading experience with bonus short, short stories thrown in.

Thank you for reading Addison Ciuchta’s book review of Whole by Derek Updegraff! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Whole by Derek Updegraff appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Audrey Davis

An intriguing account of humanity and expectations in the near future

 2035 has seen some terrain-altering hurricanes. It has almost leveled entire cities along America’s eastern coastline; in this book, we focus on an impacted Wildwood, New Jersey. 

As fate would have it, not many want to move back into the once-bustling seaside town, except those seeking the assistance of the Elea Clinic, created in the wake of catastrophe—a clinic for medically-assisted deaths. 

When 22-year-old Maya Valencia finds herself with a ticket there and a scheduled time, she can’t stop herself from connecting with those who find themselves in comparable situations as they all grapple with their own goals. 

“‘We all know why we’re here. Let’s just tell it like it is.’”

Wildwood by Tim Castano brings this eerily similar dystopian world to life through vibrant descriptions of settings, characters, and feelings. The characterization is what really shines in this novel. People of different ages, creeds, and backgrounds, having their own personal lives and motivations, all find themselves in Wildwood. Everyone has different views surrounding the Elea Clinic and its funding parties, ranging from cynicism to acceptance. But they all are aware that they have ended up in the same place, together, for the same ultimate reason. There is no judgement between them, and they make it a point to keep it that way. 

The characters’ use of dry and occasionally dark humor is fitting and self-aware, adding an extra serving of light-heartedness that the story and characters all benefit from. Each character mentioned is important to the story at some point and given their own backstory and motivations when it becomes relevant. 

As each person wishing to use the clinic’s services must verbally affirm twice that they agree to participate, each person gets their moment of introspection, of reflection upon what actually brought them to Wildwood, not just what they’ve decided to tell strangers. I’m glad each character is given the spotlight at some point, no matter how small of a role. Just as we might feel insignificant in the grand scheme of things, there is a duty we must do to ourselves, to stay truthful to our own desires.

“The year-after-year slashes to Social Security had frayed the so-called safety net into a pile of worthless string.”

Another feature that makes this novel stand out is its unnerving plausibility. Several characters comment on the ethics of the new medical assistance laws, capitalism, and share their outlook on the world. These attitudes are tailor-made to communicate with our real-life society as well: past, present, and future. Logically, if capitalism is allowed to run somewhat unchecked as it is here (or at least, checked by those whose interests it serves), this service could very well be offered in our society in the future. 

“‘Any other questions?’ Todd said.

  ‘Just one, but I don’t think either of us can answer it.’”

I would have loved to keep reading about these ideas and characters beyond the last page. The concepts and parts of the material, such as the “Death District,” are rife with new worldbuilding opportunities or chances to liken it to (or distance it further from) our own present society. However, the story’s progression, the pacing, and even the ending put such a nice, clean bow on the narrative that it truly does not need anything more. 

Despite its shorter length, Wildwood packs in a lot of full-bodied elements that leave readers pondering an incredibly interesting, futuristic-yet-realistic concept and thinking about how those around us, including those in power, will react to the future when it arrives. 

“‘Capitalism is resilient as hell, that’s the lesson around here. They’ll find a way to make money off us after we’re gone, too. Just look out there.’”

Thank you for reading Audrey Davis’s book review of Wildwood by Tim Castano! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Wildwood by Tim Castano appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Audrey Davis

A sentimental slice-of-life story of connection and self-truth

 When Ginny Eastman is handed a basketball at six years old in 1966, she is instantly enamored. With the guidance of her older brother Asher, Ginny learns she has a natural aptitude and passion for the game, but when she receives a diagnosis of childhood diabetes, her athleticism becomes a risk. Knowledge surrounding blood glucose levels and how to monitor them is limited, but she will not let this stop her from reaching her goals. 

Although intimidated, Ginny is dedicated. High school proves another daunting task, as does college, as she continues chasing a career in a sport lacking adequate women’s divisions and support. Confronting tradition and social expectations as well as her own inner thoughts, Ginny forges her own path forward to create a life she wants to live, not one expected of her. 

“Ginny didn’t want people to pat her on the head and tell her everything would be fine. She also didn’t want people to scare the crap out of her until she was rolled up in a fetal position sobbing her eyes out. However, this didn’t mean she didn’t want information.”

