This novel sneaks up on you. You’re lulled into comfort with descriptions of old video rental places, suburban living rooms, and the polite peace of the Midwest before being startled awake by sudden glances of violence and fear. These shocks originate from movies. Movies within movies. Were they intended for you to see? Why are they here? Who spliced an almost still image of heavy breathing and a woman with a bag over her head into She’s All That? Uncertainty creeps around every corner- breeding fear, […]
Well, I got to 52!
Ahern wrote this book when she was 21. The premise is clever, a bitter-sweet gimmick where Holly’s husband dies, but he leaves her a series of letters to help her cope in the first year without him. Each letter has a surprise or a challenge and always ends with “P.S. I love you.” “Their plan had been very simple: to stay together for the rest of their lives. ” The book however does not quite work. Writing about the grief and pain of losing someone […]
“The worst thing about being naked and then being hit by a car is that road rash is a problem for skin.”
I might be a little burned out with poetry or just have heard and read so much of Neil Hilborn, that I am not jumping up and down over The Future by him as I have with his other book or with other Button Poetry Poets. Yet, The Future is still amazing. He knows what he is talking about with depression, life and death. He has lived, and is living, his subject matter. He “gets it” and wants to share that with you. He is […]
Our Days are Numbered, but not the feelings You’ll get after reading Hilborn
Amazons review of Our Numbered Days by Neil Hilborn hits it on the head. He might be talking about love and heartbreak, but he is also dealing with mental illness, loss and death, therefore there is “nothing saccharine” about it. His humor is dark, self-deprecating and raw. Sometimes too raw. He is honest to a fault sometimes and rips the band aid right off. Even when there is no band aid on in the first place. While accessible to almost everyone these poems are for […]