Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

Surfing the Middle East is a book of endless dicotomy. Subtitled “Deviant Journalism for the Lost Generation,” Aizenstat’s diary and depiction of his two trips to the Middle East is equal parts eye-opening participant journalism in the tradition of Sebastian Junger and V.S. Naipaul’s Among the Believers (the best book I have ever read about the tangled weave of cultures and belief systems in the Middle East) and an at times over-the-top homage to the Gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson (as evidenced most obviously by the opening quote from the good doctor and more subtly by the rampant use of his signature words: “savage,” “swine,” “fiend,” and his metaphorical device of linking drug-tripping adjectives with his on-site experiences).             To be fair to Aizenstat—whose idea to surf in Israel and Lebanon while immersing himself in the Gordian knot of what is happening “over there” as an American Jew was as excellently executed as it was extremely evocative

A Review of Seth Hammons Unheard Of [Book One of The Keys] (2012, ISBN 978-0-9859841-0-6) Welcome to a brand new world. Two actually. The first is real, the other a writer’s creation. Both are equally important to this book.             The first is a world that allows an author, almost independently, to publish a high-quality book without a publisher. I am talking more and more often in my reviews about these ultra-small, independent, and DIY authors and presses because they are growing in prevalence. Print on demand is virtually indistinguishable from large-volume runs that were the norm only 3 short years ago. Seth Hammons has written one of the best books I have read from this world in some time, and it bodes well for the future of literature that a book like this is in the world.             The second world is the one created by the author. It centers on The Iori Keys, a group of islands wherein two classes of people reside—the Imperial Iori and the wor

A Review of James Phoenix’s Frame Up (Grey Swan Press, Sept. 2012, ISBN: 978-0-9834900-3-6) I like bold. Writers should be. During my three-decade-long literary apprenticeship I have come to agree with teachers and working professionals that being a good writer—nevermind a great one—takes a hell of lot of effort, study, and belief in yourself.             You have to be bold. So I was immediately interested in James Phoenix and his debut novel when I read that he was intending Frame Up to help fill the void left by Robert Parker (author of the ultra-popular Spenser and Jesse Stone detective series’) when he died in 2010. There are several other names of note in his press materials—Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, Raymond Chandler. His own literary apprenticeship certainly seems to fit the subject matter—while he was learning to write well (and he does) he worked as a dishwasher, a waiter, a factory worker, a construction laborer, a stone tender, a weightli