Taking place mainly in New York City, Robin D’Amato’s Sugar Free highlights all the best parts of a coming-of-age, slice-of-life story. The story is character-driven, which suits the simple narrative wonderfully. Readers are not given anything outside of Ginny’s point of view, and we get to watch her mature and experience different aspects of life through the years as if one of her peers. This only supports the story’s pacing, and no stone is left unturned, as Ginny investigates life for herself. 

One of this novel’s shining features is its attention to detail and realism. If you’re not regularly dealing with a condition such as diabetes, it is easy to overlook something that has seemingly become more common place to handle in recent years. The story does a great job of showing just how much diabetes treatment has changed over the years, ranging from constant urine testing in the 60s up to modern day methods. Ginny’s reactions to this diagnosis as a seven-year-old also feel very honest, showing her own confused journey to acceptance, as well as her parents’ mixed reactions. 

Ginny’s genuine interactions and bond with her friends at every stage of life, over life’s little intricacies, add another layer of humanity to D’Amato’s story portrait. I enjoyed the story’s capacity to show that a character can or has changed, but at heart they still retain who they are. 

“‘What’s she practicing for, anyway?’ Orin said as they were heading for the door. This was a question Ginny asked herself all the time. But then, what were they practicing for?”

This story seamlessly shows not just how Ginny’s life progresses, but how culturally important events impact her, her surroundings, and her peers. Ginny and her friends participate in Beatlemania, play with now-nostalgic toys, and receive news about the Vietnam War. Ginny also observes her friend Reneé dealing with racism. Moreover, at the start of her athletic career, Ginny is unsure of how she can and will proceed as a female athlete, and she experiences first-hand the treatment of women in both sports and society in the 70s and beyond. 

This story is great for all readers, including teenagers, and is a secret love letter to music-collecting. D’Amato’s writing is concise, yet colorful and inviting, and readers will enjoy Ginny’s mission of always finding a new place for “bouncing and running.”

Thank you for reading Audrey Davis’s book review of Sugar Free by Robin D’Amato! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Sugar Free by Robin D’Amato appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Nick Rees Gardner

A quiet and original novel about an outcast, a loner, who clings to hope even when the world is pitted against him

Creating quiet stories requires exceptional talent. In order to pull a novel like this off, the writer needs a memorable protagonist too: a Jay Gatsby or Anna Karenina or Ignatious J. Reily type who lodges in the reader’s mind like an old friend. Think Dennis Johnson’s “Fuckhead,” from Jesus’ Son, a character who readers would recognize from any Iowa dive bar, but whose depth, whose insights about life, ask the reader to reconsider what they know.

Now we can add Charles Lamosway to this list. Lamosway’s is a story about blood quantum, the controversial measure of how much “Indian blood” a body contains as a way to determine whether or not someone belongs as a member of their tribe. Because of blood quantum, Lamosway is booted off the Penobscot Reservation when he turns 18, and now, as a middle-aged man, he watches his estranged daughter Elizabeth who is being raised by a Penobscot stepfather and her mother across the river.

Charles observes the life he almost had unfolding across the river, wondering which parts of himself flow through his daughter’s veins, knowing what she doesn’t: that his blood is not legally native, that according to blood quantum, she doesn’t belong. When, as an adult, Elizabeth returns to her parents’ reservation home, Charles considers whether now is the right time to tell her the truth.

Following Talty’s debut collection of linked short stories about young Penobscot men, Fire Exit reads almost as a sequel or at least an expansion of Night of the Living Rez’s world. Lamosway watches the reservation from his yard just across the river, listens to the goings on through the small-town rumor mill. Themes of family tie Night of the Living Rez and Fire Exit together, but a keen reader will also pick up on a few easter eggs, acts of delinquency performed by the Night of the Living Rez protagonist and his friends, which reverberate into Charles Lamosway’s outsider world. 

Charles is an outsider. He rarely takes action or interferes. His conflict is primarily internal. In fact, the entire novel seems to be narrated from that backyard seat with Lamosway meandering into the past for a chapter or two before considering the present time predicaments he’s faced with: namely his mother Louise who has struggled with debilitating depression and is devolving further into dementia, and his alcoholic friend Bobby. Front and backstory weave in and out of each other in a plot that is less linear and more like picking apart threads of a tattered tapestry.

Lamosway, as a protagonist, isn’t necessarily driven by anything. He feels the need to tell his biological daughter the truth but is prohibited from doing so by his daughter’s mother. He wants to belong to the tribal community but is prohibited by arbitrary laws. He wants to drink, but he knows his tendency toward alcoholism and refrains. While Lamosway holds down a job “clearing the land,” all of his drive has been tempered by forces outside of his control. But as the family and community he surrounds himself with struggles and falls apart, he does his best to hold the world around him together. 

