Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

Fisher King Press, March 2011, ISBN: 978-1-926715-13-1, fisherkingpress.com Snakes, a novel is the second book by Jungian analyst Patricia Damery. Her first, Farming Soul: A Tale of Initiation (2010), shares as its prima materia her Midwest background and the demise of the family farm, an action of modern life that scars the soul as well as the land. Two things strike me as notable about Snakes: First, it is written as an open letter to the narrator’s recently deceased father, but in such a subtle way that we as readers do not feel like eavesdroppers but invited listeners. Second, the book employs numerous metaphors (the farm, the sea, weaving, and, of course, snakes), which often marks the work of the amateur who cannot make decisions, leading to an incoherent book with no thru-line. Nothing here could be further from the truth. Perhaps it is the skill required by the high craft of weaving that allows Damery to write multi-metaphorically, or the sheer simplicity of her storytelling. T...

“Walker Between the Worlds”: A Review of Timekeeper II, by John Atkinson (September 2010, Fisher King Press, www.fisherkingpress.com) ISBN: 978-1-926715-11-7 By Joey Madia Thirteen months ago I had the opportunity to read and review Timekeeper, the prequel to this new work from author John Atkinson. In Timekeeper II, the protagonist, Johnnyboy/Timekeeper, continues the journey begun in the first book, although, because of his vision quest on the Sacred Mountain, he can now live up to his Native American–bestowed name and unfold his tale on multiple planes and through multiple blocks of time. This extra angle adds much to the second book, as Timekeeper, through his first-person narration, takes the reader back in time to experience events only hinted at in the first book. His experience of prejudice and intolerance from both sides of the family as a half-blood Indian are revealed in poignant vignettes, called up as Timekeeper makes a second journey in an effort to better understand his ...

(2008, Fisher King Press, www.fisherkingpress.com) By Joey Madia Timekeeper is a modern parable, a journey of “re-imagined events” processed through the author’s memory onto the page. Part Kerouac’s On the Road, part Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist, and all soul and spirit, John Atkinson shares with us the story of an Everyman hero who searches for the one thing most precious to a man— His name. Johnnyboy, who is unable to read, is 14 when the book opens. After another beating at the hands of the abusive father he calls Bugdaddy (who has already popped his eardrum with a slap and beaten him with a fanbelt), he takes to the road, heading physically and metaphorically westward from Virginia, in search of enlightenment. Being “of the earth” in both his illiteracy and his part–Native American blood, Johnnyboy is full of metaphorical expressions. Speaking about Bugdaddy, he says to God (through Moses): “That man needs to be shot with sheep sh*t and sent to hell for stinking.” It should be noted...

As an avid reader, writer, and writing teacher, I’m always on the lookout for new authors and new forms of literature, especially re-inventions of the novel. My own experimentations with what constitutes the novel form have paralleled the innovations found in film and music—using technology to aid with research, presentation, formatting, marketing, and all the rest. In Mel Mathews’ novels I have found a new form that leaves modern innovations behind and instead goes for a simplification of the novel into its earliest roots—as a kind of hybrid journal, fairy tale, travelogue, and reiteration of fact thinly veiled as fiction. At least, it seems to be fact thinly veiled as fiction. The parallels between Mel and his main character abound, and the lines of reality are often crossed (“You’re in the next book,” his main character says to people along the way). Samsara (the third book in the series) opens with a potential clue: “The lies will be honest.” In Menopause Man there is even an exten...