Cheryl is driving along in her car. On the outside she is stuck in traffic. On the inside she is pensive, intense, her face is arranged for the spectator. She is not just a woman in a car..here, I’ll let her tell you what she means: “I drove to the doctor’s office as if I was starring in a movie Phillip was watching — windows down, hair blowing, just one hand on the wheel. When I stopped at red lights, I kept my eyes mysteriously […]
To open a book is to make a promise
To open a book is to make a promise. I open the book and promise that I will read through the set-up, that I will devote myself during the time it takes for a story to slowly emerge from its pages. The author, in turn, promises me a pay-off, to revel in emotion, only dully present in my own day to day life experience. This is a promise I make often; I like to think I’ve been around a bookshelf or two in my day. […]
The perfect poolside summer smut.
Apparently “mom porn” is a totally legit “literary” genre now, and the lemon grove is a perfect example of the tedious tawdriness that is the genre. It iswell-written, but not quite enjoyable. It is sexy but not overtly so. The story is based in a serious family drama, but it never feels quite explored. Not quite sexy, not quite serious. I liked it and disliked it, the words of both love and hate being too strong. The plot is simple. Jenn is on holiday in […]
The love of a deceptive butterfly
I’ve been looking for a play to teach in my fall class, and I wanted something that wasn’t merely a classic Greek or Roman play or a very western-European-focused play such as an Ibsen. A little digging led me to David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly. While Hwang is an American playright, he purposefully focuses on deconstructing myths of the “Orient,” using Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly, a true story of a disgraced French diplomat, and turning those myths on their head through a discussion of gender […]