Lamosway’s character growth, though minimal, is depicted quite brilliantly; each shift in personality, each flash of irrational anger sloshes out of a deep well. And Talty uses this backstory of injustice as a rising tension; to read Fire Exit is to wait either for Lamosway to get a break or for him to be broken.

While Talty’s narrative is already irresistible, especially for readers who enjoyed Night of the Living Rez, it is also filled with Charles Lamosway’s wisdom, a philosophical depth that lingers beyond the page. Phrases such as “You are who you are, even if you don’t know it” and “We’re all alike, even when we’re not” may come off as platitudinous, but the phrases bookend a meandering mental journey.

Given the context of an aging man who has been booted from his home and estranged from his family, such truisms are evidence of strength and a will inside Lamosway to forge on and not give in to a world that in many ways is out to get him. Lamosway’s is a wisdom that cannot be taught, only gained by hard living and hard work and hard-earned comprehension of the human condition. He, like all the aforementioned memorable characters, reveals a depth often overlooked in quiet characters outside the purview of much of society.

When all is said and done, Fire Exit is one of those books that will become more meaningful with the days, weeks, and months after closing the cover. Talty depicts an ages-old hurt that would send the best of us to perplexity, but he shows it through Charles Lamosway’s eyes. These are the steps Charles takes because he must, because he can be cut out of his family, his community, his place, his land, but no one can sever his body from what his spirit desires.

Thank you for reading Nick Rees Gardner’s book review of Fire Exit by Morgan Talty! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post STARRED Book Review: Fire Exit appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Nick Gardner

A working-class White Noise, a story about family, crap jobs, paranoia, and an uncertain future

Cook works in crawl spaces, inspecting them for rot, but even when he emerges from the claustrophobic confines, driving across Indiana to the next client, the crawl follows him. The damp basement smell of his coveralls permeates his Prius as his daughter argues that his sales slump is due to a curse. And basement walls crumble around him, a metaphor for his depression and his predicament-prone misadventures in Ohio, Indiana, and beyond. As Cook states, “‘When you look at enough crawl spaces, you can only assume that each one trends toward shit show.’” A quote rife with paranoia that feels remarkably familiar to Don DeLillo’s, “All plots tend to move deathward.”

However, as Cook’s family life, work-life, and mental health erode, rather than turning to Jack Gladney’s preference for academia and, eventually, revenge, Cook fries his brain on legal weed and finds his answers in strange and surprising working class strangers. While the petty arguments and slightly askew realities Cook faces are reminiscent of White Noise, Carr’s characters turn away from academia, from teachers and students. With all of its banter, wit, and pure, unabashed heart, Bad Foundations is a hilarious and fresh drama about the crumbling crawlspaces Cook has built his life on and how he can scramble out of the rubble.

Cook was a kid when his friend’s dad, JP, died beneath a house. And somehow, through an uncertain chain of academic burnout, addiction, and a variety of jobs from teaching to car sales, Cook finds himself in the same place as JP, investigating basements and crawl spaces in hopes that he can sell clients on pricey repairs and not die a similar death.

While in his earlier life, Cook cruised the Texas border, drunk and high, leaving jugs of water for crossers, now that his two daughters are old enough to understand the harm caused by his inebriation, he has moved with his wife to Indiana and a mostly sober, more settled, quieter life. When Cook or his daughters are depressed, they go on walks together through the nearby graveyard, discussing a limited understanding of quantum physics.

At work, he attends Zoom meetings with his Canadian boss and a hodgepodge of coworkers ranging from Cowboy Dan (who sees ghosts in his laser level) to Germ, a crass former wrestler who knows jack squat about his job. As everything around him degrades, Cook seeks to glean good vibes in order to break his curse. Bolstered by a forgiving wife and supportive daughters, he may just survive.

The writer of Motherfucking Sharks, Opioid Indiana, and several other surreal and unabashed books, Carr is at his best in Bad Foundations. The dialogue, often occurring as petty arguments that span subjects from Taylor Swift, to telepathy, to the earth being a computer program, is vibrant and often revealing of the contemporary worlds’ real life predicaments.

