Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

(Otoliths, 2012, ISBN 978-0-9872010-5-8) by Joey Madia In March of 2010 I opened my review of Bobbi Lurie’s collection of poems titled Grief Suite by saying: “Bobbi Lurie writes poetry that hurts.” Some two and a half years later, Lurie has presented the reader with a substantially different group of poems in both form and substance. Different, yes—but equally compelling. the morphine poems are 55 pieces that vary in length from a page and a quarter to a single sentence. All are run-on and stream of consciousness in form, with the varied content tethered to Lurie’s experiences during treatment for cancer. The first poem, “horrors of morphine,” is also the longest at more than a page, and sets the stage for all that is to come. It is here that we first experience Lurie’s thoughts on the state of poets and poetry, a theme that pervades: “they want to be among you if you offer them a contract for a book they believe will make them famous but if y...

 (self-published, 2012; available on Amazon.com in for several devices) Take a moment to imagine American society’s reliance on social networking, Genetically Modified food, and pharmaceutical over-prescription continuing on its current upward arc. What will a virtual-reality world of synthetic foods, drinks, mood-enhancers, genetic manipulation, and digital economic opportunity-building run by the biomedical, religious, media, political, military, and educational establishments look like? If you are thinking bleak and slave-like, then there is much to appeal to you in The STARLING Connection , author Theodore Webb’s four-part vision of life in 30 years. Part Phillip K. Dick and part John Hughes’ prototypical high school meets Tim Burton’ Edward Scissorhands , The STARLING Connection is a sobering and often times violent and frightening look at what our world might become if things continue on their current trajectory. Taking the premise that the more thi...

A Review of Rosemary Ellen Guiley’s Ouija Gone Wild , with Rick Fisher (2012, Visionary Living, Inc., www.visionaryliving.com ). ISBN: 9780985724306 From one of the most prolific and respected author–investigators working in the field of the paranormal today, Ouija Gone Wild is a thoroughly researched and excellently organized collection of facts and true stories having to do with the often mis-understood (and mis-used) “talking board.”             Rosemary Ellen Guiley is joined in this endeavor by Rick Fisher, founder of the Paranormal Society of Pennsylvania, the National Museum of Mysteries and Research Center in Columbia, PA and the founder of that city’s Historic Haunted Ghost Walks. He maintains an extensive file of news clipping and stories related to the board and owns a sizable and varied collection of them.             The book is filled with s...

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 ...

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 ce...

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 work...

(Larson Publications, 2012, larsonpublications.com), ISBN: 978-1-936012-60-2 Books, in many ways, are like people, and a bookshelf full of books could be thought of as a society in miniature. Some books look nice, but don’t offer much when you get past the cover. Some books offer some companionship in the form of a bit of new knowledge, perhaps some laughs, and a pleasant passing of time, but they are soon forgotten. Still other books are provocative, poking us in uncomfortable places and riling us up—and in the process, helping us to grow.             Then there are the books that are destined to be great. They are the books that we go to again and again. Books that are clearly the product of deep thought, extensive research, careful structure, and years of richly lived experience by their authors.             These books, unlike those that are merely p...