Carr’s characters are self-acknowledged “white trash,” day-drinking and discussing flat-earth theories with over-educated coworkers, trying to drum up a living in an inhospitable corporate social structure. While the ideas discussed in the book are intelligent, there is nothing too high-brow about Bad Foundations. The immaculate prose is fortified with excerpts from text message threads, drawings, and illustrations. While Bad Foundations reaches for depth and clarity in the midst of personal and social collapse, the prose is easily accessible for readers of all backgrounds and reading levels. It is a book that even a nonreader would enjoy.

It is the job of satire to show the current state of society in a fresh and revelatory way, and Brian Allen Carr does a remarkable job of turning “white-trash” alcoholics, caring fathers, and legal-weed zombies into erudite scholars of the working-class world. As Cook himself states about blowing smoke rings and juggling:  “That’s the real job of every good father: to perform an old trick for a new world.”

And Carr has done just that. From the canon of working-class literature and literary family stories comes Bad Foundations, an unputdownable dive into the crawlspace sludge of a working man’s life and the inevitable rebirth that comes when he emerges to see his family in a not-so-blindingly-fluorescent light.

Thank you for reading Nick Gardner’s book review of Bad Foundations by Brian Allen Carr! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post STARRED Book Review: Bad Foundations appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Nick Rees Gardner

In Bennett Sims’ Other Minds and Other Stories, the mundane is not mundane, but a space where one can enter a jungle of anxieties, hopes, and fears.

Bennett Sims’ Other Minds is a collection of deep dives into its characters’ thought processes. They are quiet, intellectual stories, often taking place over no more than a couple hours of the character’s life in which very little action actually occurs. However, as the characters spiral, the tension grips tighter. As suspicions snowball into certainties and questions mushroom into conspiracies, the simple process of writing an essay or reading a book turns into a question of life and death.

Consisting of twelve stories, Other Minds begins and ends with two ekphrastic pieces. The first, “La ‘Mummia Di Grottarossa’” is a single page, opening the book with a description of the mummified body of a Roman girl in a museum in Rome, spelling out her epitaph, bringing this bit of history into the eerie present moment.

But while these moments of ekphrasis are fascinating, the stories wedged between them cover a vast array of subject matter, from the cerebral freakout of a man intent on killing his backyard chickens in “Pecking Order” to the detective in “The Postcard” who enters a world slightly askew from the reality he remembers. The stories don’t only vary in length, but in subject matter and theme. While “The Postcard” may have a noir leaning, “Unknown,” in which a strange number calls the protagonist’s cell phone, is as unsettling as a psychological horror story. 

It’s Sims’ penchant for the unsettling that is most thrilling about the book. The two-page short short, “A Nightmare,” bends the world uncanny when the dreamer sets foot in a field strewn with an endless line of grocery carts. The protagonist of the novella-length story, “Introduction to the Reading of Hegel” faces his own anxiety over a fellowship proposal letter, a frustration that builds to a point of tension close to a psychotic break.

Sims masterfully draws the reader into each story, each mindscape, until the reader themself feels at the brink of explosion or collapse, and Sims does so with minimal action, almost no external force. The hero and antihero, the tension and conflict, all of it exists inside the character’s head. 

The seduction of this book wouldn’t be possible without Sims’ smooth and eloquent prose. Whereas an ekphrastic piece about a mosaic medusa inlaid in a parlor floor may sound un-enthralling, Sims embellishes the scene with rhythmic prose: “Books are just sculptures that don’t erode: they extend mortal forms across immortal time, preserving impermanent pasts for an infinite future.” His prose alone is an engine that can sustain the reader’s momentum even when literally nothing is happening on the page; nothing, that is, except for the mental acrobatics of a questioning mind. While the vocabulary is academic and possibly not the most approachable, its sonic beauty carries the reader through even the most elaborate sentences, dancing to the rhythm of thought. 

Though showy, flashy, and linguistically extravagant, Other Minds is a simple book with a simple quest at its heart: to understand the minds of other people. Often the protagonists get nowhere, such as when the aforementioned Fellowship-seeker, intent on understanding what the reader of his application will expect, comes to ridiculous conclusions. Other times, the protagonist botches the job. But it is the intent to understand these other minds through literature, through the act of reading, these other minds with their labyrinthine mental blocks and penchants for doubt or intensity, that is at the heart of the book as a whole. Each story asks the reader to reach beyond themselves into the inner workings of the protagonist and to understand someone other, someone else. 

Thank you for reading Nick Rees Gardner’s book review of Other Minds and Other Stories by Bennett Sims! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post STARRED Book Review: Other Minds and Other Stories appeared first on Independent Book Review.